Promoting Italian family history and genealogy since 1993
May 2024
Abandoned: Foundlings of the 19th-Century Italy and Sicily
In “Abandoned…” Ange (Angelo) Coniglio will dive into the world of foundlings in Italy. Author, genealogy researcher, Sicilian language professor, and an expert on the subject of foundlings, Ange has long been interested in the “phenomenon of sanctioned anonymous abandonment of illegitimate children.” He has documented numerous foundlings’ records and has a web page devoted to abandoned children, with numerous case studies. Ange is also the author of a novel entitled: The Lady of the Wheel.
Angelo F. Coniglio is a first-generation Sicilian-American, youngest of nine children born to parents from Serradifalco (Serradifarcu), Provincia Caltanissetta, Sicilia. He is a civil engineering graduate of the University of Buffalo and a retired civil engineer and engineering professor. After retiring from practice and teaching, he began researching his ancestry. That interest led him to volunteer as a librarian at a local Mormon FamilySearch Center, where he managed over five hundred Mormon microfilms of Italian/Sicilian records, on permanent loan to the center.
In addition to his own and his Sicilian-American wife’s ancestry, which he has traced back eight and ten generations, as far back as the 1600’s, he has helped hundreds of families develop their family trees. He is skilled at locating and translating civil birth, marriage and death records in original
Italian, and church sacramental records in Latin, using several on-line record archives. He has had his DNA tested and is experienced in evaluating DNA results. He established the Genealogy Station at Buffalo’s Italian Cultural Center, where he and staff offer free genealogy research services. He also initiated and teaches Buffalo’s first-ever classes in the Sicilian language at the Center.
He is deeply interested in the phenomenon of sanctioned anonymous abandonment of illegitimate children, and has documented numerous foundlings’ records and created a web page devoted to abandoned children, with numerous case studies.
Coniglio has written a book inspired by his research; a fictional account of the life of a foundling girl in 1800s Sicily, her ‘carusu’ (mine-boy) brother, and their struggling parents. The book, The Lady of the Wheel, is available on Amazon.com
In addition to his own and his Sicilian-American wife’s ancestry, which he has traced back eight and ten generations, as far back as the 1600’s, he has helped hundreds of families develop their family trees. He is skilled at locating and translating civil birth, marriage and death records in original
Italian, and church sacramental records in Latin, using several on-line record archives. He has had his DNA tested and is experienced in evaluating DNA results. He established the Genealogy Station at Buffalo’s Italian Cultural Center, where he and staff offer free genealogy research services. He also initiated and teaches Buffalo’s first-ever classes in the Sicilian language at the Center.
He is deeply interested in the phenomenon of sanctioned anonymous abandonment of illegitimate children, and has documented numerous foundlings’ records and created a web page devoted to abandoned children, with numerous case studies.
Coniglio has written a book inspired by his research; a fictional account of the life of a foundling girl in 1800s Sicily, her ‘carusu’ (mine-boy) brother, and their struggling parents. The book, The Lady of the Wheel, is available on Amazon.com
with
Ange (Angelo) Coniglio
