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Angelo F. Coniglio (born August 21, 1936) is an American civil engineer, educator, genealogist and author. He was in the first graduating class (BSCE,1961) of the School of Civil Engineering established by Robert L. Ketter at the
University of Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...
(UB) in 1956. He also earned a master's degree from UB (MSCE, 1970). As a civil engineer, he is an expert in the hydrology and water levels of the U. S.
Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
, and is credited, along with his team on the ''Lake Erie Wastewater Management Study'' at the Buffalo District of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, with the development of a plan that helped restore
Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...
to more pristine conditions in the 1970s. He is an expert in Lake Erie ice formation and management. He taught as an adjunct professor in Civil Engineering at UB for twenty-five years, receiving the ''New York State Society of Professional Engineers' Engineering Educator of the Year'' award in 1993. After his retirement from the engineering field, Coniglio, a first-generation
Sicilian American Sicilian Americans ( Sicilian: ''Sìculu-miricani; Italian: Siculoamericani'') are Americans of Italian Sicilian birth or ancestry. They are a large ethnic group in the United States. The first Sicilians who came to the territory that is now t ...
brought up on the East Side and then the West Side of Buffalo, became an experienced genealogist, researching the Sicilian origins of his own family (from Serradifalco, Sicily), and numerous others. His experiences in researching and traveling to Sicily led to his authorship of the book '' The Lady of the Wheel (La Ruotaia)'', which tells of the lives of poor Sicilian foundlings and
sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formul ...
miners in the late 1800s in Racalmuto, Sicily. Since 2017, Coniglio has been a technical consultant on foundlings for
Henry Louis Gates Jr. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Ame ...
's
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educ ...
television series ''
Finding Your Roots ''Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'' is a documentary television series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. that premiered on March 25, 2012, on PBS. In each episode, celebrities are presented with a "book of life" that is compiled wi ...
''. Coniglio writes genealogy columns for several monthly magazines and Italian/Sicilian American newsletters, and gives frequent lectures on the topic. In 2013 he received a first-place ''NAMPA'' award for his column ''"Breaking Down the 1930 Census: The Search for Our Ancestry"'' in the monthly magazine ''Forever Young''. He also writes for ''L'Italo Americano'', a U.S. West Coast bilingual weekly. Coniglio is currently working on his first full-length novel, to be entitled ''The Mountain of the Hawk (La Serra del Falcone)'', a fictional account based on the history of his ancestral town of
Serradifalco Serradifalco ( Sicilian: ''Serradifarcu'') is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, Italy. History Serradifalco (from ''Serra del Falcone'', "Mountain of the Falcon") was founded in the Kingdom of Sicily, in a feudal ...
and its inhabitants. He has web pages devoted to Sicilian genealogical records, foundlings, and the Sicilian language. Coniglio has been a vocal social and sports activist. In the early 1970s, he brought a class action suit against the National Football League over its policy of charging full regular-season prices for meaningless exhibition games mandatorily included in season-ticket packages. The suit failed after being raised to the U. S.
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions ...
, prompting Coniglio to remark "I learned that the Anti-Trust laws don't protect the ''public'' from avaricious businessmen, they protect avaricious businessmen from ''each other''!" As an avid
American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...
(AFL, 1960 - 1969) fan, Coniglio lobbied successfully to have the
Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The t ...
wear a ten-year AFL shoulder patch in the fourth and final AFL-NFL World Championship game. He has been a proponent of wider appreciation of the
American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...
and its players, lobbying for more AFL players to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and prompting
Professional Football In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...
to acknowledge the legacy of the AFL during its fiftieth anniversary season in 2009. He appeared in the 2009 Showtime television series ''Full Color Football: The History of the American Football League''. Coniglio's ''Remember the AFL'' website is among the most-referenced sites for information, images and statistics relating to the AFL. He is acknowledged as an expert on the history of the league, and lectures on the AFL and its influence on modern
Professional Football In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...
. Coniglio has lobbied strongly for greater recognition of Buffalo's role in the establishment of the
Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducin ...
, which established New York City as a major port. He proposes an
Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...
-inspired ''Buffalo Erie Canal Museum and Visitor's Center'' which would describe Buffalo's role as the Western Terminus of the Canal, and the nexus for the country's great western migration of pioneers. He is a strong advocate for recognition of Sicilian heritage, actively writing and posting articles about the history of Sicily, its
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
and its contributions to world culture, which he maintains far outweigh negative elements often emphasized in popular media. His love for Sicilian culture led him to become a minor investor in a full-length documentary film by author and producer Mark Spano. The film, originally entitled 'Re-imagining Sicily', is ' Sicily: Land of Love and Strife'. After its April 2018 world premiere in Spano's home town of
Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
, the film then went to its Canadian premiere in
Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of ...
, on June 20. Coniglio collaborated with Spano to present the film's East Coast premiere in Buffalo on June 25, 2018. The event was a sellout and required a second showing. Coniglio remarked "Attendees saw a film that extolled the beauty and culture of Sicily, without the foolish glorification of criminal elements that has come to be expected in films about my homeland. I commend Mark Spano for creating such a film." Coniglio's first language was Sicilian, and combining his experience as an educator and his knowledge of the language, in September 2021 he instituted Buffalo's first class in the Sicilian language, "Conversational Sicilian for Beginners" at the new location of the Buffalo Italian Cultural Center. Due to popular demand "Conversational Sicilian for Beginners - Part 2" is now also being offered In January 2022, under Coniglio's direction, the Center intiated the CCI Genealogy Station, with on-line access to genealogy sites, and hands-on instruction to assist Buffalo's Sicilian and Italian Americans in tracing their ancestry. Coniglio also led a successful fight to have the name of his alma mater retain its major reference to ''BUFFALO'' rather than 'New York' as proposed by now-departed UB Athletic Director
Danny White Wilford Daniel White (born February 9, 1952) is a former quarterback and punter for the Dallas Cowboys and an American football coach in the Arena Football League. He has been the color commentator for Cowboys games on Compass Media Networks' ...
, who had no ties to the Buffalo region. He is a distant cousin of Indy car driver Al Loquasto, and of set designer
Santo Loquasto Santo Richard Loquasto (born July 26, 1944) is an American production designer, scenic designer, and costume designer for stage, film, and dance. His work has included the films ''Big'', ''Radio Days'', '' Cafe Society'', '' Blue Jasmine'', '' ...
. All are descendants of Libertino lo Guasto, a
foundling Foundling may refer to: * An abandoned child, see child abandonment * Foundling hospital, an institution where abandoned children were cared for ** Foundling Hospital, Dublin, founded 1704 ** Foundling Hospital, Cork, founded 1737 ** Foundling H ...
born in Serradifalco, Sicily in 1796. He is also a cousin of
Arizona Diamondbacks The Arizona Diamondbacks (colloquially known as the D-backs) are an American professional baseball team based in Phoenix. The Diamondbacks compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. The ...
manager Torey Lovullo. Coniglio and his wife Angela summer at their cottage on
Crystal Beach Hill The beach at Crystal Beach Hill. Crystal Beach Hill is a geologically old and natural sand dune, fifty feet high and originally about two thousand feet long, parallel to the shoreline of Crystal Beach on the south-eastern shore of Lake Erie, in ...
in
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, Canada. Coniglio and his wife had two children, both of whom predeceased him.Angela Yvonne Coniglio biography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Coniglio, Angelo F. 1936 births American writers of Italian descent 21st-century American novelists American civil engineers American male novelists American educators American genealogists Historians of Sicily Historians of immigration to the United States Living people Writers from Buffalo, New York American historical novelists University at Buffalo alumni 21st-century American male writers Novelists from New York (state) 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Engineers from New York (state) Historians from New York (state)