First a little about myself. I was born at Unity Hospital in Brooklyn, NY and lived most of the early part of my life in South Ozone Park and Rosedale, Queens, NY. I moved to the San Francisco, California ( Petaluma ) area in 1970, where I have lived since. My mother, Calogera "Lillian" Sacco, was 100% Sicilian. My father, James William Burton, was primarily of English background. I attended Archbishop Molloy High School in Briarwood, Queens NY. I have five brothers and one sister -- I am the youngest. Most of my family still resides in New York or Pennsylvania.

I have worked for the US Postal Service since 1968, and have a route in the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco (Marina Station) on Route 2305 since 1980. For the last two years I have been on a special joint Labor/Management Detail working on automation in the USPS.  Throughout my career, I have been active in the National Association of Letter Carriers at various levels of their structure. I have been a Full-Time Local President (, San Francisco) and the Director of Education for the California State Association of Letter Carriers . As a National Representative, I had one of the best records for advocacy at Arbitration Hearings. In addition, I have edited our local union newspaper THE VOICE.

My wife, Catherine Balestrieri Burton, and I enjoy our travels throughout Europe, and usually visit our Sicilian Relatives at least once every three (3) years. Her family comes primarily from Sant'Elia near Palermo, and from Sant'Agata in Messina Province.

I became interested, and then engrossed, in genealogy after my now departed cousin, Dolores Gillen, started doing some serious digging into our Sacco family tree. Much of the information that is currently in my files (on Sacco) are the results of her efforts. I had been using a little known and formally GREAT genealogy program called FAMILY TREASURES for several years. This past year I switched to a FREE genealogy program from the LDS called PAF 5.2 for Windows .  I have found it far more powerful than any other "pay" program and it seems to be the standard for most professional genealogists.  You can download it for free from their webpage .  As a "spin-off" to the genealogical research, I started a Sacco Family Newsletter, that was mailed to virtually all known direct relatives in the USA.

My computer interest started with an Apple II. I currently use (as of Dec. 2002) a "custom" Compaq Presario 8000 Pentium IV 2.53 ghz with a HP 2000i DVD+R burner and an ATI All-In-Wonder 128 meg. 8500 videocard. We also have a new Minolta/QMS 2300 Color Laser printer, and a Samsung 17" LCD.  Our home network also includes our older "custom" Micro Pro system with a Pentium III 500, 256 megs, ATI All-in-Wonder Rage 128 video, DVD, V95 Optiquest 19" Monitor, etc. My our ultimate backup system is my old Quantex .  I also have a Mustek 8000SP flatbed color scanner, an Epson Photo 870 injet printer, an Epson 850z Digital Camera, and a Lexmark 4029 Laser (needs to be fixed)  I am the webmaster for the   California State Association of Letter Carriers (CSALC) and Golden Gate Branch 214, NALC , and theSonoma County Genealogical Society .
 

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