"Gimme a whiskey with ginger ale on the side and don't be stingy, baby."

So yeah, I adopted a cat. My current cat, NooNoo, needs a companion. Not that she would admit it, she's far too regal for that, as her re-enactment of the Princess and the Pea here shows. She's 10 years old (as of saturday) and her companion of several years passed away last fall. I tried bringing home a new friend for her in December and it was an Utter Disaster. His name was Angel and he loved more than anything to chase NooNoo. She spent most of her life living on the fridge. It broke my heart, but I couldn't keep him, it just wasn't right to torture NooNoo like that.

But she's spent her entire life living with other cats (whether she cared for them or not) and I could tell she was a little lost. I had actually broken down and gone to the local Pet Smart to buy a collar and leash with some vague idea that we could go outside together (she wants to be an outside cat REAL BAD, but unfortunately, her previous owner had her declawed). I wasn't sure how it was going to work because I couldn't imagine getting the collar thingy on her, and it would probably be some horribly ending discussion where the collar somehow ended up being on me. Then I noticed they had strays....so I wandered over and was reading the descriptions really carefully. I needed a cat that was good with other cats and not aggressive at all.

See, NooNoo is little, I guess she was the runt of the litter, or else she just has petite genes. She's 4 pounds soaking wet, not that I've ever seen her soaking wet... Where, O Universe, are my petite genes???? I must have eaten them...! :-D

Anyway, I had had a passing idea that I would adopt a kitten (the only thing littler than NooNoo) and even applied to a local rescue society (which shall go un-named). The lady who talked to me was much more interested in judging me in how I had handled the Angel situation (why didn't I isolate him and foster him until he could be adopted, had I followed up on whether he was adopted, did I realize that since I hadn't kept him, he was probably put down). Thanks lady, like I didn't go through enough soul-searching and guilt over how to handle that situation. Needless to say I withdrew my application from that society and felt like crap. Once I realized she was the jerk, not me, I got over it.

After a lot of petting and pondering at the Pet Smart, I determined there was a likely candidate in a female black and white cat named Greta. I wonder what the person who named her was thinking about, Garbo seems too easy, but that's the only Greta I know. They said she was found "living under the porch of a preacher's house" in Marcus Hook (I feel like there's a song in there somewhere, and I suddenly have an inclination to watch quentin tarantino movies now...).

And so, one reviewed application and long discussion with the ladies at the rescue operation later, I have a new kitty.

She's living in my master bedroom for now, which is a HUGE pain in the butt, but I am not rushing this introduction at all. She seems fine to be living in there right now, she's not trying to get out the door or anything, so the intro will happen when I feel it's right.

I wanted to post some nice pictures of her, but this darn cat does not sit still when there's a camera in the room! She's a lot like my nephew Jack, there are a lot of pictures of the back of his head floating around, for instance:











So, you will have to trust me, she does have two yellow eyes, a nose and mouth, and she loves nothing more than to be petted and to shed all over (I was smart enough to get a black and white cat so no matter what I wore, the fur would show up). She's a sweetie and so far hasn't demonstrated any aggressive behaviour at all. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!!

Wordless Wednesday - 01 July 2009

The Mystery of the Pizzi's

Yeah that's right, I'm awesome.

No, no, really, I know I know, I'm awesome.

Today I solved a problem and it feels pretty darn.....awesome!!!!

I'm researching the Pizzi family of Philadelphia. The furthest I've gotten back is an Antonio Pizzi, born in 1888. He had 2 wives (not at the same time), lots of kids and I had no problem whatsoever finding him and his 2nd wife in the 1930 census.


Then I found his WWI and WWII draft registration cards, even better. And THEN, to top it all off, I found his Petition for Naturalization and Ellis Island ship manifest. And he was consistent in all his name spellings, birth dates, and from 1914 through 1920 he even lived on the same street: North Simpson St. in Philadelphia.

Here he is on the ships manifest for the vessel La Bretagne:


18 years old with $12.00 in his pocket. Alone!!! Heading to his cousin's in New York state in 1906. A year later he moved to Philadelphia. I wonder what he thought about the week and a half it took to sail over here?

So anyway, I have all this info, what could be better? I have nothing to complain about, right????

Well, there was this one nagging thing....I could not locate him or any member of his family in the 1910 and 1920 census's. Nothing, nada, zilch. Not for lack of trying, I tried every possible surname variation I could think of. I did searches on just the first names, I even tried other states. The Antonio Pizzi family just did not exist in 1910 and 1920.

And that bothered me. After all, they had to be somewhere!!!

Based on all the other info I had, Antonio was pretty consistent in his residence, it was always North Simpson Street in Philadelphia. The street still exists:


It's west of Center City, Philadelphia, across the river and really close to the Montgomery County border. There is a huge park nearby: Cobbs Creek park. So I looked at all the streets near it and tried to pick what seemed like the right Enumeration Districts to browse through in Ancestry's census's.

You can imagine how "successful" I was. Those descriptions are useless. How about a map of the Enumeration Districts people at Ancestry!!!! I knew where my street was but the stupid descriptions weren't helping me!!! I was literally scrolling through hundreds of pages trying to find where the census taker had written "Simpson Street" in the left hand margin.

