FRUSTRATED

 It's time to organize my messy thoughts, do so summaries of what I know, and speculate on what I don't.

• Cosmo came to Utica, NY in 1906. 

• In the ship manifest, it says he had a brother Giuseppe Bini in Utica.

• There was also a ship manifest from 1905 with Cosmo's name, and brother Giuseppe already in Utica, but his name was crossed out.

• I haven't been able to find any ship manifest with a Giuseppe Bini prior to 1905 that appears to match his description, but he must have been here.
• Mariangela (granddaughter of Giuseppe) says that Giuseppe, Cosmo, and Francesco all came to the US (according to her mother). She thinks they came together, but I see no evidence of that.
• She spoke to Pierino Bini today, who does remember that Francesco went to Brazil, but no one had heard from him. They were told he was in Argentina last.
• I have found no trace of Francesco in the US.
• I have found very little about Cosmo between 1906 and 1917, when he was married.
• I could not find him in the 1910 or 1915 census
• I could not find him in directories until 1916, but then he disappears again until 1921
• Cosmo got married to Angelina Giacovelli in 1917
• The WWI draft card 1917-1918 says that he lives at 922 Catharine St
• Angelo Antonio Giacovelli (Tony) also lives at 922 Catharine St according to draft card
• The 1920 Census says he rents a home at 922 Catharine St
• In 1921 there is a Charles Bino in Cortland
• Uncle Phil said Cosmo started his first restaurant in Endicott, maybe it was actually Cortland?
• I may try to document all of appearances in directories to map him out better
• In 1925 Cosmo is living at 933 Elizabeth St
• This is their address until they move to Johnstown around 1934
• Bino's Restaurant in Johnstown opened in summer 1934
• Didn't find him in Johnstown directory until 1937 - need to search better
• Cosmo's mother Antonia Annese died around age 90, circa 1935. Still waiting on confirmation from records in Alberobello
• There is a photo dated 1938 that includes Antonia, so she must have died after 1938?
• Cosmo's sister Maria came to the US in 1921
• Ship came in to Philadelphia, but she was going to her brother Cosmo in Utica
• Cousin Maria Annese, who married Tony Giacovelli, was on samae ship
• Future husband Antonio Palmisano was also on ship
• Mariangela was told that Giuseppe went back to Italy to bring Antonia and Maria to the US.
• Did Giuseppe live in the US until 1921? 
• My grandfather's notes say that Giuseppe went back to Italy when Cosmo was 16, which would have been immediately, since Cosmo was actually 17
• Why is there no ship record for Giuseppe? Is it misspelled or indexed incorrectly?
• Is there anywhere else I could look for records of his travels?
• Maria's husband was blamed for her death
• My grandfather said Cosmo blamed him
• Mariangela said Giuseppe and Antonia blamed him
• Supposedly, he pushed her down the stairs while she was pregnant
• I found no evidence that he had anything to do with her death - death certificate said she died of eclampsia
• Did her brothers just blame him because they didn't like him? Did the doctor not notice or investigate any injuries indicative of abuse? Why were they so convinced he was responsible? How would they have found out that he pushed her? He was never arrested or charged with anything, that I could find.
• Could Cosmo have blamed Giuseppe or Antonia for not stopping Maria from moving to the US with her boyfriend?
• Is that why he never responded to letters?
• We have photos of the Binis and Giuseppe's children dating from around 1922-1946.
• There is a photo of Ninetta Bini at age 10 months, and she was born in 1921, so this photo was from 1922
• There is also a photo of Antonia Annese dated 1922
• There is a photo of Ninetta with her husband and infant son (identified by Mariangela), who was born in 1946
• 2 photos are dated 1938 and 1939, but none of the others are dated
• Most of the photos are of the Bini children at different ages, likely the late 1920s-late 30s, plus the photo from 1946 of Ninetta, and another photo, with the same handwriting, of Nina - probably also the 1940s, maybe the same year
• Photo of Maria Bini, must be before 1922 when she died, possibly sent from Italy
• There were no letters with Aunt Betty's box of photos, so there's no way to know if the photos were sent all at once, or sent every year
• Some photos were written on by Ninetta at different times, so I'm guessing they were sent every year and not all at once, unless she wrote on them after they were taken, but the weren't sent until years later
• This doesn't sound likely - Mariangela made it sound like they wrote him several times, probably with new photos each time
• Giuseppe's family had a trunk of photos/mementos that were stolen, so there's no way to double check if they had any photos/letters from Cosmo
• Mariangela does not know when the last time anyone heard from Cosmo was
• Google translate kinda sucks, but I think Mariangela said that:
• In the last letter Antonia received from Cosmo, he asked if there was something he could do for her. She said she didn't need anything except a nice dress to wear when she died, and she did not receive a letter back. Her mother Ninetta remembered this well, because she would write letters for Antonia.
• I don't think Mariangela knew when this happened
• She said that when her mother learned to write, she was the one who would write letters for her grandmother
• I still can't figure out whose handwriting is on the back of most of the photos, and if it's the same handwriting on all of them
• The photos of Antonia and Ninetta from 1922 appear to be the same handwriting
• The R's are identical and unique, the d's and a's also look similar
• Since both are from 1922, they might have been sent in the same letter
• I don't think it is Giuseppe's writing, unless it changed a lot between 1922 and 1946
• Mariangela says that the handwriting on the photo of her mother from 1946 is her grandfather's
• She compared it to a letter written by her grandfather to her mother
• The A in Antonia/Antonietta on the 2 photos is COMPLETELY different
• At least 2 of the photos were written on by Ninetta, probaby in the early 1930s
• The handwriting looks different from the older photos, but the photo with Uncle Rufino appears to have been written by Ninetta, as it says "alla destra dello zio sto io" -I'm on my uncle's right- and that her sister Nina is on the left
• The handwriting on the 1939 photo kind of looks like the handwriting on the Rufino photo, but I can't be sure
• Where is Francesco????

