Read the biographical information about David Torchiano. Why do you think he was interested in finding out about his family background?
David Torchiano is an amateur genealogist who has spent many years researching his family tree. He was born and raised in New York City. His mother's side of the family is from Croatia and his father's side of the family is from Southern Italy. He currently works for The New York Times and has his own analytics start-up company as well as a sushi supper club.
Watch an interview with him. Mark sentences 1-5 below T (true) or F (false).
1. One of the reasons David started researching his family history was because he never met his grandparents on his mother's side.
2. David begins his research by talking to distant family members.
3. David believes that the Internet doesn't help the way he uses other resources.
4. David has used online message boards to overcome obstacles he has encountered.
5. David's main resource for obtaining official documents is local offices.
What does he say about...?
1. his first time at Ellis Island
2. finding the documentation for his father’s side
3. his great uncle and how he helped the rest of the family immigrate to the US
4. unexpected information he found out
5. how his parents met in New York
6. his advice for people who want to research their family trees
Answer the questions:
1. From David’s interview, what impression do you get about the process for researching family trees?
2. Do you think it’s an easy process? Why (not)?
3. What hurdles might a person face?
OVER TO YOU
How much do you know about your family tree?
Have you ever researched about it?
Is there someone in your family that you would like to know more about?
Transcript
Interviewer: Where did your family originate from?
David: My mom’s side of the family is from what is now Croatia. When she was born it was in between Italy and Yugoslavia. And my dad’s side of the family is from Italy.
Interviewer: Why did you start researching your family tree?
David: The reason that I started researching was because I have two older sisters and they’re both ten and eleven years older than me. So, growing up I actually never met my dad's parents, my grandparents on my father’s side. And my grandparents on my mother’s side were very old. Luckily my grandmother lived until she was a hundred but I didn’t really get to know my grandfather that well. So, just out of curiosity I was just trying to understand my immediate family, my grandparents and in talking to my mom, in talking to my father, just kind of learning that they themselves lead very interesting kind of journeys over here. And the more that I went to look into it, the more interesting the stories became to me. Interviewer: When you start researching, what's the first step the first thing you do?
David: The first thing that I do when researching, or the first thing that I did when I started researching, for me it was very organic and I just started talking to my parents. And then they started talking, or, they introduced me to family that I had met when I was a child but I had talked to my cousin who's a judge in Italy, or my cousin in the Bronx who knows my dad’s side of the family. So that was kind of my immediate. And then I started to branch out from there using ancestry.com or you know, different resources. You know, even just going to the public library and seeing if l could dig up documents that way.
Interviewer: In practical terms, how important is the Internet in researching family history?
David: I think the Internet obviously is extremely important. I mean, it just makes finding information and being able to look at so many different resources so much easier. Something that would take probably months or a year you could probably do in a few days or a few weeks online. And just the communities of people that you can be introduced to that have done similar things to you, I think that’s a huge benefit as well. So you can start talking to people who give you advice, you know, just going to message boards and seeing what people have done in the past. And a lot of times hurdles that you might come across, they have already solved them for you, they have hints for you about how to get past them. So, I think that's, to me, has been the biggest help.
Interviewer: How far back have you been able to trace your family?
David I’ve been able to go back about four generations with my family. I’m still searching and still talking with some family members in Italy about what information they know and trying to use local offices there to see if l can get marriage licenses, and birth certificates of my grandparents and their parents. But, it’s, the further back you go it becomes a little bit more difficult. So, I'm at about four generations now.
Interviewer: Why did you go to Ellis Island?
David: I fell, I feel Ellis Island was a good place because it was such a hub of activity and there is so much information that is at your disposal so again, it kind of allows you to see when your family came here, it’s that initial stepping stone that they started with.
Interviewer: How did you feel when you went there?
David: It was the first time that I had been to Ellis Island and having grown up in New York that’s kind of quite surprising that I had never been there. For me it was just, I felt like I was kind of walking through history a little bit and having it, it was much different, you know, when my great uncle was coming through, but it, you kind of still get the sense of die hope and the freedom that you know, knowing that my immediate family was trying to just leave such poverty and, you know, really seeing that American dream and having that hope, you kind of just get that sense of so many people were coming through here and this was just like I finally made it and you kind of feel that as you’re walking around.
Interviewer: And what did you find out about your family there?
David: When I went to Ellis Island I was able to find on my dad's side when his great uncle came over a lot of the documentation that, or the documentation when he actually came over.
Interviewer: And how did that make you feel when you found that?
David: When I came across his documentation it was a very emotional moment. It made the whole, it made an aspect of the story very concrete for me just knowing that he, you know, did come across and he kind of went through the hallways of Ellis Island and you know, it allowed me to create in my own mind a very specific concrete event that happened. So, often times when you’re doing research it can be very abstract and you’re just kind of learning a piece of this and a piece of that. But seeing something very physical just kind of brought it home for me.
Interviewer: And your dad’s great uncle helped the rest of the family to come?
David: My dad's great uncle actually sponsored the majority of my dad’s family to come over so along with my grandparents, my uncle, my father, my other dad's, the other side of my father’s family, his cousins, their parents, so he was the, kind of the first person that you know, when he came over he was I believe fifteen and just kind of working in the streets, working as an ice vendor, working construction. And slowly but surely he was able to bring the majority of the family, who at the time was living in Southern Italy which at that time there wasn’t much going on in Southern Italy, to come over and you know, plant roots in New York.
Without him, I mean, I probably wouldn’t be here ’cause my dad would have never come over and then my mom. So, you know, I think the courage that he had to come over, especially by himself, and to bring the rest of my family over was something very heroic to do.
Interviewer During all the research which you did into your family tree did you find out anything which surprised you?
David: I did find some surprising stories. When my mom left, she had a passport just to go visit her sister in Italy and she basically left the country illegally and she seeked political asylum in Italy and she had to live in a refugee camp for about a year. And my aunt at the time, they wouldn’t allow her a passport so she had to basically cross the border running through the woods with her two kids in the middle of the night. So, you know, as you start to just hear these even first account stories, second account stories, you know, just very interesting to understand the difficulties that your family had to go through sometimes to just create a better life for, you know, at the time they didn't know I was gonna be around.
Interviewer: And what did you find out about how your parents met in New York?
David: In talking to my parents, when my mom came over in 1960 and my father came over in 1961, even though they had very similar cultures they also had very, a lot of differences. So they didn’t actually speak the same language and having met in English school I thought, you know, that was pretty surprising. Even though they both lived in New York it kind of brought a sense of how New York and the US really is a melting pot. And, you know, it took a little while for them to kind of, well, I guess my mom to warm up to my dad. But once they understood that a lot of their cultural backgrounds were very similar, you know, the whole family started to hang out and my mom became very close with my would be grandmother, or her would be mother-in-law.
Interviewer: What would you say to somebody who is thinking of researching their family tree?
David: I would recommend for anybody looking to start, who is possibly thinking about doing some research into family history to just start talking to your family. That’s how I started and it’s very easy, you know, assuming that your family is there and they have the history. You know, it’s, it’s a way to just kind of start and for me it’s led down this path where I’ve decided to you know, research further and further. But I also did feel it was a bit of an obligation for me to understand so that I can pass it along to my kids and to my grandchildren. Because, you know, ifl just would have never started asking my mom, I wouldn’t be able to tell my kids about my uncle’s coining over from you know, into, to America in the nineteen twenties and you know, working as an ice vendor, or my great uncle rowing across in the middle of the night to escape Yugoslavia. So to me it’s led to a lot of information that now I've, you know,
I can pass along, and, you know, to me it’s, that, that aspect is important.