It takes just a few family details for Flo Lumina to reduce people to tears.

&#8220I&#8217ve had people crying, they&#8217re so happy of what we found,&#8221 Lumina

said.

For the past three years, Lumina and members of Pursuing Our Italian Names Together, a local

Italian genealogy organization, have staffed a booth at the Italian Heritage Festival, where

they research the family histories of festivalgoers.

They started small &#8212 in a small tent &#8212 then moved to the back room of a

restaurant as more and more people became interested. This year, Lumina and researchers set up

shop between the replica of the Trevi Fountain and the bocce court, across the street from the

pastry vendor.

BuffaloNews.com Live: Review Saturday's happenings at the Italian Heritage Festival

On a stretch of Hertel Avenue festooned with booths hawking Italian delicacies from deep-

fried calamari to the obligatory hoagie roll stuffed with sausage, peppers and onions, this

venue perhaps comes closest to the festival&#8217s heritage billing.

And on a typically busy festival day, the genealogists see about 30 to 40 families, helping

many to fill in the blanks.

&#8220Genealogy has become quite popular,&#8221 said Lumina, who is president of the

organization. &#8220I think just in the past 25 years, it&#8217s been increasingly

popular.&#8221

Equipped with a laptop and an iffy Internet connection, Lumina helped reconstruct family

histories Saturday afternoon.

Jimmy George was among those visiting the booth.

&#8220Well, we found out our great-grandfather&#8217s real name,&#8221 said George, whose

ancestor, Donato George served in the Italian revolutions of the 19th century before

immigrating to America. According to family speculation, he was an officer &#8212 a lieutenant

or a captain. Others in the family believed he was a sergeant, but no one in the family really

knows.

And up until Saturday, no family member knew that Donato&#8217s real last name was

DiGeorgio. Though his tombstone lists his last name as George, he likely changed his name

after landing in America.

&#8220I&#8217m going to make the assumption that he did,&#8221 George said.

Lumina researches several Web sites to track down family information, including

ancestry.com, stevemorris.com, and even the official Ellis Island Web site.

During the festival Saturday, Sue Carriero of Buffalo discovered a 1970s photo of an uncle

tacked to a piece of poster board, on display with other festival memorabilia in the Ilio

DiPaolo Heritage Tent. Back then, the festival was anchored on Connecticut Street.

There he was &#8212 dressed in a brown blazer, his signature ring on the little finger. The

only thing missing was the customary cigar in his mouth.

&#8220Who would believe this?&#8221 said Carriero, her eyes fixed on the black-and-white

picture. &#8220What a small world.&#8221

Carriero also stopped by the genealogy booth, where she discovered her family name &#8212

Custodi &#8212 had been spelled incorrectly when her grandfather came to America. Officials

wrote down his last name as &#8220Custode.&#8221 Her grandfather probably spelled it

phonetically, she said.

She also learned the date he arrived in America and the name of the steamship he boarded in

Naples, Italy &#8212 the Trinacria.

The new information, she said, will be used to help leverage her own research at home.

&#8220It&#8217s something to go on,&#8221 she said. &#8220I would like to know more about

my family. This is great.&#8221

Today is the final day for the festival, which is sponsored by Sorrento Cheese. Hours are

11 a.m. to 10 p.m.