Finding the Chain of Immigrants that Led to You

The first time I visited my grandfather's hometown in Italy, I couldn't imagine why he left. Rolling hills surround his beautiful little town, and everyone knows one another. My great grandmother's town is so clean and pretty it practically shines.

How could they leave the serene Italian countryside for bustling American cities? To figure out why my people became immigrants, I had to find out what was happening at home when they left.

People have always left their homelands for the same basic reasons:

• To escape persecution, religious or otherwise.
• To escape extreme poverty, hunger, or famine.
• To escape the brutalization of war and armed aggression.
• To escape disease and a high death rate.

Which ancestor led the way for your family to follow to a better life?

In my family's case, their rural Southern Italian towns were, and still are, left behind. In the early 1900s, local transportation was difficult. This made it hard for people to get the food and other goods they needed. They had to raise their own crops and livestock. There was little to no industrialization in the south, which meant there were no jobs. Everyone was a farmer or practiced a trade. The vast majority of people were illiterate with no access to higher education.

That's why Southern Italians traveled to America in droves. They came to work on the railroads, in the steel mills, in the coal mines, and in the factories. They were hard, dangerous jobs, but at last they could earn money to help support their families.

Using Ship Manifests to Find Your Chain of Immigrants

Who paved the way for your earliest immigrant ancestors? Very early ship manifests won't offer you much information. But if you have anyone who left their home country in the 1890s or later, you're in luck. Your relative's ship manifest should tell you who they're coming to join in the new country. You may even see a street address.

Here's what I've put together by studying ship manifests.

anchor: a person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security

My Iamarino Anchor. My great grandfather, Francesco Iamarino, traveled to New York City a handful of times. He earned money and went back home to Italy. The first ship manifest I find for him is from 1903. He is coming to join his brother Giuseppe Iamarino on Morris Avenue in the Bronx, New York. Also on board with Francesco are Giuseppe's wife and two children.

On a 1909 ship manifest, Francesco is sailing to Boston, but he isn't alone. He's with his brother Teofilo, brother-in-law Innocenzo Pilla, and cousins Giorgio and Antonio Paolucci. All five men were heading to the Bronx to join Giuseppe Iamarino.

In 1920, my grandfather Pietro Iamarino (Francesco's son) had no opportunities at home. His only choice there was to work the land and hope to get by. Instead, Pietro joined his uncle Antonio Pilla in a Boston suburb where he worked for a baker. Then he went to Pennsylvania to join some men from his hometown and work at a steel mill. Then on to Ohio to work in another steel mill and live with a cousin who would become his father-in-law. (Pasquale Iamarino, my great grandfather.) Finally, he took his family to the Bronx to join his uncle Giuseppe Iamarino. That's the same Giuseppe his father had joined at least three times. Pietro worked as a stone setter for a jeweler, finally achieving security for his family.

I've never found a ship manifest for my 2nd great uncle Giuseppe Iamarino. The 1905 New York State Census says he arrived in 1900, but I don't know who was here for him. Giuseppe became an anchor to help his family find a better life in America. My father was about 3 years old when his family moved from Ohio to the Bronx. He says his family lived with Giuseppe until they could get their own apartment nearby.

My Caruso Anchor. My great granduncle Giuseppe Caruso boarded a ship in 1900. He and his brother-in-law set out to join their shared brother-in-law Michele in Elmira, New York. Michele arrived in America in 1894. His ship manifest offers no extra details. That's why I'm so lucky my ancestors arrived as late as they did.

Giuseppe Caruso sent for his wife in 1901, his brother Nicola in 1902, his brothers Filippo and Luigi in 1903, and his sister Maria Rosa (my great grandmother) in 1906. Each person listed Giuseppe as the person they were coming to join.

Four months after Maria Rosa arrived, she married Giuseppe's friend, Pasquale Iamarino (my great grandfather). Part of Giuseppe's work in paving the way for his family was finding a husband for his sister.

Who paved the way for your immigrant ancestors? Did they find a better life? Do you think you could have been born if they hadn't left?

Who Gave Away the Treasure in Your Family Tree?