What I learned was that the census taker's STUNK at writing down Italian surnames. I've spent years and years working with British surnames, which are easy, but extremely common, and the occasional Hungarian and German surname. Once I figured out how the consonants switch for German surnames, it was pretty easy (T for D, etc.). But these Italian surnames, ay carumba!!!! The spellings the census taker's would put down were so phoenetic sometimes that it was impossible to find the name via a search in Ancestry!!!! I was, shall we say, despondent. My records would never be complete. And naturally in the midst of the missing decades was when my Antonio married his 2nd wife, so my records on the wives were really sketchy.

Then, one day, I stumbled across this posting from Kimberly's Genealogy Blog: http://genealogy.about.com/b/2009/06/07/historic-map-overlays-in-google-maps.htm

It showed historic map overlays in Google and guess what, there were some specifically for Philadelphia! Joy! Happiness!

So I went to the Interactive Maps Viewer and viewed a current map of Philly streets overlaid on a 1910 map of Philly, looking at my N. Simpson Street. (You can pick lots of different years, but I wanted 1910.)


First off, I saw that Cobbs Creek park was not as big then as it is now. I also saw that the Pizzi's would have lived just about out of the city completely because a couple blocks away were big tracts of farmland and quarries and stuff. The farmland was now part of the larger Cobbs Creek park.

So NOW I had different street names to use as I pored over the Enumeration District descriptions. I started with 1910 (because there were less people alive than in 1920, hey, every little bit helps!) and saw this one in Ancestry for the 1910 census of Philadelphia for District 836 in Ward 34:

Hey, it says "Millbourne Ave." which doesn't exist anymore, but is way near my Simpson Street in the 1910 map. So I started going through it, page by page, hoping for a Simpson Street in the right margin.

And lo and behold, the clouds parted, and a ray of sunshine shone down upon me, I FOUND THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was purely an accident because THEY WEREN'T ON SIMPSON STREET! They were on Carleton St, which is a street or two away. Oh, right, this was 1910, maybe he hadn't moved to Simpson St. yet since my first record of Antonio's address was 1914. DUH!!!! But I didn't care, I found them!!!! Page 25 of 40:

There's Antonio Pizzi, listed as "Tony" and the census taker spelled the last name as "Pittzia".

Naturally I sat in front of my computer saying the name "Pizzi" with an Italian accent, and yes, it matches, except for the "a" at the end. Yes, Oscar H. Nolen, Enumerator, I beat you!!! I figured it out despite you not asking how to spell the last name....oh wait, let me look at the able to read and write column....ah, that explains it. No one in the house was able to read and write, or at least, that's what they told him. Geez. I know Antonio could sign his name, but he would have been at work during the day when the enumerator came to the door.

Oh, and their son "Jessia", listed up there? Actually, his name was Caeser, or Ceasario or Caesaro, I've seen it spelled all those ways. But he went by Jesse, go figure.

Oh yeah, and one other thing Mr. Oscar H. Nolen, Enumerator, you aren't off the hook yet. The "Sabella" shown above is listed as wife, and is at the top of page 25, so naturally, I went to the bottom of page 24 to find her husband. He wasn't there, it was a totally different street. Huh? If there was no husband, she would have been called the "Head".

I went back to page 25 to stare at "Sabella" whose name was actually probably "Isabella" and then I noticed it there in the margin to the right:



"Head on line 100 Sheet 11".

So, I went to Sheet 11 (pg 20 of 40) and there was her husband, Antonio's father-in-law, Charles Milaco. Why Oscar H. Nolan, Enumerator, would do this escapes me. There's a few others like this in this particular record. But anyway, Charles Milaco was a laborer in the nearby Quarry that I had noticed on the 1910 map that no longer exists today. Antonio was a farm laborer on one of the nearby farms, that also no longer exist. By the way, Antonio was truly a jack-of-all-trades. I have his occupations through-out the years listed as: Farm laborer, Cement Finisher, Piano seller, and Automobile Mechanic. This guy could do anything apparently.

Flush with triumph, I immediately went to the 1920 census to try and reproduce my results and.....................NOTHING.

No Pittzia, No Milaco, NO NOTHING. So, Milaco is a total mis-spelling, and I already had 2 variations of spellings in my records: Merlocco and Malacco. Who KNOWS what it really is. I find it strange that even searching on all his kids and variations on their names, I still can't find anything in 1920!!! Where are you Pizzi family!!!! I know you were there because I have the Petition for Naturalization, dated 11 August 1920, where the Pizzi address is listed as 230 N. Simpson Street.

I even searched for his two buddies who signed as witnesses on the Petition: Pasquale Martini and Nicolo di Fabio, both living on N. 64th Street, just a couple blocks away. Oh sure, yes, if you are wondering, I found them NO PROBLEM.

It's true, I'm a nerd and I love this! I guess I'm going to have to get off of my butt though and go to the Philadelphia Archives and look for an actual 1920 Enumeration District map since no one has bothered to put one online for me.

I'll keep you posted because I'm sure, if you've actually made it to the bottom of this posting, you are fascinated!!! :-)

So my total triumph will have to wait, but for now, yes, I am happy!!!!!!

Wordless Wednesday - 24 June 2009

Ode to My Missing Information

With humble and abject apologies to Joyce Kilmer and the poem "Trees":

1890

I know that I shall never see
The census from 1890

The census was destroyed one day
By fire and water, so they say

Missing relatives, marriage, death
All clues track’d within its breadth

I think it’s also most likely,
Up in smoke my link to royalty

So my walls of mortar and brick
Do remain; tall and strong and thick

Census’s are searched by fools like me,
But only God knows what’s in 1890.