How One Man's In-Laws Led to My Own Birth

It began with a 1900 ship manifest showing my relative, Giuseppe Caruso, on line one. I found this record very early in my family history research.

My second great uncle and another man had the same brother-in-law. Hmmm.

Giuseppe was my great grandmother's brother. I was looking for evidence that would lead to her ship manifest. This was a solid lead. It confirmed two facts: Giuseppe came from the town of Pescolamazza, Italy, and he was going to Elmira, New York. Those facts we enough to make me feel I had the right Giuseppe Caruso.

Before I filed the document away, I noticed the passenger on line two. Nicola Capozza was also from Pescolamazza. He was also going to Elmira, New York. But here's the curious part. Both Giuseppe and Nicola said they were joining their brother-in-law Michele Castelluzzo.

That's intriguing. I didn't know who Nicola Capozza was, but he and my great grandmother's brother shared a brother-in-law.

Skip ahead several years. I ordered the marriage certificate for my great grandparents from the state of Ohio. At that point I didn't know the maiden name of Maria Rosa's mother. This marriage certificate could be just what I needed!

What could I learn from the witnesses to my great grandparents' marriage?

If you've been dabbling in genealogy a while, you know how often the clue you need the most is the one that's missing. That's the case with this marriage certificate.

My great grandfather's parents' names are there. But I knew their names already. For the parents of the bride, it says "Francesco de Benevento" for her father. Well, her name is Caruso, and they were from the province of Benevento, so someone mistakenly wrote "Francesco from Benevento". No harm done. It's her mother's name that's the problem. All it says is Maria Luigia. No last name!

Still fuming, I turned my attention to the back of the marriage certificate. The witnesses to my great grandparents' wedding were Nicola Cappocci and Nicoletta Cappocci. I figured they were a married couple who knew my family. I wanted to know more about them.

There was a chance Cappocci was a misspelling since these were not signatures. Several wild-card searches later, I determined Nicola Cappocci was Nicola Capozza who shared a brother-in-law with my second great uncle, Giuseppe Caruso.

I found Nicola and his wife Nicoletta in the 1905 New York census. They were living with Giuseppe Caruso and his family. Then I found a 1909 ship manifest with Nicola coming to Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Giuseppe Caruso lived there at the time. But Nicola's wife Nicoletta was back in Pescolamazza.

Next I found Pescolamazza birth records for Nicola Capozza and Nicoletta Martino on the Antenati website. But I hadn't tied Nicola and Giuseppe to that shared that brother-in-law.

The connection—not surprisingly—came from all the intermarrying of families in small Italian towns in the those times.

Capozza was the key.

That the Capozza siblings' mother was also a Caruso is making my head spin.

Nicola Capozza's sister Marianna married my Giuseppe Caruso. So Nicola and Giuseppe, travelling together in 1900, were brothers-in-law. There were eight Capozza siblings. One of the girls, Caterina Capozza, married—wait for it—Michele Castelluzzo.

Michele came to America around 1891 and lived in Elmira, New York. There was plenty of railroad work, so Michele sent for his brothers-in-law. His wife's brother Nicola came to work. His wife's sister Marianna's husband Giuseppe Caruso came to work.

Giuseppe Caruso brought over most of his siblings. It's a safe bet that Giuseppe met my great grandfather, Pasquale Iamarino, working there in the Elmira railyard. He liked Pasquale enough to suggest that he marry Maria Rosa Caruso, who was still in Italy.

In July 1906 Maria Rosa came to join her brother in Elmira. Four months later, she married Pasquale Iamarino.

Every piece of evidence adds to the rich tapestry of our ancestors' lives. When I first saw that name of the shared brother-in-law, I didn't know he was significant. But if Michele Castelluzzo hadn't gone to work for the railroad in Elmira, New York, my great grandparents would never have married.

In fact, if Giuseppe Caruso hadn't married a Capozza, the Caruso family and the Iamarino family may never have met.

You have to marvel at how much luck and happenstance it take for you to be born.

You may also enjoy:

• 6 Places to Find Your Ancestor's Maiden Name
• Finding the Siblings Your Ancestor Never Mentioned
• Here's Why Genealogists Love Immigrants

Grandpa's Journeys Shed Light On My Own

My grandpa, Pietro Iamarino, in New Brunswick, NJ.

