Ancestry of Kathleen Ann Bruno Kathleen's ancestry is mainly Italian and Irish.  More has been found/documented on the Irish (maternal) side, although there is actually quite a bit on the Italian (paternal) branch, as well. Starting with Kathleen's paternal side, you can view the descendant tree of her great-great-great-grandfather Vincenzo Bruni.  There have recently been major additions to this branch.  To begin with, Kathleen grew up thinking that her ancestors' last name had always been Bruno, but has discovered that in Italy, their last name was Bruni.  It was her grandfather, Giuseppe, who changed his name to Bruno after arriving in the United States in 1909.  Also, Kathleen's sister Mary, and Mary's husband Jim, recently traveled to Villa Santa Stefano and met Anna Rita Bruni, who is a second cousin.  She gave names of other family members that we hadn't known existed! To view the descendants of Kathleen's great-great-grandfather (paternal grandmother's branch) Michele (Michael) Angarola, please click his name.  Many of these relatives were born in Italy.  They were primarily in Pennsylvania, once they emigrated.  There are more spelling changes on this branch of the tree.  For example, Angarola became Angarole, and Tranelli became Trenelli. Climbing through the tree to Kathleen's maternal grandfather's branch, you can see the descendants of her great-great-grandfather and great-great grandmother Peter McLafferty & Mary McMenomy.  Her maternal grandmother's side gives us the descendants of her great-great-great-grandfather John O'Brien.  This branch has its origins in Ireland; and in the United States they were mainly in Minnesota, Washington, and Idaho.  Recent contact from a 3rd cousin once removed should result in some new names to be added to this branch! It was also easy to find some information on the ancestors of Kathleen's uncle Joseph Schmitz (who married her maternal aunt Helen Conway), which can be viewed on the descendant tree of John Schmitz.  It certainly helped that this family also ended up in the same general vicinity in Minnesota.  :-) You can also view Kathleen's "Standard Pedigree Tree" to get a simplified overview of all of the above.  (But don't miss the trees way down at the bottom of this page.) It's simply amazing how one little piece of information can lead to volumes of priceless genealogy information...  I already knew that my maternal grandfather had several older sisters, and I had information on some of them; e.g., Josephine married Alfred Tauscher, Johanna died prior to the 1885 Minnesota State Census, and Mary Jane married someone whose last name was Dahl.  But, I had no further information on Anne, Margaret, or Bridget.  Women tend to get "lost" unless you know a married name (or know that they never married, but women who didn't marry tended to stay in the same household as someone else in the family).  In a quest to obtain the given name of Mary Jane's husband, I sent for a copy of her death certificate.  When I received it, I saw that Mary Jane was a widow at the time of her death (her husband had been Emmett Dahl), and that the information on the certificate had been provided by Loraine Chapdelaine.  Naturally, I assumed that Loraine was Mary Jane's daughter (which confused me for a few moments because I had thought that she hadn't ever had children), and I dutifully entered that information in my genealogy software.  I then began to search for more folks named Chapdelaine, hoping to find information on Loraine's husband and children..  Eventually, I sent for the death certificate of one Margaret Elizabeth Chapdelaine, because I saw that her mother's maiden name was also Conway, and it triggered a faded memory that there had been two sisters who had married two brothers, and I figured that Mary Jane's daughters were those sisters. Well, imagine my surprise when Margaret Elizabeth's death certificate arrived and I saw that her mother had been Bridget Conway!  At first, of course, I was totally confused thinking that this had to be wrong -- that Margaret Elizabeth had to be Mary Jane's daughter in order to be one of my "sisters-who-had-married-brothers" ancestors.  Eventually, though, I realized that since Mary Jane didn't have any children, it had been her niece who had provided the information for the death certificate.  But, the even better aspect of the whole thing was finding out the name of Bridget's husband -- Patrick Doyle.  I had a new carrot to follow... and it lead me to a lot more people/information. So, with the hope that someone visiting this site will recognize a name or two and be able to provide me with even more information, I am providing a link here to the Decendants of Patrick Doyle (Bridget's father-in-law), and to the Descendants of Peter Chapdelaine, as well as the Descendants of Francois Beaulieu. As always, if you have further information that would be beneficial, or if you think we might have some information that you need, please let us know by looking for me on Ancestry.com, Twitter, or Instagram.  I have temporarily disabled the link to send e-mail via this page because of a proliferation of spam.     Updated April 12, 2021