Is generosity is in your genes? I'm going to ask you to search your family tree for someone who gave all they could to help others. But first, let's look at two of the biggest philanthropists of all time. What life occurrences made these two titans of industry so generous?

philanthropist [ fi-lan-thruh-pist ]: a person, typically a wealthy one, who has an altruistic concern for human welfare and shows it by donating money, property, time, or work to aid people in need or to support institutions that serve the public.

Hopkins' Quaker values made it clear where his vast fortune should go.

Quaker Values

Johns Hopkins was born in 1795 and grew up on a tobacco farm as one of 11 children. (His unusual first name comes from from his great grandmother, Margaret Johns.) His family was not poor, but the farm's income wasn't enough for such a large family. Hopkins left home at age 17 to help his uncle run his business.

After an ethical disagreement about alcohol, Hopkins set out on his own. He became a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and a bank president. He charged higher interest rates to the wealthy and lower interest rates to the poor.

He wasn't an extravagant man. In fact, when he died of pneumonia in 1873, people joked that he'd been too cheap to buy a winter coat. He had devoted himself to using his wealth and position to help others. He never married—and this is the interesting part to genealogists: He fell in love with his first cousin, and of course they weren't allowed to marry. They chose to remain lifelong friends and never marry anyone.

With no wife or children of his own, he began planning for the distribution of his enormous wealth. He laid the groundwork for Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital.

What do you suppose led this successful Quaker to become a philanthropist? I'll bet it was his close friend's influence and an awareness of the suffering in his city of Baltimore.

He was a good friend of George Peabody whom some have called the father of modern philanthropy. Peabody had to be a role model. Hopkins saw the terrible effects of cholera and yellow fever epidemics in Baltimore. This must have had a deep effect on him based on his 1870 will. In it, he left $7 million dollars (about $168 million today) for the hospital and university. He created scholarships for the poor and an orphanage for African American children. If you're wondering about that last part, he was a slave owner during his life. One would like to think he regretted it.

An Avid Reader

Andrew Carnegie, born in Scotland in 1835, earned his massive fortune from scratch. As a boy, he labored in a cotton factory in Pittsburgh. He became a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad at the age of 24. In his 30s, he began investing in other companies. He sold his Carnegie Steel Company in 1901 for $480 million dollars. That's almost $18 billion today.

That's when Carnegie became a philanthropist. He donated $13 billion in today's money so he might, in his words, "promote the welfare and happiness of the common man". The recipients included:

• the New York Public Library
• the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie-Mellon University)
• the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
• the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Carnegie Hall

He once said, "The aim of the millionaire should be, first, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display and extravagances." Yet I can't help but notice the increasing number of servants in his household.

Carnegie knew his fortune was meant to serve his fellow man.

In the 1850 census, Carnegie's father was a weaver while 15-year-old Andrew was a clerk. There were no servants. In the 1860 census, Andrew lived with his mother, brother, and a housemaid. The family was beginning to prosper, despite the loss of his father. Andrew was a railroad superintendent. His 14-year-old brother Thomas was a clerk.

Jump ahead to a posh Manhattan home in the 1905 census and Carnegie has 15 servants. In the 1910 and 1915 censuses, he has 21 servants. It's hard to imagine unless you've watched certain British TV shows.

What do you think led this intelligent, self-made man to become a full-time philanthropist? My money's on his working-class background and his belief in the power of education.

When he was a boy, his family couldn't afford to give him a proper education. But a local man made his own library available to working boys in the area. Carnegie was an avid reader, so he paid it forward by donating many library buildings. He provided teachers' pensions by establishing the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA). He was a strong believer in the powers of education.

When Carnegie died, he left his wife and daughter enough money to live in comfort, but not extravagance. His brother Thomas left his fortune to his 9 children. He didn't have the same struggles as Andrew. Andrew was able to pay for his younger brother's education who then followed in his brother's footsteps.

These were the stories of two self-made men. Some philanthropists who inherited their wealth followed the example of their elders. New York's Rockefeller family is one example. The Rockefeller who made his fortune came from humble beginnings. His opportunity for a good education led to his success. His descendants carry on his philanthropic work, and education is one area of their focus.

I'm not aware of anyone in my close family who made a fortune. But I am proud of my 2nd great grandfather Antonio Saviano. In 1890, he became my first immigrant ancestor at the age of 47. When he died in 1925, a ribbon pinned to his chest commemorated his work with a mutual aid society. This society consisted of Italian immigrants making like easier for new arrivals from the old country. He was a hard-working man who rose above the extreme poverty of his hometown. He wanted to help others do the same.