• I feel like a major nuissance to cousin Mariangela, but I have so many questions. Google translate works, to an extent, but it's really challenging to communicate with someone in another language. The sentence structure and writing style is different in Italian, which makes words not translate properly, which makes the stories more confusing than they already are. I've asked her so many questions, and want clarification on so many things. She's been very patient but I keep asking more. I'm just waiting for her to either tell me to stop bothering her, or stop answering me entirely.

•  If only memories were more reliable...But we are all remembering things 2nd or 3rd hand, which makes it difficult to know what is the truth, what is a false memory, and what is just a story someone made up. I don't want to insult her or anyone else in the family, but I keep wanting to ask, "Are you sure???" or "Where did you get this information from?" or "Could your mother/uncle/grandfather be wrong?" "Could your memory be wrong?". I have the same questions for all of the stories from Aunt Betty and my grandfather. Where did Aunt Betty come up with this stuff? A lot of the information was partially correct, but some of it was just crazy. I want to ask my grandafather when he wrote on that piece of paper about Cosmo's siblings. Was it actually in 1972? Or years later? If it was in 1972, Cosmo was still alive. Was he talking to him when he wrote it all down? Or was he writing it from his own memory? I feel like he must have written it a long time ago, because my mom didn't know the information on that paper. Unless my grandfather did tell her and she just forgot it all. I really wish my grandfather were still alive so I could talk to him again. My genealogy journey didn't start until a few years after he died, so I never had the chance to ask him any questions, and I'm sure if he had told me anything I wouldn't have cared much or remembered it. Of course, talking to Cosmo would be the amazing. 

• I really want to know why Cosmo saved all of the photos of his nieces and nephew, but never wrote back to any of them. Did he write back and the letters got lost in the mail? Did he not want to talk to his family anymore? Did someone do something that upset him, to cut ties? Or did he just decide he was done with his life in Italy? Did the letters to him somehow get lost because he moved from Utica or changed his name, and find their way back to him years later, when everyone was dead? I just don't understand, and apparently I never will. I don't know why all of this is so important to me. These are all people I've never met, and never will meet. Knowing why Cosmo and Giuseppe stopped speaking will not change anything about my life or anyone else's. It's just my annoying and obssessive curiosity that won't let me let inconsequential things go. I am incredibly caught up in unraveling the mysteries of the past, but to what end? I've found our long-lost family. What more do I really need?

I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING