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December 31, 2007

Family History Stuff

My sister Kathy emailed me this. I decided to post it. Some of it is obviously quoted from a document she must have on her computer.

The Marino's and Ranelli's
On the left is my grandfather Papa Frank Ranelli, not sure about man in center of picture, the right is Zio Onorfrio Baldone

My Father's Mother, Maria Marino Ranelli, came from a small town in Sicily called Sutera. Sutera is on a hillside near the farming village of Campofranco in Southern-Mid Sicily. My Father's Father, Francesco Ranelli was from Campofranco. The Raneli's used to spell their name with one "L" - another was added in America, I am not sure why. The Father of Maria Marino - Giovanni Marino had agreed to a marriage between his daughter and the son of Francesco Raneli. Then an argument occured between the two fathers and Giovanni called off the marriage. Young Francesco was already smitten and ready to marry so he and his friends went to Sutera and got Maria. She and Francesco were married without her father's permission - something quite rare in those days in rural, European culture. They had not been married long before they decided to leave Sicily for America. Francesco would leave first and go to New York to stay with a cousin and see.



Buteras and Giardinas.
I spoke with Mom recently and she said that they got grandmother Sara Giardina Butera's name wrong on the Ellis Island records.
Great-great grandmother Teresa had a daughter Rosalia who was 18 but the manifest also says there was another Rosalia who was 22, but this was actually Rosaria - like the Rosary and she was called Saria or Sara.

07. Teresa Varca (Giardina) 49yrs - Husband died (Maybe Charles or
Carlo)and she gathered up all her children,
including married daughter Rosalia (Rosaria called Sara) Giardina Butera and her Husband
Andrea Butera, his daughter from a previous marriage Rosalia (Lily)
Butera -6yrs and Sara and Andrea's baby boy Guiseppi -1 yr old.

08. Teresa's daughter or daughter in law, niece? Rosalia Giardina - 18
yrs - perhaps Ramiano's wife?

09. Ramiano - 16 yrs perhaps a cousin? Maybe married to the 18 yr old
Rosalia?

10. Teresa's daughter Croce - 13 yrs

11. Teresa's son Paul - 11 yrs- married step-niece Lily - one son Big
Charlie Giardina - had Rosalind Giardina Ranelli married Big Frank

12. Teresa's son Mike - 9 yrs

13. Andrew Butera 34yrs married her daughter Rosalia (Rosaria) called Sara

14. Rosalia Butera - 6 yrs - Andrew Butera's daughter from a previous
marriage - Called Lily and married step-brother Paul - one child - Big
Charlie Giardina

15. Andrew and Sara's first Son Joe 1yr


16. Teresa;s married daughter Rosalia (Rosaria)Giardina Butera - called Sara 22yrs

My Giardina Family came over on this ship which you can find at
ellisisland.org
Date: October 22, 1898
Ship of Travel: Victoria
Port of Departure: Naples
Manifest Line Number: 0008

On that ship manifest - the Victoria, arriving on October 22, 1898 were My
Great-great Grandmother Teresa Varca (Giardina) but they mispelled her
name when transfering it to text - the text document spells her maiden
name "Karea" but it is really Varca (Giardina.)


My mother says that
Teresa's husband - I am not sure of his first name, but probably Charles,
Paul or Michael - He had a grain Mill in Sicily on a river. One night
there was a storm and he knew that he should go out and grind some wheat
while the river was moving so fast. When he got there, he sliped and hit
his head on a rock and died. So the widow, Teresa Varca Giardina, gathered
up all of her children, including her oldest daughter Sara (Rosalia) and
her Husband Andrea Butera and came over on the Victoria in 1898.

On the ship manifest, ,they put down that their destination was New
Orleans so may they have gone to New Orleans after that for a while, but
evetually ended up here, in Birmingham, Alabama. They were a lot of
immigrants here from her town of Bisaquino and she probably had friends
here. She stared a pasta factory and opened a general store where she sold
all kinds of food and also the pasta she made as well as Italian products
which were probably from New Orleans. She and her Daughter Sara and Son-in-
law Andrea also bought property in Ensley and rented the small houses
that they bought - and were quite wealthy.

Check out the ship's manifest and you will see several Giardina's
(Teresa's children) and a few Butera's (Sara and Andrea's children.


The Williamsons. My English Great Grandparents. My mother's mother's parents.
From the Ellis Island records:

First Name:Mary Elizabeth
Last Name:Williamson
Ethnicity:English
Last Place of Residence:Ashington
Date of Arrival:Mar 28, 1901
-->
Age at Arrival: 21y Gender: F Marital Status: M Ship of Travel:Teutonic Port of Departure:Liverpool
Manifest Line Number:
0011
'
First Name:Thomas
Last Name:Williamson
Ethnicity:English
Last Place of Residence:Ashington
Date of Arrival:
-->Mar 28, 1901 Age at Arrival: 24y Gender: M Marital Status: M Ship of Travel:Teutonic Port of Departure:Liverpool Manifest Line Number:0010
Thomas Williamson came to Alabama to work in the coal mines. He worked in Coal Mine number 8, behind their house.

Fun Stuff 2007

Jan 1st - Chili Run, Cartecay river. Level 2.6 ft. Pics HERE. Trip Report HERE. Jan 4th - Mulberry Fork. Level 2 ft. With Glen Davis, Joan Steed, Heather Sutton, and various other paddlers. Jan 13th - Town Creek. Level 280 cfs. With folks from the Huntsville Canoe Club. Trip Report HERE. Pics HERE. Jan 14th - Mulberry Fork. Level under 1 ft. on the bridge, approx. 570 cfs (low!). With Joan Steed, Tara and Jim, Gray and Troy, and others. Jan 27th - Locust Fork, to Swann Bridge. Level 2.9 ft. corrected. Guy almost swims under House Rock. Incident described HERE. Feb. 10th - I think - Chattooga Sec. 3.5. Level 1.5. Feb. 23rd - Diamond Caverns. Commercial tour. Feb. 24th - Mammoth Cave. National Park tours: New Entrance and Historic Broadway. Feb. 25th - NPFF. March 17th - Ain't Louie Fest. March 18th - Middle Tellico, level 1.9 March 24th - Locust Fork Whitewater Classic race. March 25th - Rappelling, Palisades Park, then boating on Oak Mtn. Lake. Jimmy's first day on the water after his surgery. April 1st - A little solo roll practice at Oak Mtn. in my Wavesport XXX. April 7th - Work on Graves' Cave gate. April 14th - Caving with boy scouts in Tumbling Rock Cave. April 20-22nd - Geezerfest 2007. Tellico at 1.1? With Dave and Rick. Pics HERE. April 28th - Coosa River, 3300 cfs., with MarthaMaria, Elmo, and BCC paddlers. Pics HERE. May 4-6th - Buffalo River with the B'ham Grotto. Pics HERE. TR HERE. May 12th - Cahaba Lilies in West Bloction, Al. Pics HERE. May 20th - Coosa River, 3300 cfs, with the Birmingham Canoe Club. May 27th - Rafted entire Ocoee River, upper and middle. TR HERE. May 31st - June 3rd - SERA 2007. Swimming at the lake with kids. Diving boards, went off the slide headfirst. Went to Lost Creek Cave. Pics HERE. June 9th - 10th. Hiwassee, BCC class. Handpaddling. First trip on the H with the Wavesport triple X. Pics HERE. June 16th - Coosa, minimum release. Triple X and stick. Fun fun fun. Trip report HERE. June 23rd-24th - Hiwassee. In the Triple X. With the BCC for the Old-Timers trip. Here my camera died. But I posted the last pictures it took, magenta error and all, HERE. I have subsequently bought a new camera that is one step up in model from my old one, but still not made anymore, on closeout from Wolf Camera for $145. July 1st - Coosa, minimum release. With my sister Kathy, my friend Donna Farmer, my friend Dave Howell, my niece Sara and my nephew Elmo (Sam). Unfortunately, no picturi July 8-15th - Ottawa River, Canada. Pics HERE. Trip Report: I am very tired and not going to make a big TR. I hadda get up at 3 am central to make my flight home. yawn. I could sum it up thus: The Ottawa is, honestly, the best, BEST kayaking river. It is deep, and safe, with huge play features, big recovery pools, and warm water. The caveat is that is the best kayaking river IF you are a playboater. I saw no creekboats this week. None. Not one. I saw one 'river runner' (Riot Thunder) the entire week, and it belonged to a rafting company's safety or video boater.It was all playboats. I loved it. I stayed in my tent in the back yard at the Paddler's Inn and took instruction from Liquid Skills. It was an excellent experience. During the week the students changed out depending on how long a clinic they had booked. My biggest class had 5 students, my smallest had 2 students. Great student to teacher ratio.;-) I paddled an EZG50, then an Ace 4.7 like Possum's, then a ZG54 I fell in love with and paddled the rest of the week. Alas, the Main channel was not to be, for me. If we had run it earlier in the week, which I should have done with Whitewave after she got home from work, it would have been at a good level. After each class I was so tired, that going back out seemed impossible. But the river just kept going up.On Monday it was -2 ft.Friday we were supposed to do the Main channel and it had risen to +8 ft.I wonder what it is today. After my last trip Friday a few of us drove to Coliseum and hiked in. It was huge, but honestly I saw lines and think I'd have been fine running it even at 8 ft., but I think the other students in my class would have been munched. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant but I was paddling very very well this week, at least as far as my river running went, and I am stoked about that. My roll was goofy, I started pulling up my head again big time, wtf? I ended up doing eskimo rescues a couple of times. This is a big improvement from 'oh shit, swim' that I've been doing instead the past few years. Tyler (instructor) tried to help me with doing the EJ kind of sweep roll, though we both agreed that switching from the C to C I've been doing for 8 years to something else can make everything more confusing, which it was.Ironically I could rodeo roll fine. I used to do that "The Kayak Roll" video's sweep roll, maybe I'll work on doing that some more. We worked a lot this week on strokes (of course) especially c strokes to gliding draws across the big ass 10 ft wide eddy lines the Ottawa has a plethora of.I had good gliding draws but I still have to work on the trick of feathering forward, I flipped myself trying to learn to feather forward.No little eddies to hop. Eddies are Walmart parking lot sized.  Lots of boils and whirls and funny water. So, let's see. I ran the Satler's (is that the name?) wave line on McCoys at 3.25 and 8 ft. and it was the biggest water I've ever run ever, and I styled it.After I crested the wave my brain would just stop in a kind of shock and I'd tell myself not to think about it, because if I processed how big the trough and wave were I'd freak a bit. So I had this mental mantra, 'just don't think about it, just don't think about it'. But it was such a juice to get to the bottom of the rapid, damn that was fun. The 'new' thing that happened to me was at the bottom of Lower No Name on Thursday; I made it through the thread the needle part of the line and then my stern caught a fluffy hole river left and zip! I was in the side surf of my life. I have never been stuck in a hole before. Never. There is no mistaking what is happening, it's a unique feeling. I am happy about it because I kept my wits about me. The first thing I did was think, "Are my shoulders safe?" and they were, I was in the box and a low brace. The second thing I did was think, "Uh, now what do I do?" because I was so stuck that I could have read a book.I tried digging out forward, nothing; considered the fact that I was supposed to try digging out backward, but what was behind me? I had no idea... remembered that some people blast out of holes so I tried to bring my bow around upstream, but that felt like asking for getting munched and the hole snapped me back into the side surf again anyway. So the only thing I could think of to do was to flip over and swim and that's what I did.Now if only I had thought, 'flip over, wash out, and roll up' but I'm a lot closer to that, mentally, than I've been in a long time. So I flipped and yanked skirt, it washed me out, and I had a bit of a bony swim at the bottom, I found the one bony place to swim and there I was, it felt like home. ;-) Except for that 'adventure' in the hole I had no flips running the rapids. The ZG was my friend. On Friday due to water levels we skipped Iron Ring et al for Big and Little Trickle and Angel's Kiss. I had some dynamic surfs at Angel's Kiss; the ZG is a much faster boat than I anticipated. I windowshaded a bunch trying to spin there. ;-) I wish I lived next to that river. You can go paddle after work; it stays light until 9pm or so; it has warmer water than the SE dam release runs; it has huge waves and holes; everybody is nice... The one thing I'd change was the mosquitoes, good god, and the fact that I had to come home so soon. Oh yeah, on Saturday I went to Ottawa the city and had real poutine at a chip wagon. I think it's yummy! And definitely marketable here in the SE. I had a coke with it. I couldn't bring myself to say, 'small poutine and a diet coke' to the guy. (normally I never drink sugared soft drinks). There I think that's it. This ended up longer than I anticipated. July 21-22nd - Hiwassee, B'ham Canoe Club Beginner "Fast Class". This was the first iteration of a new beginner class format, 3 days of paddling in a row, first day on Ocoee lake and a brief class I section below the commercial takeout to