I inherited my Dad’s hard drive and I found information about David Orto.
I’d never heard of the Orto family.
He married my 2nd cousin twice removed. His parents were born in Italy and married in Saratoga County, New York. Where in Italy was John Orto born? Dad has “Monapoli? or Barrie, Italy” written on a pedigree chart.
FamilySearch came out with a new feature that shows where your ancestors are buried. I visited the Old Burying Ground in Lexington, Massachusetts at the end of March 2023, and I was surprised to find I have five 8th great-grandparents buried there. My first reaction was I need to go back and see the graves, my second reaction was I need to check to make sure this is correct.
Locating where your immigrant ancestor came from is always a challenge. Here is one way I solved the problem.
In From Tursi to Niles – The Fusco Family – I had a death certificate that said Leonardo Fusco was born on 22 September 1884 in Messina, Italy the son of Frank Fusco and Rosaline Anzollati.
The first step was to look for a birth record in Messina, Italy dated 22 September 1884. It wasn’t there. I checked the index to see if it was a different day that year. Nope. I checked the year before and the year after. No and no.
I checked Ancestry for the death of Fusco child of Francesco Fusco and Rosaline Anzollati. Nope. Fusco child of Fusco and Rosalina. Nope. I tried a few other searches but continued to have no luck.
Then I searched the records at FamilySearch and got the same results — only the death record for Leonard. So I looked for any Fusco who died in Niles, Ohio. With cluster immigration, I expected other Fuscos in the area would be family. Bingo.
I found a death record for Mrs. Mary A. Fusco, born 1872, in Tursi, Italy the daughter of Frank A. Fusco and Rose Auzoloti (looks like Anzolott to me). So while the information did not come up in a search, probably because the mother’s name was transcribed as Rose Auzoloti, I expected this record would show up with the search Fusco child of Fusco and Rosa, but the secret was the location was needed. The results of the search adding Niles, Ohio as the death place on FamilySearch were better than with Ancestry. Not that I don’t love Ancestry. I find Ancestry’s search engine has better results with immigration records.
Why was Mrs. Mary A. Fusco listed with her maiden name on her death record when she was obviously married? Because she had married Nicholas A. Fusco and her maiden name and married surname were the same. Then I went to the Tursi records.
Mariantonia Fusco the daughter of Francescantonio Fusco and Rosalia Anzilotta was born in 1872 in Tursi. So then I had to check if Leonardo was born in 1884. And there he was. Leonardo Fusco was born on 21 October 1884, the son of Francesantonio Fusco and Rosalia Anzillotte.
Leonard’s son had his father’s birth date and place wrong. The family had come from Tursi, Matera, Basilicata, Italy.
Another way to find your immigrant ancestor is to look at the immigration and naturalization records.
Angelo Fonzo’s death record, as reported by his wife, says he was born on 18 December 1853 in Benevento, Italy. And of course, his birth record was not found in Benevento, but I often see that our immigrant ancestors did not know their exact birth dates and they often named the largest city (which is usually the name of the province so I’m not sure which they intended) as their birthplace. For example, Vincenzo Chiariello’s Declaration of Intention says he was born in Naples, Italy and that was repeated on his World War II Draft Registration Card. On the death record, his son reported Vincenzo was born in Acerra, Italy (in the province of Naples) and that is where the birth record was found.
Back to Angelo. He was married to Anna Bosco, and since Italian women did not change their surnames, I was able to find an Anna Bosco, traveling with daughter Concetta Fonzo and son Domenico Fonzo, from San Giorgio, traveling to Niles, Ohio to join her husband, Angelo Fonzo. This matched my Angelo Fonzo so I looked for a San Giorgio in Benevento and found his birth record there.
Notice I once again had to look at other family members to solve the problem. This technique is used often and Elizabeth Shown Mills (a famous contemporary genealogist) calls it the FAN Club (Family, Associates, and Neighbors).
If you haven’t found your immigrant ancestor’s hometown after studying other family members in the area or by searching for immigration and naturalization records, try contacting other researchers. My father knew his grandfather, Charles Murphy (aka Vincenzo Maffeo), was from Italy. Family legend had it that he’d changed his name to sound Irish to get a job working on the railroad.