My Grandpa lived in the same house from the time I was born until two years before he died. Whenever my family was in the Bronx, we stopped in to visit him. All those weekend visits to the orthodontist when I was a kid with braces, my dad and I would stop in to visit Grandpa. Years later when I was grown, I made the trip from New Jersey to visit Grandpa.

He was always there.

Yet Grandpa had been so many places. In 1920, at age 18, he left home in Italy to come to America. After Ellis Island, he went north to a Boston suburb. There he joined his mother's brother, Antonio Pilla.

Grandpa was quick to declare he was staying in America.

A short time later, Grandpa was in western Pennsylvania working as a laborer. There, in 1924, he filed his Declaration of Intention to become a citizen of the United States of America. He was still in Pennsylvania three years later when he became a citizen.

Now an American citizen, Grandpa didn't seem to have a steady job or profession. His next move, I think, was his family's suggestion. Grandpa moved to Ohio.

Within eight months of becoming a citizen in Pennsylvania, my grandfather, Pietro Iamarino:

• had taken a job as a laborer in the Carnegie Steel Mill in Youngstown, Ohio
• was a boarder in the home of Pasquale Iamarino (his father's second cousin)
• married his landlord's daughter, and his third cousin, Lucy Iamarino.

But Grandpa wasn't finished with his travels. After the steel mill he worked for the railroad along with Pasquale Iamarino. He famously said his railroad job "stinks on the ice," so he packed up his wife and two kids. They moved to the Bronx, New York, and lived for a time with Grandpa's uncle Giuseppe. Grandpa became a jeweler—a much cleaner job than working in a mill or a railyard.

He continued his nice, clean jeweler's job in the Bronx for almost 15 years. But he wasn't finished moving. My grandmother became ill and wanted to move back to Ohio near her parents. So that's where they went. On her deathbed in 1954, my grandmother told my dad to go back to the Bronx and marry his childhood sweetheart—my mom.

By 1955, my parents had married and had a child. They invited Grandpa to live on the first floor of their townhouse in the Bronx. Yup. He was back in the Bronx.

In 1959 Grandpa remarried and bought the house where I would visit him for the rest of his life.

I wanted to map out Grandpa's travels from Italy to New York to Pennsylvania to Ohio to New York to Ohio to New York for one reason.

My Southern Italian grandfather did NOT take a ship from Naples to New York like all my other relatives. That would have been too direct for him.

Grandpa sailed from where?!?!?

When I began my genealogy research in 2003, the first document I found was Grandpa's ship manifest. I didn't understand why, but his manifest didn't say "sailing from Napoli". It said "sailing from Cherbourg". That's in France. Northern France.

Cherbourg is a 24-hour car ride from Grandpa's hometown of Colle Sannita, Italy. And you know 18-year-old Grandpa didn't take a car that distance in 1920. I imagine he traveled for weeks to get to northern France. And then he spent 12 days on the Atlantic Ocean.

I have no documentation of that part of Grandpa's journey. He never spoke about his early life.

Judging by the rest of his travels, I'd like to think he acted like a student backpacking his way through Europe. He traveled for a while, stopped to do some odd jobs for money, and continued his way north.

Oh, he did make one other journey. In 1958, before he remarried, he made a trip back home for the first time since 1920. His father Francesco had traveled back and forth from Italy to America five times! He had visited Grandpa in Ohio in 1929. But Francesco died in 1951.

Grandpa did get to see his mother one last time during that visit to Italy. Imagine that? He left home as an 18-year-old boy and didn't see his mamma again until he was a 56-year-old man.

Aha! Now it seems like fate that I've lived in New York, California, New York, Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. I am, after all, an Iamarino.

You may also enjoy:

• Where Did Grandpa Come From?
• Case Study on 'Where Did Grandpa Come From?'
• Before Grandpa Came Here, How Did He Get There?

Imagining the Journey of Our First Immigrant Ancestors

These windows at Ellis Island
have a view of the Statue of Liberty.

When I visited Ellis Island a year ago, I felt chills. It was emotional to think my ancestors had stood on the very same spot long before me.

The first ship manifests I downloaded years ago fascinated me. Sure, they give us important facts about our ancestors. But they can paint a little picture of the voyage.

