The History of POINT

From the Editor...

...A Brief History of POINT

Editor's Note: This article was originally published as a two-part series in

POINTers Volume 6, Numbers 2 & 3, Summer and Autumn, 1992.

It has been edited and updated slightly for presentation here.

We have added a large number of new POINTers in the last few months and I thought this might be a good time to take a look back at just how POINT and POINTers got started and to remember some of the mile-posts we have passed along the way.
For some years, without much success, I had periodically tried to put my family tree down on paper. Then, in 1986, I purchased a computer genealogy program called Family Roots, which allowed me to organize and work with the material I had collected. It was at this time that the genealogy bug really bit me. However, once I had entered the data on my living (and a few deceased) close relatives, I had no idea how to progress further, especially when it came to getting information on the family's beginnings in Italy.
I learned about [Everton's] Genealogy Helper from a friend, but the copy I saw had virtually nothing in it about Italian genealogy. Visits to three genealogy societies in the Southern California area revealed not one of their members doing Italian genealogy.
As a way to get help for my own genealogy research, early in 1987, I wrote to Genealogy Helper and a few other genealogy publications, announcing the foundation of POINT (Pursuing Our Italian Names Together), and by June, the project was underway.
I had envisioned the project only as a data base of Italian surnames, but many people sent tidbits of information about doing Italian genealogy along with their surnames. I put these items into a tiny newsletter called POINTers and sent it free to anyone who wrote to POINT. This continued for about six months and then, in January, 1988, POINTers became available only to members of POINT.
Growth of POINT has been gradual but steady; at the end of 1987, we had 199 members and 2500 surnames in the data base; at the end of 1988, 599 and 4460; at the end of 1989, 837 and 6271; at the end of 1990, 1036 and 7596; and, at the end of 1991, we had 1256 members and 9150 surnames in the data base. The number of Italian cities and towns represented in the data base is now over 1300.
[Editor's NOTE: As of 31 December, 2003 POINT membership has risen to over 4800 (1400 active) with over 35,000 Italian surnames representing 3,400 Italian cities and villages in the POINT Italian Surname Database.]
POINT received major publicity and a subsequent growth spurt on October 6, 1988 when Myra Vanderpool Gormley, in conjunction with Columbus Day, devoted her entire nationally syndicated genealogy column to POINT. Many people who do not usually read genealogy publications learned of POINT through Myra's column.
At about this same time, the Los Angeles Public Library became the first of many libraries and institutions to receive POINTers.
Also in October, 1988, we had the first success of cousins who found each other through POINT and that total is now over 20 [For more on Cousins Found, see POINTers, Spring, 1992, V6, N1, P6].
In December, 1988, POINT was invited to a reception marking the 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan and its aid toward the post-World War II reconstruction of Italy. Italian Prime Minister Ciriaco de Mita was the guest of honor and attending the reception was a thrilling experience.
Two articles about POINT appeared in Genealogical Computing, one in January, 1989 and the other in October, 1989 and to this day, we still get letters of inquiry as a result of those articles.
Our first paid advertising appeared in the Spring, 1989 issue, and while advertising is not a major source of revenue for POINT, each issue has a number of advertisements. We are constantly seeking new advertisers for the pages of POINTers.
Almost from the beginning, we have had members from outside the United States. Canada has been the most prominent of these, but our international distribution has included Japan, Italy, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and recently, Uruguay.
Serial articles have always been popular in POINTers, and the number of these has increased in recent issues. The number of original articles and reprints of articles by internationally known authors has also increased recently, yet the pages of POINTers continue to be fueled by the exchange of letters and information between POINTers.
In addition to the appearance of POINT at the Marshall Plan anniversary reception in December, 1988, POINT has made other public appearances. For the last [nine] years, POINT has had the only Italian genealogy presentation at the Jamboree of the Southern California Genealogical Society, the largest annual genealogical gathering in Southern California. We have also been asked to speak to the Sicilia Culturale Society of Los Angeles and to the Santa Barbara Genealogical Society. Recently, POINT was the only Italian-interest project at the Family History Fair of the California Genealogical Society in San Francisco and the Family History Fair sponsored by the Evening Optimist Club of Anaheim, California.
Since a large part of the material presented in the pages of POINTers is from letters sent to POINT, we started the "From The Editor. . ." page in 1990 as a way to allow your editor to "write his letter" to other POINTers through POINTers.
The design of the cover of POINTers has continued to evolve over the years with a major change coming with the Spring, 1992, issue as we went to a three-color cover with a different family photo on each cover. All POINTers are urged to send original family photos to POINT for consideration for use on the front cover of a future issue of POINTers.
[Editors NOTE: The Autumn, 1997, issue of POINTers marked another milestone with the addition of color to the inside pages of the magazine for the very first time.]
In October, 1992, Anthony Lascio (#1051) began our POINTers In Person program in Chicago. There are now 28 PIP chapters across the United States.

In October, 1998, the first POINT National Conference was held in :Las Vegas. In 2000, the conference was in Austin, Texas; in 2002, in Salt Lake City; and, in 2006, our Fourth POINT National Conference will be held in Los Angeles, CA.

POINT continues to grow as word is spread by genealogy societies and their newsletters, Italian organizations and their publications, libraries (including the Library of Congress ), computer bulletin boards and the Internet and by word of mouth.
What the future holds from this time forward, we can not even imagine, considering our expectations when we began this project five and a half years ago and where we have come, thanks to the support of all our members.

To learn about recent changes that have occurred in POINT, be sure to read Things Change .

...Thomas E. Militello, MD, POINTer #1

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Last Updated:
1 November 2004

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POINTer #1