LBI summer resident starts genealogy career after finding great-grandfather's Civil War papers

Photo by Ryan Morrill
Melchiori spends time researching her family
 lineage online while she visits family on LBI.

Marie Varrelman Melchiori, who spends her summers with family in Surf City, recently semi-retired from her work as a certified genealogist and genealogical lecturer to spend more time researching her own family history, which is what got her interested in genealogy in the first place. Nearly 40 years ago, Melchiori had found a copy of her great-grandfather’s discharge papers from the Civil War. He had served in the 131st New York Infantry Regiment.

“I knew very little about the German side of my family,” she said. “I thought I knew a lot about the Italians, but once I got into genealogy I quickly discovered I didn’t know a whole lot.

“I discovered that my great-grandmother was Irish. It took three census records to convince my father that she was Irish. He kept insisting that she was German,” she added with a laugh.

Unable to find a nursing job years ago that would accommodate her family’s needs, Melchiori turned to family research, spending all of her time at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where she thumbed through the Civil War records. Living just 17 miles from the building made it easy for her to do research. After realizing how much information on the Civil War other genealogists had not yet touched, she decided to specialize in the area and make a living out of it. She started out talking about her research at Civil War memorabilia shows.

“It’s like going into a museum and actually being able to purchase items,” said Melchiori. “They did not allow reproduction, so these were all items that were used during the Civil War. There were letters, there were drums, there were guns, there were swords, uniforms, there were books, anything at all,” she explained.

Melchioiri became a full-time, professional genealogist in 1979. She quickly acquired her certifications as a genealogical record specialist, genealogist and genealogical lecturer by the Board for Certification of Genealogists in Washington, D.C. She later worked for lawyers who needed help sorting out convoluted wills. She has also provided lectures both nationally and internationally.

“To really start your genealogy, you need to start with family sources, and you build from that,” Melchiori remarked. “Whatever you happen to have in your house, what your aunt may have, what your grandmother may have, that’s the basis of doing a family tree,” she added.

Birth, death, cemetery and marriage records are good firsthand documents to have for hard proof, she said. It is also imperative to track all sources.

“We had a collection of matchbook covers that were given out when cousins got married,” Melchiori remembered. “This is going back in the ’50s and ’60s, and just about every marriage that you went to had matchbooks on the table with the bride and groom’s name and the date. Long before I was interested in genealogy, you just collected them and threw them in a drawer or box. It was extremely helpful when I started to get into family history because you kind of remember when a cousin was married, but you might not have the actual date,” she added.

Online programs such as Ancestry.com, Roots Web, Family Search, MyHeritage and Fold3 are good places for beginners to start the elaborate research process. An increase in advertising of such programs has largely attributed to the resurgence of genealogy, Melchiori believes.

“It’s fun, it really is,” she emphasized. “It’s like a huge picture puzzle. When you put in one piece, you’ve opened up two other areas, and when you explore them it’s like it never ends; it just keeps going. It’s challenging, and I get as much enjoyment, as much fun, out of working on somebody else’s line as I do on my own.

“When you’re dealing with something like pension files, you’re actually handling the paper that your ancestors handled. This is kind of a contact with them that you might not have had otherwise. I always said I would stop doing it when it stopped being fun, and I’m still enjoying it,” she added, chuckling.

Anyone interested in genealogy and family history is invited to attend a talk on World War I records and how to go about locating those records, hosted by the Genealogy Club of Little Egg Harbor. The event will be held at The Senior Center, located at 641 Radio Rd. in Little Egg Harbor on Tuesday, Aug. 27. Melchiori will lead the talk. Participants can also visit her on Thursdays at the Maritime Museum in Beach Haven where she volunteers.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

This article was published in The SandPaper.