Sometimes a group of travelers from one town made that ocean voyage together. The group may include entire families or a few brothers and cousins. Other times it seems as if all the young men in town made the decision to find their fortunes together. Often you'll see a woman making the journey with her young children to join her husband who went before them.

These five young men came to New York together from a small Italian town. I'm related to at least three of them.

Most of my ancestors spent three weeks in steerage sailing from Naples, Italy, to New York. The 2015 movie "Brooklyn" gives you an idea what that difficult trip may have been like. But "Brooklyn" takes place in the 1950s. I suspect her seasick journey was a lot nicer than my ancestors' voyages between 1890 and 1920.

One reason I'm American.

When I've flown to Europe or California, I arrived looking like death warmed over. But here's the worst possible scenario. My great grandmother, Maria Rosa Saviano, was five months pregnant with my grandmother when she boarded the S.S. Karamania in 1899.

Think about that. Three weeks in crowded, foul-smelling, uncomfortable conditions. At least some amount of rough seas. No room to move and very little fresh air. And you're five months pregnant!

That was one tough lady.

The museum at Ellis Island lets you walk where your ancestors walked. It shows you what the inspection process was like for them.

Were any of your ancestors detained at Ellis Island? Were they sick and quarantined? Women and children were sometimes held until a male relative arrived to take them on their way.

For an excellent description of the entire immigrant journey—from hometown to port to voyage to Ellis Island and on to their final destination—read "The Immigrant Journey" on OhRanger.com.

What sacrifices did your immigrant ancestors make? Don't take their strength and courage for granted.

And speaking of immigration:

• Here's Why Genealogists Love Immigrants
• 6 Key Genealogy Facts on a Ship Manifest
• Searching for the Missing Link in Your Family Tree

Answers Lead to More Questions About My First Immigrant Ancestor

Growing up, the family members I knew and saw on holidays were almost entirely the descendants of one man: Antonio Luigi Saviano.

Most of us didn't know his name. He was the father of our grandparent or great grandparent.

But four years ago my mother pulled out a photo of Antonio lying in his coffin. He died in the Bronx, New York, several years before she was born.

Was my first immigrant ancestor a shrewd businessman?

I'd been researching my family tree for about 10 years at that point. The branch of the family where I'd made the least progress was Antonio's branch—the very branch I'd known my whole life.

This year I went on a quest to find out where Antonio and his wife Colomba Consolazio came from. Here's what I knew already:

• According to his World War II draft registration card, their son Semplicio was born in Tufo, Avellino, Italy.
• I had looked at microfilm of vital records from Tufo. I found Semplicio's birth and the earlier birth of a son—Raffaele Vitantonio Saviano. I knew this baby did not survive because it was a younger Raffaele who came to America in later years.
• Antonio and Colomba moved less than 10 miles from Tufo, Avellino, to Pastene. Pastene is a small section of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo in the neighboring province of Benevento. They had 3 children there: my great grandmother Maria Rosa, Raffaele, and Filomena.
• It was in Pastene that Maria Rosa met and married my great grandfather, Giovanni Sarracino. They had their first child there, but he did not survive.
• Antonio began travelling to America in 1890, three years after the birth of his youngest child. He was my first ancestor in any branch to do so.
• He was 47 years old at the time. That's a bit on the old side for the first of his three cross-Atlantic trips.
• He brought his son Semplicio to America and left him there. Then in May of 1898, Antonio returned to the Bronx with his wife and his children Raffaele and Filomena.
• The family left for America one month after the marriage of my great grandparents. That means my great grandmother did not have her family there to support her when she gave birth to her son Carmine in December 1898. And she didn't have their support when Carmine died a short time after.

Let's stop there for a moment. Something strikes me about my great grandparents and their ill-fated baby boy, Carmine.

Maybe my great grandparents never planned to come to America. Baby Carmine was born just shy of eight months after their wedding. There was nothing stopping them from coming to America with the rest of the family.

Maybe it was only the shock of Carmine's death, and his possibly premature birth, that drove the couple to leave their home.

Maybe if Carmine had lived, I would be an Italian national.

That aside, let's look at what I learned about my great grandparents Antonio Saviano and Colomba Consolazio this year.

Working backwards from the Tufo births of their children Semplicio and the first Raffaele, I discovered that Colomba had two brothers living near her in Tufo. I found the marriage record for one brother.

