Not mockups. Not proposals. Printed, bound, typeset heirloom books — produced for a real family, delivered as Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts in 2026.
The story of the Borghi and Marini families — sharecroppers from Apecchio in the Marche Apennines and Città di Castello in Umbria — from the mezzadria fields of the 1800s through immigration to Chicago at the turn of the century. The Dawson Mine disaster of 1913. Faith and parish life on the northwest side. And the woman whose story this book is for: Patricia Borghi, born 1949.
ContentsArchives accessed: Antenati portal, FamilySearch Italian collections, NARA records, Chicago parish registers, U.S. census 1900–1940, ship manifests, Dawson Mine disaster records.
The story of the Formella and Wojtach families — Kashubian peasants from Gdańsk Pomerania who crossed the Atlantic in 1880, and families from Poland's eastern borderlands who found their way to Chicago's northwest side. At the center: Arthur Edward Formella, WWII radar technician on B-29s in the Pacific, whose sole surviving personnel file was decoded from a single original document — believed to be the only copy that survived the 1973 NPRC fire.
ContentsPrimary source: Arthur Formella's 201 File is believed to be the sole surviving copy — NPRC master almost certainly destroyed in the 1973 fire. Archives: FamilySearch Polish/Kashubian collections, NARA Flexoline Index, USCIS alien registration files, Chicago parish records.
Every family has a story worth telling. We find it in the records, decode it in the DNA, and write it in the voice it deserves.