Your Immigrant Ancestor's Ship Has a Story to Tell

Years ago I downloaded old photos of five ships that brought my relatives to America. I remember these photos being easier to find back then. Last weekend, I was thinking about the ships that carried my grandfathers' to New York. Was there more to learn about their emigrations?

The RMS Lapland

I don't know why Grandpa Iamarino didn't sail out of Naples. Everyone else from his Southern Italian town did. He traveled way up to the northern coast of France and sailed from Cherbourg. That's an 18-hour train ride today! I had a photo of his ship, the Lapland, but a little research told me more.

No matter how many genealogy facts you find on your immigrant ancestor's ship manifest, there's something else you need to search for. And it can enrich your family tree.

The Lapland belonged to the Red Star Line based in Antwerp, Belgium. The majority of the ship's passengers in November 1920 boarded the ship in Antwerp. Most of them came from Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. The ship made one more stop in Cherbourg, France, before heading to New York Harbor. About 300 Italians boarded the ship in Cherbourg, including Grandpa Iamarino.

Why did these 300 Italians sail from Cherbourg instead of Naples? I found an American whose German ancestor sailed from Cherbourg. He learned at a museum in Cherbourg that the shipping companies had to compete for customers. With a price war going on, the cheap fare from Cherbourg could have been worth the long train journey. The Red Star Line may even have covered the train fare.

The SS Caserta

My Grandpa Leone lived one town away from Grandpa Iamarino and sailed to New York twice. I realized I didn't have a photo of either of his ships. He first came to New York in 1914 with permission from his local draft board. Military registration and service were mandatory in Italy when a man turned 20 years old. Grandpa Leone registered in 1911, served, and suffered an injury in 1912. In 2018 I photographed his military record in the archives at Benevento to get these details.

I searched online for a photo of the SS Caserta, and I searched Wikipedia to learn about the ship. This one ship had four different names in its 24-year existence. The Bucknall Line shipping company launched her in 1904. They sold her to the Lloyd Italiano shipping line in 1905. My grandfather sailed on her in 1915 as the SS Caserta. The Navigazione Generale Italiana shipping company took possession of the ship in 1918. During World War I, the Caserta served as a troopship, carrying U.S. troops to France.

Part of the Caserta's history seems to fill in a blank in Grandpa Leone's story. His immigration record tells me he returned to Italy to fight in World War I in August 1915. Since we don't have outgoing U.S. ship manifests available, I don't know which ship took him back to Italy. I found out the Caserta and other ships carried Italian Army "reservists" back to Naples.

Were these Italian men feeling patriotic? Or did their government track them down in the States? Grandpa Leone went back to Italy, fought, got captured, and spent a solid year in a prison camp in Austria. After he recovered, the Italian government paid for him, and many other men, to sail to America if they wished.

The USS Henry R. Mallory

At first I thought it was a mistake, but the ship Grandpa Leone took back to New York in early 1920 had belonged to the U.S. Navy. The USS Henry R. Mallory served as a military transport ship during both World War I and II. Between wars, the Mallory Lines shipping company operated the ship.

The Italians on board with my grandfather have a rubber stamp beside their name on the ship manifest. The stamp says "RES. USA. RET." I have read that the Italian government paid for the passage of its military members. But I see entire families with the rubber stamp, which I interpret as "Reserved. USA. Returnee."

On closer look, I see that many men on Grandpa Leone's page have "reservist" (not Italian) in the language column. On the previous page, someone penciled in "Reservist" at the top of the column. Then they added ditto marks all the way down the list.

They must all be Italian Army soldiers and some of their family members. The Italian government would have reserved and paid for their passage.

Now It's Your Turn

Take another look at the ship manifests for your closest immigrant ancestors. Take note of the name of the ship and the year. Now search online for both a photo and some history of the ship. It can help your search if you put SS in front of the ship name. What can you learn about your ancestor's passage, and what other research will that lead to?

How to Decipher a Hard-to-Read Cause of Death

It's more than a cliché that doctors have bad handwriting. It's a genuine problem for anyone building their family tree. When you get to the "cause of death" section of a death certificate, the medical term can seem impossible to read. And it's not as if we're all familiar with medical terms.

But someone else may have written a number in that section. You can read the number, right?

There is a simple tool to help you decipher a cause of death on an official death certificate. A company in the UK called Wolfbane Cybernetic Ltd. has published the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) decoder online.