His place of birth, and the town where his parents still lived, was not Tufo. It was the neighboring town of Santa Paolina.

My next step was to view microfilm of the vital records from Santa Paolina. Sure enough, I discovered that Antonio and Colomba were married there. They had a baby girl before Raffaele and Semplicio named Maria Grazia. She died after four days.

Colomba was born in Santa Paolina, but her real name was Vittoria Colomba. I learned her parents' names and her grandparents' names.

And on their marriage documents I learned the origin of my great great grandfather, Antonio Saviano. He was not born in Santa Paolina where he married and began his family.

He was not born in Tufo where he moved and had more children.

He was born in Pastene! The very town to which he returned, had more children, and from which he left for America.

Antonio Saviano, my first ancestor to come to America, travelled in lots of circles. He went from Pastene to Santa Paolina to Tufo to Pastene, completing a very small circle. He went to America and back to Pastene three times. Finally, he brought his family to America and settled down…age of 55!

Antonio lived to be 82 years old. He outlived his wife Colomba by five years, but he died surrounded by this four surviving chlidren.

I learned that he was:

• a shoemaker (calzolaio) in his youth
• a dealer or merchant (commerciante) shortly before his first documented trip to America
• a day laborer two years after settling in America, and
• had his "own income" by the time of the 1910 census.

Was Antonio an independent businessman? Are his accomplishments the reason his son Semplicio and my great grandfather Giovanni Sarracino became the owners of apartment buildings and agents for a local brewery?

Was Antonio a wheeler and dealer? What was the source of his "own income"? It may be nothing, but his cause of death was a toxic infection of the kidneys and the heart's inner lining. Were these infections related to the Bronx's underground beer cellars of the time, owned by the breweries with which his son and son-in-law did business?

I've often wondered if my family owned those particular apartment buildings because of their access to the beer cellars. This would make them good partners for the breweries.

The discovery of Antonio Saviano's origin and travels shed a lot of light on him. But now I find I have a ton more questions.

I think it's time for some Bronx brewery history lessons!

And speaking of what documents can tell us:

• Why You Should Track Down the Extra Cousin
• My 5th Great Grandfather: A Random Act of Kindness?
• Married Thanks To Royal Decree

Solving a Family History Mystery with an Unexpected Clue

The witnesses to this marriage were a key to a puzzle.

Sometimes it really pays to research your ancestors' friends and neighbors.

Case in point: The witnesses to my great grandparents' wedding unlocked a mystery that had me stumped for years.

Three years ago I received my great grandparents' 1906 marriage certificate from the New York State Department of Health. On the back, the two witnesses' names appear to be Nicola Cappocci and Nicolella Cappocci.

I started to wonder who they were. I did a bit of searching for them, but I had no luck.

Then I happened to be looking at my 2nd great uncle, Giuseppe Caruso. He was the brother of the bride in that 1906 wedding. He was the first member of that Caruso family to come to America and pave the way for his siblings.

Brother-in-law Michele Castelluzzo, and ditto.

Giuseppe Caruso arrived in New York City on March 23, 1900. His ship manifest showed that he was with his brother-in-law, Nicola Capozza. The two men were travelling to Elmira, New York, to join their mutual brother-in-law, Michele Castelluzzo.

I didn't know how to work Nicola Capozza and Michele Castelluzzo into my family tree. I didn't have enough information to be sure of their exact relationship to my Caruso family.

But now I had that marriage certificate. The light bulb was going off above my head.

Was Nicola Capozza the same man as the witness, Nicola Cappocci?

How could I tie Giuseppe Caruso to Nicola Capozza/Cappocci?

Giuseppe's wife was named Marianna, but I didn't know her maiden name. I had found her only on census forms.

I formed a hypothesis that Marianna might be Marianna Capozza, brother of Nicola Capozza from the March 1900 ship manifest. That would make Nicola and Giuseppe brothers-in-law.

To test my hypothesis, I searched for a ship manifest with the name Marianna Capozza.

I found her on a ship, landing at the port of New York, on March 18, 1901 as Maria Anna Capozza. She was with her father Francesco, coming to join Francesco's son and Maria Anna's brother Nicola Capozza on Canal Street in Elmira, New York.

Planning to be with them, but crossed off the ship manifest, was Nicoletta Martino. She was the wife of Nicola Capozza on Canal Street in Elmira, New York.

