Currently accepting clients for...

• Family History Research
• Speaking / Presenting
• Writing /Publishing

Let me be your feet on the ground in New York City. I offer my services as an "errand runner," including notarizations and apostilles of vital records for dual citizenship applications and academic research. 

 

Call me if you need documents from New York City courts, archives, museums and libraries. No job too small, no task too mundane.

 

Self-taught, I re-directed my innate, lifelong organizing skills to the field of genealogy, which has entranced me. I am a terrier at tracking down details and documenting their sources. As a graphic designer, I can promise that my reports will be attractively typeset and generously illustrated.

 

For example, here is how I turned two pages of skimpy family information on an artist ancestor into an 80-page (and still counting) website, which I researched, wrote and designed: donatusbuongiorno.com.

 

Services

Research on 19th- and 20th-century Italian Americans; art, artists, art history, auctions, exhibitions; Catholics, Catholic church architecture and interior decorations; New York City history, buildings, addresses, vital records, manifests, newspaper stories; ballroom dancing.

Read, transcribe, and translate hand-written, 19th-century, Italian vital records. Some experience with 19th-century New York City orphanage records.

 

My office is in Brooklyn Heights, steps from downtown Brooklyn and 1/2 hour from downtown Manhattan, which covers:

Brooklyn Historical Society.

Brooklyn Public Library.

Brooklyn Borough Hall and Brooklyn City Register Office.

Downtown Brooklyn colleges and their libraries: Brooklyn Law School, New York City College of Technology (City Tech), New York University Tandon School of Engineering (formerly Brooklyn Polytech), St. Francis College.

New York City Hall, Municipal Archives, Department of Buildings, courts, other agencies.

New York State courts, 5 counties: Bronx, New York (Manhattan), Kings (Brooklyn), Queens and Richmond (Staten Island).

U.S. federal courts: U.S. Eastern District of New York (Long Island & Staten Island Kings, Nassau, Queens, Richmond and Suffolk counties), U.S. Southern District of New York (Bronx, Dutchess, New York, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester counties, offices are in Manhattan).

U.S. National Archives, Bowling Green, New York City.

 

I also specialize in art history, especially 19th century, artists, exhibits, auctions, which can mean:

Frick Art Reference Library.

New York Public Library.

New-York Historical Society Library.

Thomas J. Watson Library at Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

No accident, the speciality of my 40-year graphic design career was producing marketing materials for regulated industries (finance, healthcare, insurance), which require you to: keep all the arcane details of a project straight in your mind over years of implementing, make sure you don't inadvertently change a single letter of the text the lawyers have already approved, not add extraneous information or a typesetting variation that might get someone sued, remember why you made decisions when queried years later. Sound familiar?

 

Geographic Specialties

NY, Mid-Atlantic, New York City,

Testimonials
U.S. National Park Service. I have worked with book designer and researcher Janice Carapellucci on two Alaska history books in the past few years and totally recommend her work as top notch in every way. Not only is Janice a fine book designer but she did a very good job of researching the possible Civil War participation of John W. Clark and his obscure early life in New York State, as well. Ms. Carapellucci designed the books The Life and Times of John W. Clark of Nushagak, Alaska, 1846-1896 published in 2012 and A 20th Century Portrait of Lake Clark, Alaska 1900-2000 published in 2014. Both books were published by Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Working with Ms. Carapellucci was a very positive experience and I would not hesitate to work with her on future book projects. John B. Branson Historian, U.S. National Park Service Lake Clark National Park and Preserve Port Alsworth, Alaska, July 27, 2016.

I enthusiastically recommend genealogist Janice Carapellucci. She retrieved probate documents, which had been very difficult to locate, from the New York State Kings County (Brooklyn borough of New York City) Surrogate's Court for me. She has extensive knowledge of New York City records and repositories, is professional, prompt, and a real pleasure to work with. Her expertise and excellent suggestions are sure to assist family history research. Shulamith M., 2023

Publications/Media
Donatus Buongiorno's Oil Paintings as Objects of Material Culture Documenting an Italian/American Life, Italian American Review 7.1 (New York, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Winter 2017), 64-71.

The Art of Immigration: Paintings by Donatus Buongiorno, catalogue published in conjunction with the exhibit organized by the Shrine Church of the Most Precious Blood, New York, 2019, essays by Mary Elizabeth Brown, Janice Carapellucci.

The Art of Immigration, Italian Art in an American Church: Most Precious Blood Church in New York’s Little Italy, Mary Elizabeth Brown, Janice Carapellucci, et al., 2024. 

Lectures
Paintings of Donatus Buongiorno (1865-1935), Shrine Church of the Most Precious Blood, New York, New York, 2019. Italian American, finally. My Personal Story, Shrine Church of the Most Precious Blood, New York, New York, 2019. Clothing and Literacy in the Paintings of Donatus Buongiorno (1865-1935), Eye-Centricity and the Visual Cultures of Italy and Its Diaspora, Annual Conference of John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, City University of New York, 2019.

His Paintings Are Our Clues: The Works of Donatus Buongiorno (1865?1935), Migrating Objects: Material Culture and Italian Identities, Annual Conference of John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, City University of New York, 2016.

Art and Catholic Church Research Resources in New York City, Brooklyn Family History Center, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2014. Course Instructor: Introduction to Genealogy Research, New York City College of Technology, City University of New York, Brooklyn, New York, 2019.

Introduction to Genealogy Research - A Personal Story, Researching an Artist, Collector or Patron, Frick Art Reference Library, New York, New York, October 18, 2022.

Repositories
See full list in biography, which includes these highlights:
Courthouses and their archives in Brooklyn and Manhattan, including New York State Kings County (Brooklyn) Supreme Courthouse at 360 Adams Street, Brooklyn, NY, and New York City Municipal Archives and New York County (Manhattan) Surrogates Court archives at 31 Chambers Street, New York (Manhattan), NY.
Also Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Borough Hall, New York Academy of Medicine Library, New York Public Library, The New-York Historical Society Library.

Research Time Periods

• 20th Century
• 19th Century

Languages
American English. Read and translate Italian 19th-century, handwritten vital records.

Affiliations
American Institute of Graphic Arts Association of Professional Genealogists

Degrees
BFA Communications & Graphic Design, Kutztown University, Kutztown, Pennsylvania