the private boaters' takeout. Second and third days on the Hiwassee. I was present for the latter two days. This class was a great success! Pics HERE. Videos HERE And HERE. July 28th - 29th. CreekFreak Fest. We borrowed a raft and Creekfreak, visiting from Oregon, guided us down the Upper, Olympic, and Lower sections of the Ocoee. Pics HERE, videos HERE. August 4-5th. Hiwassee with Juliet, Mark, Amanda, and friends. And kids! Finally got Juliet back on the water after a 6 year hiatus, in a 2Fun! Pics HERE. August 8th. Rolling practice at Oak Mtn. lake. Fer got a roll! It was crazy how he did it, but he came up. Lots of hip snaps off the bow for everyone. I found my sweep roll, I guess it had been hiding with my missing socks. Good times. August 18th. Grotto Splash at Spring Valley Beach in Blountsville. Pics HERE and HERE. August 25th. Nantahala. Low release (IMHO). With Snacker55, Dneesh, psychicmidget, and others. Got a combat roll playing at surfer's rapid, and discovered that nobody saw it. ;-) Did a weird far river right line on the falls, easy-schmeazy. Watched a forest fire devouring a mountain top, camped with Atlanta Whitewater at Nantahala-Wesser campground. This was a new campground for me and I really like it Sept. 1st. Second Annual BCC Youth Paddle. Hiwassee River. Dislocated my right kneecap trying to roll a Riot Astro 54. Youch. Sept. 2nd. Hiwassee River. I've now dubbed my Wavesport EZ "Old Faithful". Guess I need real thighbraces not pockets like on the Riot boat. Sept. 3rd. ELF Run of Chattooga Sec. IV. Level 0.9. My first ever foray past Woodall Shoals into the magical realm of Sec. IV. With Kevin Pickens and Chuck Neese. Swam in potholes with goggles. Awesome. PICS of the youth paddle and the Sec IV trip are here. Here is a video of Kevin swimming through a long underwater pothole at 7 foot falls. I wouldn't do it, but I took video... lol. Sept. 8th - DLF's 40th b'day. Sept. 9th - Oak Mtn. Lake. Glen there. Sept. 15th. Mulberry Fork. Low water - lowest I have ever paddled it, I think. But it was LOCAL WATER! W/ Dr. Wendy Sept. 23rd. Oak Mtn. Lake. Sept. 29th. Oak Mtn. Lake. This was at the upper fishing lake. W/Nathan and Bronson. Sept. 30th. Cathedral Caverns. With the Ellenbergers. WORLD CLASS show cave. Pics Here. Oct. 5-8. TAG Fall Cave-In. Pics HERE. Oct. 13th. BCC Fall Colors Trip. Hiwassee. Pics HERE. Movies HERE. Oct. 14th. Hike on John Muir Trail, upstream of the Apalachia Powerhouse on the Hiwassee. Pics - see pics link above for fall colors trip. Oct. 20th. Anniversary of Shane's death. I can't believe it's been a year. Oct. 20th.Surprise kayak gift for Juliet's birthday. Pics HERE. Oct. 21st. Mrs. Miller's Cave. Pics HERE. Trip report HERE . and HERE (I wrote it in two installments). Oct. 25th-28th. GAF 2007. Pics HERE. Activities: Mtn. Biking at Tsali, found an eastern hognose in the parking lot at Tsali, kayaked Nanty on Saturday, hiked to Wayah Bald and drove to Wesser Bald on Sunday. Nov. 3rd-4th. Green Narrows Race and hiking Tallulah Gorge. Pics HERE. Unfortunately, my pics from Oceana - the end of the hike were not on my camera when I got home. ;-( Nov. 10th. BCC Cave Trip to Tumbling Rock. I had 3 takers on the trip, along with Grotto members Jason Wall and Andy Zerbe. Nov. 17th. Carnival Season reunion at The Nick. Well hell yeah! Earlier in the day I went to the Tannehill Trade Day - last one of the year. Nov. 24th Graves Cave. I had an accident. Fell. Mild concussion, busted nose and chin, sore jaw. Helmets work. With Dave and Valerie Howell, and their daughter Shea and her boyfriend ???. Wish I could remember names better. Jonathan perhaps? I made it out of the cave without mishap. 300 ft. crawl, oh boy. Pics HERE. For those of you familiar with Graves Cave, I fell on the 9 ft. climbdown after the long crawl. My estimate is that I fell 3 ft. I was climbing down and lost grip of the handhold I had chosen. My next 'project' is buying a bolt to put there for a handline. Some of my caving buddies have generously agreed to help me by installing the bolt. Installing bolts is not a skill I possess. I'll NEVER do that climbdown without a handline again. I had on an Elderid helmet, 661 2x4 elbow pads, and Dirty Dave knee pads. Saved me from broken bones, and possibly from a broken neck! Dec. 2nd Moundville. Marjorie and I visited Moundville, an amazing archeologcial site. Pics HERE. Dec. 9th Vertical Practice at Palisades. I didn't get injured, yippy! Pics HERE. Later Andy Z. and I went to check out a lead in Centerpoint that didn't pan out.