Nicoletta Martino was the other witness to my great grandparents' wedding. Now I knew that her husband, Nicola Capozza, was the brother-in-law of the 1906 bride's brother, Giuseppe Caruso.

Now I had solved one mystery. I knew exactly who Nicola and Nicoletta—the witnesses to my great grandparents' wedding—were.

But what about Michele Castelluzzo? He was the man mentioned on the ship manifest as a brother-in-law to both Giuseppe Caruso and Nicola Capozza.

I took a closer look at my documents for Giuseppe Caruso.

In his 1905 New York State Census, I found three families living beside one another in Cameron, New York, near Elmira:

• Giuseppe Caruso and his wife Marianna (Capozza)
• Nicola Capozza and his wife Nicoletta (Martino)
• Michele Castelluzzo and his wife Caterina

Caterina proved to be the connection. She was Caterina Capozza, the sister of Nicola and Maria Anna. That makes Michele Castelluzzo the brother-in-law of both Nicola Capozza and Giuseppe Caruso.

It's exactly what the 1900 ship manifest said.

I had that 1900 ship manifest for seven years before I could connect Nicola and Michele to my 2nd great uncle Giuseppe Caruso.

It was the witnesses to my great grandparents wedding who held the key.

Which answers are hiding in plain sight on your ancestors' documents?

You may also enjoy:

• Dealing With Human Error on Genealogical Documents
• Finding a Genealogy Victory in Defeat
• How to Use the Free Online Irish Census

Delving Deep into Your Genealogy with DNA

All my life I've called myself a purebred because my heritage is only Italian.

I'm Italian alright.

I grew up with friends who were German-Irish-Italian or English-Irish or Polish-Italian. But I was all Italian. And that's totally true if you look back only several hundred years.

To prove that point, my family tree—excluding my many in-law tangents—has only Italian names.

DNA makes our ancestry research an entirely new ball game. What's imprinted on our chromosomes dates back to the origins of man. We can trace our ethnic makeup back thousands of years with an inexpensive DNA test.

All the corners of the earth were not populated on Day One. Those who became native Italians had to come from somewhere else.

Testing both of my parents helps me see which one contributed what to my DNA makeup. Here are the specifics. If you test any set of parents and their child, you can do a similar comparison.

Side-by-side comparison of Dad, me, Mom.

• My ethnicity estimate includes 13% West Asian split between the Caucasus and the Middle East. It also includes 10% European Jewish. The rest is almost entirely Italian, or technically "Italy/Greece".
• My dad's ethnicity estimate has less West Asian than I do and more European Jewish than I do.
• My mom's ethnicity estimate has much more West Asian than I do and a lot less European Jewish than I do.

Since my dad's West Asian parts are classified as a "Low Confidence Region", I'm statistically more likely to have gotten those parts from my mom. And since his European Jewish parts are three times higher than my mom's, I'm statistically more likely to have gotten those parts from him.

The part that tickles me the most is that I have a higher percentage of Italy/Greece than either of my parents! That's one of the fascinating things about DNA. You inherit a completely random 50% of your DNA from each parent.

Since I didn't inherit all of their smaller-percentage ethnicities, I am more Italian than they are.

Now take a look at my husband's DNA. One of us is truly a purebred, and it most certainly is not me.

Another website goes further than Ancestry. My husband is 100% Japanese.

You may also enjoy these DNA/migration-related articles:

• Making Sense of Your DNA Results
• Before Grandpa Came Here, How Did He Get There?
• Why Did They Come To America?

How to Use the Free Online Irish Census

Americans are—in this order—German, Black, Irish, Mexican, English, Italian, Polish, French…. The list goes on and on.

The 1901 and 1911 Ireland census is searchable for free online.

In 2013 many articles were written about facts learned from the 2010 United States Census. Britain's The Daily Mail states that people of Irish descent are about 12% of the population in the USA. They number more than 35 million and are the third largest ethnic group in the country.

Simple search form

I can't seem to find any in my family tree! But recently I was doing some research for a close friend of full Irish descent. I found a very helpful website from the National Archives of Ireland.

Before I explain everything they make available, let's look at how to search the 1901 and 1911 Irish census.

In the short search form, choose either the 1901 or 1911 census and enter what you know. Last name, first name, county, age and sex. Then click the search button.