Dad had developed a large network of family members who were also working on genealogy and one of his cousins suggested he talk to another researcher she had found. That researcher did not know about Charles, but he was related to Pietro Augustino Maffeo who was from Candida, Avellino, Campania, Italy whose parents were Feliciano Maffeo and Clementina Romano. Charles’ death record stated his parents were Philigiano Maffeo and Clementina Romano and he was born about 1860 (the U.S. census records put his birth around 1861). A birth record was found in Candida for a Vincenzo Maffeo the son of Feliciano Maffeo and Clementina Romano born on 12 November 1861. Other information supported the conclusion that Charles and Pietro were brothers.
Again, FAN (Family, Associates, and Neighbors) led to the hometown.
The final technique I call the Sledge Hammer. I don’t recommend it. It is a long shot, but I’ve had success with it. You search in communities where your ancestors might have come from and hope you get lucky and find them.
For example, I had a client who needed to find her ancestor’s birth record for Dual Citizenship. She knew the parents were married in Town A, the second son was born in Town B, and the rest of the children were born in Town C, but where was the first son born? He wasn’t found in A, B or C. So I looked at the towns between A and B and eventually found him in the third or fourth town I tried. This was possible because I knew about what year he was born and who his parents were. Otherwise, with the Italians using the same names over and over, I wouldn’t be sure I’d found the right person.
On my current project, Orson Bellamy was born in Connecticut but then the family was in New York. There are lots of Bellamys in New York so I expected Orson’s father was also from New York. But when I checked to see if there were any Bellamys in Connecticut, I found a whole bunch in Litchfield County including an Orson Bellamy who could possibly be my Orson’s father giving me a good place to start the hunt.
Finally, I’ve also used Surname Maps to narrow down the location of where my ancestor might have come from. Dattero is a fairly rare name and with the majority in Campania, specifically in Naples with almost the same number in Salerno, I’ve narrowed my search from the whole country to two towns.
My husband asked me to research his best friend’s genealogy. Giovanni Andrea Fusco was a blacksmith in Tursi, Italy, and decided to immigrate to the iron-working town of Niles, Ohio. He was followed by two of his brothers and a cousin, and as was typical of the Italian immigrants, the families stayed close together and intermarried.
See my report at Substack by clicking on the button.
It appears a struggling family gave away their daughter somewhere between 1865 and 1870.
Photo CCO Public Domain
I had a client who felt I was an idiot and not qualified to be a genealogist because the records I found did not agree with her DNA results. What she meant was my findings did not agree with how she thought she fit into the Ancestry trees of her DNA matches.
DNA is great for proving a blood relationship and I’ve had fun reaching out to cousins I didn’t know and sharing photos and stories, but DNA results don’t equal a family tree.
For example, in my DNA results, I have a C.M. who is a “Close Family -1st Cousin.” My parents are only children so I cannot have a 1st cousin. However, the DNA does not lie. Did one of my parents have a sibling they didn’t know about? I reached out to C.M. and she told me she was the child of my biological father. I was not surprised since the affair was a factor in my parent’s divorce, and I knew I had a half-sibling.
C.M. knew her biological father was David M. and his mother was Barbara M. living on Long Island, New York.
Unbelievably, there were two Barbara M.s living in the right place at the right time and C.M. picked the wrong one. Her Ancestry tree had the right name, Barbara M., but the wrong husband, the wrong parents, etc. I knew both Barbara M. and her mother. I had visited with them often, heard the family stories, and inherited the family documents. I am confident I have the correct Barbara M. in my Ancestry tree and I have the sources to support that conclusion.
So the DNA is correct, C.M. and I are close blood relations, but we don’t have DNA tests for David M. or the two Barbara M.s and we have to turn to the documentation to prove the relationships. The results are only as good as the research.
This is why I told my client to request a Stato di Famiglia from the town, which would either confirm my findings or prove I am an idiot.
As they are expecting more requests than normal during RootsTech (February 28 through March 1, 2024), FamilySearch is recruiting volunteer consultants. I’ve signed up for the late-night shift. If you’re one of those researchers who sits down and gets into the groove late at night, I’ll have slots available from about midnight to 2 a.m. Eastern if you need some advice.
The consultations are 20 minutes so submit a detailed description of your request because those 20 minutes go by very quickly. (I did a consultation to see what it was like. Margaret did a lot of prep work and gave me some good ideas to solve my problem of determining if there were three Jonathan Cones or if some of them were the same man. There wasn’t any time for discussion, Margaret quickly gave me her suggestions while I frantically took notes before giving up and asking if she could send me an email with all her recommendations which she was happy to do.)
