- April 24, 2024
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Frank Gillotti sat at his dining room table Sunday, turning the pages of a large, three-ring binder.
“This is my history,” he said.
He stood and retreated to his study, where he got another similarly thick white binder. Within its pages were his wife's history: marriage certificates, Census reports, other public records that showed a line dating back centuries.
Gillotti loves genealogy. He started researching his roots about eight years ago after his neighbor introduced him to Ancestry.com. Using a combination of ancestry research websites, Census records, cemetery information, old newspaper clippings and more, Gillotti began a quest to unearth his family’s history. Now, he’s tracked his history back to the 1600s. He’s also traced the family line of his wife, Nancy, back that far.
Eventually, Gillotti learned that his great-great grandfather and great-great uncle were both soldiers in the Civil War. When the war ended, the state of West Virginia issued 26,000 medals for all its soldiers who were honorably discharged, including Gillotti's relatives. Alfred Porter, Gillotti’s great-great uncle, never claimed his. It was sitting untouched for almost 150 years at the West Virginia Division of Culture and History.
Upon learning this, Gillotti spent about 40 hours preparing a file for the state, which proved that he was related to Porter. Finally, last week, Gillotti received his great-great uncle’s medal in the mail, in its original, handmade box. The edge of the medal contains personalized information about Porter’s service. He was 15 when he enlisted, and he served as a bugler.
For Gillotti, this is the culmination of years of a hobby he can’t get enough of. A Civil War buff, he’s spent much of his genealogy time tracing his family’s part in that war. So far, he’s found 10 relatives who fought for the Union, and three who fought as confederates.
“And,” he said, placing a hand on Nancy Gillotti’s shoulder, “Nancy’s great-great grandfather and my great-great grandfather were both at the Battle of Fredericksburg — both for the Union side.”
If genealogy has taught him one thing, it’s how connected everything, and everyone, is. Not only has he found places of overlap between his relatives and Nancy Gillotti’s relatives, but he has also discovered that he is distantly related to Robert Duvall, one of his favorite actors.
Mareen Duvall, a French Hugenot and early American settler, is Gillotti’s eighth-great-grandfather. He’s also Robert Duvall’s eighth-great-grandfather.
“These connections are everywhere," Gillotti said. "You just have to look for them."
Photos of the medal now join photos of grave sites he and his wife have visited as they trace their past. Gillotti devotes vacations and free time to exploring his ancestry, and he and his wife have hosted distant cousins at their homes. The more they pursue genealogy, the larger their family becomes.
“It’s been really neat,” Gillotti said. “You get to know your family, even the ones from hundreds of years ago. You get to know where you came from.”