Who were the most generous people in your family tree? You may never have met them. But I'm sure you can piece together enough of their lives to see where their generous spirit came from. The world is better for having people like this.

Use a Wide Search to Find New Connections

When your family tree is very large, it's hard to know which people need more research. Usually I don't know which Italian nationals in my tree came to America until a descendant writes to me. DNA matches' trees can also show me who left Italy. Waiting to hear from someone or hoping a good match comes along is a poor research strategy.

Today I'm being proactive about finding Italian immigrants. Most of the Italians in my family tree came from a handful of towns, so I can focus on those towns one at a time.

Cast a Wide Net

Start from the right genealogy record collection and keep your search wide open. Then reap your harvest.

You can use your favorite website to do a broad search for immigrants. I'll use Ancestry.com. I'll start my search from the "New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1957" database. In the database's search fields I'll enter one thing only: a town of birth. I'll start with my grandfather's hometown of Colle Sannita.

This wide search for one town gives me 263 search results, and I recognize every last name in the list. I'll start with Giovanni Mascia because seeing his name gave me this idea. In the search results list I see Giovanni Mascia has a birth year of about 1883. When I check my family tree for this name, I find one man born in 1883 and two others born in 1882 and 1884. I'll look at the ship manifest to see if I can be sure which Giovanni Mascia made the journey.

The record page for Giovanni's 1934 ship manifest says his wife is Maria Iamarino. My tree says her name was Annamaria Assunta Iamarino at birth, so Maria is acceptable. It also says his daughter is Angiolina. This makes the 1883 Giovanni Mascia in my family tree a perfect match. He happens to be my 4C3R (fourth cousin three times removed). I know Angiolina was born in Colle Sannita in 1903 because her vital record is online.

The 1934 ship manifest says Giovanni is coming to America to join his daughter Angiolina. She's in Cleveland, Ohio, and his wife is home in Colle Sannita.

With this new information, I can do a search of all records for Giovanni. I find that he also came to America in 1909, and that ship manifest says he first came here in 1907. He naturalized in Cleveland, Ohio. His Declaration of Intention gives me lots of details I couldn't access before:

• He and his wife married in Colle Sannita on 17 Jan 1902.
• His son Bartolomeo, born in Colle Sannita on 7 Feb 1910, died by 16 Nov 1936. That's the date of Giovanni's declaration of intention, and Bartolomeo isn't listed.
• He had four children I didn't know about. They were born in years for which the Colle Sannita birth records aren't online. Now I have their names and birth dates.

Other search results tell me that Giovanni became a U.S. citizen on 20 Dec 1940 and died in Cleveland in 1942. When he filed for citizenship on 6 May 1940, his wife and four of his children were still in Colle Sannita. His son Pietro was in Argentina. I found him in Cleveland in the 1940 census living with his daughter Angiolina and her family. (Angiolina's husband is also from Colle Sannita.)

When I found a link for Giovanni on "Italy, Find a Grave" I saw the photo that I TOOK and uploaded in 2018. He and his wife's memorials are there in a crypt in Colle Sannita. I never would have imagined he'd become a U.S. citizen. Note: "U.S., Find a Grave" says he's buried in Cleveland. An Ohio death records index confirms his death date and place, and gives me a certificate number. Someday I may confirm his place of burial through the death certificate.

Add Wide Searches to Your Research Routine

A wide search brought me full circle, from Grandpa's Italian hometown to Cleveland, Ohio, and back again to a photo I took in 2018.

All this information came from picking a random name from a wide-search results list. These are all facts I would never have learned if not for that search.

I can imagine using this technique and choosing one person a day to research. For a year now, I've been adding the tens of thousands of missing source citations to my family tree. With more than 82,000 people in my family tree, most plucked from Italian vital records, I still have a long way to go.

Now, anytime I start to feel as if I'm stuck in a rut, I can toss in a wide search. I can gather details about someone I didn't know had come to America. And if they settled here, I can bring their family forward in time.

That new research may connect me to a distant cousin who happens to find their people in my family tree. And that's what all this hard work is all about.