FamilySearch does the free consultations year-round, not just during RootsTech.
As you can see from Vincenzo Chiariello’s Declaration of Intention, he was born in Naples, Italy. Except he wasn’t. The hardest part of researching our Italian ancestors is finding where they came from. The second part is finding the records. In this case, I was fortunate since researching in Naples is exceptionally difficult and I leave that to those who are experts in that area.
Vincenzo’s death record was filled out by his son who knew that his father was born in Acerra, Italy, the son of Samuel Chiariello and Josephine Carrera. And thus my journey began. There are lots of Acerra records online and everyone in Acerra is pretty much related to everyone in Acerra by marriage.
To me, family history is not a tree but a giant puzzle that I keep adding pieces to. I laugh when I’m asked how we are related and the answer is the 4th cousin of the 2nd wife of the 3rd cousin of the wife of the uncle of my husband’s 4th cousin three times removed. Or something like that.
I love genealogy and I just can’t stop.
My family history for the most part was just a bunch of names and dates. I knew nothing about these people but as I watched Genealogy Road Show, I loved how they told the story of the area and time which brought the ancestors to life.
So I was hunting for a photo of the Petty homestead for the Lacoe Family Reunion. I knew it was in Milwaukee, Pennsylvania so I started Googling. First I learned Milwaukee is an unincorporated community and is part of Ransom. Then I learned Ransom is too small for its own library so I moved on to the next town over where a bunch of my relatives lived – Newton. But all I was finding was a library in West Newton. As I scrolled down, at the bottom of the first page of results there was a link to the History and Directory of Newton and Ransom Townships, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, and since the book was out of copyright, it was available online in full.
Not only did I find a photo of the farm, but I found a map of Ransom which showed where everyone lived. And I recognized the names since the families intermarried.
I also learned more than just names and dates for my great great-great-grandfather. Page 244: “First house built about 1840 by Barney Dersheimer. During the summer of 1908 Mr Petty [Milton W. Petty] tore down most of the old house and built the present home, containing ten large rooms. 90a, 2c, 3h, 2 hogs.” Page 212: “Mr. Petty is one of the largest truck and fruit growers in Ransom and Newton townships, and about the first to produce berries this side of the mountain. About 1880 he started with raspberries, and a few years later produced over four hundred bushels of strawberries in a season. He has a vineyard of about three hundred fine grape vines and over one hundred and fifty pear and plum trees.”
So I got lucky. But if my family had not been named in the book, I knew Peter Petty arrived after his son was born in 1859. The land was very fertile and “climate is well adapted to the apple, pear, plum, cherry and grape. While in some localities, peaches in the perfection of flavor are raised successfully. The strawberry, blackberry and raspberry grow spontaneous, and when cultivated the yield is very abundant and of the highest quality of fruit.” And the sulky plow was making it possible for a man to easily plow a rocky field. In 1912, when the book was written, Milwaukie [earlier spelling] had about 20 families “but counting every person living within Milwaukie School District the population is about 175. The inhabitants are thrifty and industrious, nearly all owning their homes….Unlike many other towns, Milwaukie is quite free from the spirit of gossiping, and as a rule, everyone attends to his own business…” In 1859 the Methodist church was built.
By learning about the community, I also learn where to find the records. Lackawanna County was not formed until 1878 meaning Peter Petty was living in Luzerne before that. Before moving to Milwaukee, Pennsylvania, Peter Petty lived in Wilkes-Barr and Pittston and records show up citing Wyoming which is confusing because there is a Wyoming borough that is part of Pittston, a Wyoming County, and a Wyoming Valley. Peter is in the geographical area called the Wyoming Valley.
Pioneer Cabin, Campton Station, Grafton, New Hampshire built around 1775. Twenty-four photos, including photos of the interior, are available for viewing at the Library of Congress website.
A family history written in 1963 asserted that Hobart Spencer was married three times, and the third wife was Betsey Hazen. But with today’s access to digitalized documents, specifically town records and deeds, it was found that Hobart had a son named Hobart who lived to adulthood. The deeds further proved that Hobart Sr. was most likely married to Martha Farmer when he died and thus could not have married a third time.
Click the button to read the case study at Substack.