A mystery in St Roch's

 

Ancestry. St. Rochs Cemetery, New Orleans.

A researcher reached out over Ancestry's Messages, asking about how her 2x-great-grandmother was listed in the tomb of Filippo Ciofalo, Magdalene Huber and Charles Huber in St. Roch's Cemetery of New Orleans. In 2021, I wrote about Magdalene, a daughter of Antoinette Halter, younger sister of my wife's 4th-great-grandfather Francois Halter.

This query prompted some digging through the records, on Ancestry, FamilySearch and Newspapers.com. I wonder if the connection is through Magdalene's Sicilian first husband, Filippo Ciofalo. He was born on Sicily's northern coast, 21 February 1834, at Termini Imerese, part of the metropolitan city of Palermo. It is unclear to me when he immigrated to New Orleans, but may have served in the Civil War as part of a European Brigade in the city.

Ciofalo married Magdalene Vollrath on 18 November 1874. He died without children in 1888, and left his estate to Magdalene.

FamilySearch. New Orleans marriages, 1874.

FamilySearch. New Orleans marriages, 1874.

Ancestry. Louisiana Wills.

Josephine

Giuseppa (Josephine) Carrera (or Curreri) Germana DeBucceres was born in Sicily in 1852. She died in New Orleans in April 1917, and is supposed to be buried in the Ciofalo/Huber crypt at St. Roch's Cemetery. I don't yet understand the connection between Josephine and this family. Was she a cousin of Filippo Ciofalo? Certainly she was a fellow Sicilian immigrant to New Orleans. Was she a friend of Magdalene or did they attend the same church? Was her connection through Charles Huber, Magdalene's second husband?

I'll follow the trail of records on Josephine in the next post.

23&Me Updates Ancestry Composition

 

23&Me Ancestry Composition. 25 June 2026.

23&Me is rolling out updated Country Match information in its Ancestry Composition report (for comparison, here's the earlier version) *Note - this version may not be new, but it's new to me as my results were initially published with their v6 composition. There are some fascinating additions in the country reports, showing specific regions in England and Ireland where my matches report ancestors. Greater London isn't a surprise, but it's cool to see how this granularity compares with the AncestryDNA regions update from last October. It's also cool to see 23&Me focusing on Longford & Roscommon in North Central Ireland.

England regions for my matches.

Region concentration in Ireland.

It's very interesting to see 23&Me focus in on Abruzzo and Calabria for my 3.1% Southern Italian.

As with Ancestry's reports, Nigeria still shows up for me at .8%. My Mexican ancestry shows a regional concentration for Sonoran Desert, which again is as expected.

Clicking into the migrations tab shows more suggestions on historical migrations in my ancestry. This is very similar to AncestryDNA's Ancestral Journeys.

The suggestion for Venango County Early British/Irish Americans is worth exploring further, although the report says the connection is distant.

DNA in the news: Revolutionary War soldier identified

A story on NPR about DNA links identifying a previously unknown Revolutionary War soldier (23 June 2026)

Fathers Day

 

Dad. Mothers Beach, LA. 30 Aug 2008.

A Return to the Real Alcazar

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Sevilla. 5 June 2026.

Earlier in the month I had the opportunity to revisit the amazing grounds of the Real Alcazar in Sevilla. We visited this place in August 2019 during our Spain & Portugal trip. I was able to grab a ticket for the last hour of the day at the palace, which contributed to great lighting for photos.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Domed ceiling.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Alcazar cat in motion.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tile work.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Inscriptions.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tapestry showing Spain, with North Africa on top. 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Tiles.