Breathing new life into old photos since 2012.

Month: March 2014

52 Ancestors, No. 12: Sorrelona Angeline Butera, Big Sister

KandA
I don’t know a whole lot about my ancestor No. 12, but her image here is a great reminder of why I got into this business. It is the quintessential photo restoration project. I have exactly one picture of this woman, and guess what: It’s wrecked. Wrecked, but salvageable. A little digtial wizardry and voila! Virtually good as new!

Well, enough about me. Let’s get to our subject.  Meet Angeline Scaletta, or Aunt Angel, as my grandmother called her (pronounced AHN-jel). She is standing at right in the above photo, next to my great-grandmother, Katherine (Balmer) Scaletti. She was the older sister to my great-grandfather, Antonino Rocco Scaletti. According to civil birth records, she was born in Trabia, Sicily, on April 15, 1884. That made her a full nine years older than Nino, who was born in 1893. Nino also had two older brothers: Giuseppe, aka Joseph, who was born in 1881, and Carmelo, aka Uncle Charly, who was born in 1890.

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52 Ancestors, No. 11: John C. Graham, and Celebrating My Family’s Irish Heritage

This photo didn’t really need a lot of work, but I gotta do what I gotta do to get a legit 52 Ancestors post up on here, and there is no better way to do that on St. Patrick’s Day than to honor John C. Graham, my great-great-grandfather along the paternal line. He is the Irish ancestor of my surnamesake. Although I’ll never hear his brogue, it still reverberates in the memory of my grandfather, who has done his best to help me preserve the family’s history. Continue reading

52 Ancestors, No. 10. Henry Anflick: An Honest, Reasonable, Reliable Paperhanger

Henry Anflick was my mother’s paternal grandfather. Piecing together his early family history has been a conundrum. It may be time to call in the professionals to whisk me away, Who Do You Think You Are? style, to the place of his birth: Odessa, Ukraine. Okay, well, maybe best to wait until things settle down over there. The current unrest notwithstanding, some Ukranian archives are probably the most likely place to find clues as to this man’s origins.  Continue reading