On the results page, check the box that says "Show all information". This will give you lots of details about each result and help you find the best choices. In this example, I can rule out the two Patrick Cunninghams who are single because I know my Patrick was married.

Show all information to help you find the right family.

For each of the married Patricks, I can click their name to see a list of every member of the household. From this screen I can tell I'm looking at the right family. My friend had told me Patrick's wife's name and a few of their children's names.

Now that I'm confident this is the right family, I can click any of the links below the words "View census images". What I want the most is Household Return (Form A) and the Additional Pages.

Ready to download the census! You can see the census sheet at the top of this page.

These links download a PDF file containing an image of the census. Now I can see for myself every recorded detail. These facts helped me go back and find the same family in the 1901 census.

The National Archives of Ireland website also includes fragments for these census years:

• 1821
• 1831
• 1841
• 1851

You can click to drill down by county, parish, townlands/streets, and then see a list of households to view. See the website's description of what is in these collections.

The Early 20th century Ireland page provides interesting glimpses into life at the time. It includes a wonderful collection of photos you'll want to see.

For more help with your Irish ancestors, see the Archives' list of genealogy websites available.

You may also enjoy:

• Run This Genealogy Report To Help Clean Up Your Dates
• Simplify Your Genealogy Info Gathering With This Form
• How to Find State-Specific Death Indexes and Records

Here's Why Genealogists Love Immigrants

ID photo from a Petition for Naturalization

Last year my cousins' father passed away and I found his obituary. The man we called Doc is someone I've known since I was a little girl. But I didn't know anything about his family.

Genealogists know how to pull tons of facts from a well-written obituary. I documented Doc's family names and relationships in my family tree software.

Using these new pieces of information, I searched for his father Mario's arrival in the United States from Italy.

Mario's naturalization documents are among the richest I've found. Let's go through them to see how much you can learn about an immigrant ancestor through their naturalization papers.

Certificate of Arrival

When an immigrant wanted to become a citizen in the early 1900s, they provided information about their arrival into the U.S.:

Certificate of Arrival

• date of arrival
• port of entry
• name of ship

That's a boon to your family tree research right there. In Mario's case, the documents include a Certificate of Arrival that verifies these facts.

This certificate gives you, the family tree researcher, exactly the information you need to find Mario's ship manifest. There you can gather information that may include his father or mother's name and his town of origin.

Declaration of Intention

This form has so many vital facts packed into a small area. In Mario's case, we learn his:

• address
• occupation and age
• physical description
• town of birth
• birth date
• wife's name and date and place of birth
• wedding date
• children's names and birth dates

Mario's arrival information, confirmed on the Certificate of Arrival, is repeated here. Plus we see his signature and photograph.

Petition for Naturalization

Enough data to make a genealogist weep.

After filing a Declaration of Intention and going through the process, the immigrant completes another form. Mario's Petition for Naturalization repeats and supports the facts on his Declaration of Intention.

So if you are able to find one, but not both of these detailed forms for your ancestor, you've still found a genealogical treasure.

If your ancestor had a spouse and children at the time of their declaration and petition, you now have an official source of their vital information.

Mario's paperwork provided me with Doc's real name and birth date, as well as those of his brothers, whom I didn't know. With these facts I can fan out my search for census forms, Social Security Death Indexes, and other records of this family.

Perhaps most excitingly, I can search for documents from Mario's hometown in Italy and try to extend his family history there.

Naturalization records are available through the U.S. Naturalization and Records Administration (searchable online), Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.

The sheer density of critical vital information makes genealogists absolutely adore our immigrant ancestors.

And speaking of immigration:

• 6 Key Genealogy Facts on a Ship Manifest
• Why Did They Come To America?
• What To Do When Your Last Name Is So Common

How to Use a Paper Trail to Recreate Your Ancestor's Life

I *might* remember a long drive from New York to Ohio to visit my great grandparents when I was 5 years old. I *might* have a single image in my mind of great grandma's kitchen. But that's it.

Before I began researching my family tree, I knew next-to-nothing about my great grandfather Pasquale Iamarino—or Patsy Marino, as he was known. He lived in Ohio and worked for the railroad. Nothing more.

Genealogists enjoy piecing together our ancestors' paper trails and mapping out their locations. If we're lucky, we can wind up with enough facts to bring our ancestors back to life in a way.

