Let Me Introduce you To ... Mary Tedesco of Genealogy Roadshow

Let me introduce you to … Mary M. Tedesco. You may recognize Mary; not only is she a professional genealogist, speaker, and author, Mary is also a Host/Genealogist on the PBS TV series “Genealogy Roadshow” (season 2), as well as the
Founder of ORIGINS ITALY.

Mary speaks Italian and travels often to Italy to
conduct client genealogical research and visit family. She is the co-author of
“Tracing Your Italian Ancestors” an 84-page Italian research guide published by
Moorshead Magazines. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Boston
University and a Certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University’s
Center for Professional Education.

In addition to her Italian ancestry
(Calabria, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Tuscany) on her father’s side, Mary also has
deep American roots (German, Irish, Danish & English) on her mother’s side,
and is a proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mary is a
member of a number of local and national genealogical societies and serves on
the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Genealogical Council.

Q & A With Mary Tedesco

Genealogists.com: How many years have you been involved in genealogy?

Mary: I
got started in genealogy about nine years ago, but my mother tells me I have
been collecting family stories since I was a toddler!

Genealogists.com: How did you get involved?

Mary: Growing
up, I listened with intense curiosity to the stories my grandparents and other
family members told about long-deceased ancestors from Italy. I wanted to know
their names and how they were related to me and everyone else in the family.
These were the greatest people I’d never be able to meet, and I wanted to know
more about them.

In
2006, a coworker loaned me his login to a genealogy website to search for my
grandparents’ passenger lists from Italy. I haven’t looked back since. At the
time, there were few educational resources for how to get started with Italian
genealogy, so I turned to my grandmother. She helped me compose my first letter
to a civil records office in Rovereto, Italy to request her own birth record.
We continued the letter writing together and obtained my grandfather’s birth
record from San Pietro a Maida, Italy and my grandparents’ marriage record from
Rome, Italy. Then we continued with the requests until we were back to my
grandmother’s grandparents and my grandfather’s great-grandparents. At that
point, the city halls told us we’d reached the beginning dates of the civil
records, and we would need to contact the churches next for more information.
That’s exactly what I did (and am still actively doing), of course. Since my
family comes from three different parts of Italy (Calabria, Trentino-Alto
Adige, and Tuscany) researching my own roots will keep me busy and Alitalia in
business for many years to come!

Genealogists.com: How has genealogy changed your life?

Mary: It’s
a gift to be able to wake up each day and do something that I love. This
passion inspired me to start a company called ORIGINS ITALY. We focus primarily
on Italian and Italian-American genealogical research. As a Host on “Genealogy
Roadshow” (PBS), I’m honored to share moving family stories with each of our
guests on the show. It’s a pleasure to help show people how very cool it is to
be a genealogist and to discover your past. Answering people’s deepest
curiosities about their roots will never get old.

Genealogists.com: What do you love about family history?

Mary: Every day
as a genealogist is different. No two families are the same. Each of our ancestors
has a unique and special story that deserves to be discovered and told. Going
beyond names and dates, our ancestors lived during and through all the major
historical events like wars, political upheavals, economic booms and busts, and
all the other milestones that are studied in traditional history classes.
Through family research, you can discover how seminal events of world history
impacted the lives of our ancestors. It’s fascinating and endlessly intriguing.

Genealogists.com: What’s your favorite part of the search process?

Mary: Conducting
onsite research in Italy is by far the coolest part of my job. The nerd in me
finds onsite research exhilarating. Setting out on a new client project with
all the unknowns and challenges that Italy has to offer on the research front
is never boring! At the onset of the trip you don’t know where the research is
going or where exactly it will lead. On any given research trip some location
specific challenges may include: records access issues, limited hours at
essential archives, missing records (whether they were lost to time, in a
natural disaster, etc). Has the client’s family been in the same Italian town
for a thousand years or only half a generation? The good news for our clients
is that we closely monitor and constantly refine our research approach in
Italy. I draw upon a lot of the skills I learned from my background in
mathematics and finance to make our research approach methodical, sound, and
analytic.

Genealogists.com: What is your least favorite part of the genealogy process?

Mary: There
isn’t much I don’t like about genealogy. Citations weren’t always my favorite
thing, but I’ve actually grown to love them. As a researcher, I want to give
others – clients, other professionals, etc – the ability to examine my work and
get back to the original source. In research, this is of the utmost importance.

Genealogists.com: What do you believe is the most difficult part of family history
research?

Mary: It’s
sometimes very difficult to stop researching when the client-commissioned
research has concluded. A lot of times, I wish I could just keep going deeper
and deeper into every family’s past, discovering more and more about that
family’s history, traditions and culture. I become akin to that family and I
don’t want to stop learning all about them. But, alas, the business of
genealogy requires that I survive and pay my bills, so I have to stop. Still, I
wish I could do it for free.

Genealogists.com: If you could sit and chat with one ancestor who would it be? And
what would you ask them?

Mary: This
question is fantastic! I’d want to chat with my fourth great grandparents, the
parents of my third great grandmother Maddalena Mironi. I do not know what
their names were, and may never know. Maddalena Mironi was abandoned at the
Hospital of San Sebastiano in Siena, Italy on 19 October 1857. There is no
anger or resent, but I would just like to know the circumstances surrounding
the abandonment of this baby girl. Was it an out-of-wedlock birth or another
more difficult circumstance? Regardless of the circumstances, I’d love to know
what happened. What I do think is that they’d be proud of our family.

Genealogists.com: Anything else you’d like to add?

Mary: In
this world of care and concern, I find comfort in the past. Our ancestors
managed to navigate both the tribulations and the joys of their times and
brought their families forward to us, to this world. We learn from them, from
their lives that we will continue to survive and progress through the
vicissitudes of our modern lives, and that we will have the strength, the
power, the character to overcome our challenges to fulfill our destinies…It
will make us worthy of both our ancestors and our descendants.