Italian church records from the 1880s told me that Patsy and my other paternal great grandfather were 2nd cousins. A ship manifest told me that Patsy came to America at age 20, heading first to his uncle in New York City.

Four years later, in 1906, he was working for the Erie Railroad in Steuben County, New York. In the rail yard he must have met the Caruso brothers who came from a neighboring town in Italy.

By late 1906 he married the only sister in the Caruso family, in Hornellsville, New York. Hornellsville was a boom town at that time, achieving city status that year, thanks to the railroad.

When my grandmother Lucy was born in 1908, Patsy and his little family lived at 95 Front Street—a short walk from the railroad station. (I paced up and down in front of that house on a visit in 2015.)

I stood beside this rail yard in Hornell, New York, in 2015, imagining my great grandfather's life.

Between 1910 and 1914 Patsy moved to Albany and continued working as a railroad laborer.

Then, suddenly, in 1918 Patsy was in Youngstown, Ohio, and registered for the draft. Did he move to keep his job?

He was a boilermaker for the Erie Railroad, working in the railroad roundhouse, according to the 1920 and 1930 census.

City directories show him on Dearborn Street in Girard, Ohio in the early 1930s. This is the house I feel as if I remember.

By 1940, at the age of 58, Patsy retired. I'm closing in on 58 and wish I could retire! But my dad recently told me that Patsy had to retire because of lung issues. Did all those years cleaning out coal-burning engines give him something like black lung disease?

My great grandparents, before I was born.

According to the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, "Railroad Boilermakers service and repair locomotives, and manufacture parts, including hundreds of items used every day in the railroad industry. They also perform welding on tracks and general maintenance work."

With today's worker safety rules, a boilermaker probably isn't at any risk of lung disease. But something incapacitated Patsy in his fifties. He lived to be 87 years old, enjoying free rail travel.

During his long retirement, Patsy enjoyed tending to his garden and his roses at the house on Dearborn Street. I wish I could remember him.

6 Key Genealogy Facts on a Ship Manifest

I'm so lucky. All of my ancestors who emigrated sailed from Naples to New York between 1890 and 1920. The only document collection I need is "New York Passenger Lists". And every one of my people went through Ellis Island.

Ellis Island, December 2017

The ship manifest—the list of passengers on a particular ship for a particular journey—can tell you your ancestor's hometown. That alone is a significant boon to your genealogy research. It can lead you to their foreign vital records.

I'm more excited to find an ancestor who arrived in the U.S. in 1909 or later because there is likely to be a two-page manifest listing extra information.

The most treasured two-page ship manifests can provide your ancestor's:

Manifest Page 1

Not a nuclear family, but 4 out of 5
of these men are mine!

• Ship name (you can look for a photo of the ship)
• Departure date and port city
• Last name—a maiden name for many women
• Given name
• Age
• Gender
• Marital status
• Occupation
• Ability to read and write
• Nationality
• Race or people (e.g., Italian)
• Last residence (country and town)
• Name and location of nearest relative left behind
• Destination state and town

Manifest Page 2

And they were all going to the same place!

• Arrival date and port city
• Whether they have a ticket to their final destination
• Who paid for their passage
• How much money they are carrying
• If and when/where they were in the U.S. before
• Person they are joining here, often including the name and address of a relative
• Place of birth (country and town)
• A bunch of sure-fire extreme vetting questions, including (these are reworded):
  
  • Are-you-a-deadbeat type questions, such as were you in prison, an almshouse, or supported by charity?
  • Are you a polygamist?
  • Are you an anarchist?
  • Are you coming here because of a job offer?
  • Condition of mental and physical health
  • Are you deformed or crippled?
  • Height, complexion, hair and eye color
  • Identifying marks (including scars)

These are the blanks to be filled in for each person, but there is another set of facts for a genealogist to crave. Family members!

Sometimes you'll find an entire family traveling together. Or you may see a mother and her children, and the manifest will show the name and address of her husband who is already in the United States. Jackpot!

Your ancestor's ship manifest—assuming they did not sail so early that no questions were asked—should be the first thing you search for. You can't go back overseas and get that birth certificate if you don't know your ancestral hometown.

Not sure where to start? Check the census for your ancestor. It may include their immigration year.