Here's how you can use it:

1. Find a number written in the cause of death section of a death certificate.
2. Consult the Wolfbane website and click the link for the current ICD at the time of death.
3. Find the number from the death certificate to see the cause of death.
4. If it's a medical term that's unfamiliar to you, Google it.

Let's look at a few examples to make this process easy to use.

When the cause of death is too hard to read on a death certificate, there is one clue, and one website, that makes it clear.

1937 Cause of Death Example

James M. Williams (born Gennaro Muollo) was a 59-year-old retired railroad foreman. He died at home in Pennsylvania on 29 Jun 1937. The family began calling themselves Williams because Muollo is hard to pronounce.

The cause of death on Gennaro's death certificate is hard to read. The first word looks like Encephalitis, but I can't make out the second word.

The good news is, there's also a number written there: 17. On the Wolfbane page I click the link for the most recent ICD as of 1937. I scroll down to find the number 17 and it says "Encephalitis lethargica".

I had to stare at the death certificate a long time before I could spot "lethargica" in that one mystery word. But that's what it says! Next I searched for a definition of "Encephalitis lethargica". I learned this was a neurological syndrome that began in Europe 20 years earlier. At the time, doctors thought it had a connection to the Spanish flu. But today, it's still unknown what caused this epidemic. Cases showed it could take a short time, or even years, for symptoms to develop in the patient.

All-in-all, poor Gennaro died an unpleasant death.

1953 Cause of Death Example

The cause of death on Pietro Pozzuto's Pennsylvania death certificate is typewritten. It says Cirrhosis of the liver. But this is a less straightforward example of an ICD number, so let's take a look.

The number used on Pietro's 1953 death certificate is 5810. The Wolfbane website has several links for ICD codes as of 1948. (The next update was in 1955.) I clicked the link labeled "4-digit codes" and searched the page for 5810.

What I found leads me to believe whoever wrote 5810 meant to write 581.0. The number 581 is Cirrhosis of liver, while 581.0 is for Cirrhosis of liver without mention of alcoholism. There's also a 581.1 which is Cirrhosis of liver with alcoholism.

An online search confirmed that you can get Cirrhosis of the liver other than from alcohol abuse. Because of this distinction, I can conclude that Pietro did not drink himself to death.

1959 Cause of Death Example

The doctor printed the cause of death on Antonio Coratto's 1959 death certificate. I can read it, but let's look at the ICD number for verification.

The ICD number is 331X. On the Wolfbane site, I clicked the link for 3-digit codes in effect as of 1955. Number 331 is Cerebral haemorrhage. Whoever wrote 331X may have used the X to signify there was no extension—no 331.1 or 331.2.

It's clear to me the immediate cause of death says cerebral vascular hemorrhage. It also says that's due to arteriosclerosis generalized. If that had been hard to read, the ICD number would have made it plain.

And speaking of death certificates:

• How to Find State-Specific Death Indexes and Records
• 27 Key Facts to Extract From a Death Certificate
• A Startling Family Tree Discovery

In my own collection of downloaded U.S. death certificates, most have an easy-to-read cause of death. The first example in this article is the only one that had stumped me. I do have many New York City death certificates, but the majority have no code number on them. I did find one example to share.

1909 Cause of Death Example

Marietta Piacquadio was a baby aged one year and four months who died in the Bronx, New York. There are two causes of death, and one word is eluding me. This death certificate has a code number 105 written on it.

In the ICD that was current in 1909, code 105 has 8 variations labeled 105A through 105H. There is no letter on the death certificate. The descriptions for 105A through 105H all say "age over 2 years", but Marietta was under 2 years old.

These descriptions include enteritis, gastro-enteritis, dyspepsia, colic, ulceration of intestines, and duodenal ulcer.

They wrote the 105 next to the second cause of death, which I can read as Acute Entero-Colitis. That checks out. But the primary cause of death is Cardiac something. There's nothing in the 1909 ICD list with the word cardiac; only carditis. None of those match what I see on the death certificate.

My best guess is that it says Cardiac Asthema. I looked up that phrase and found nothing with that spelling (asthema). I did find Cardiac Asthma, which is a fluid buildup in the lungs. That doesn't seem like it's related to acute entero-colitis, so all I know is this was a very sick baby.

I hope the Wolfbane list of ICD codes will help you solve some mysteries in your family tree. Be sure to add it to your genealogy bookmarks.

Put This Genealogy Assistant to Work for You

In "6 Steps to Finding Your Living Cousins" I used a tool to download all my AncestryDNA matches to a spreadsheet. The result is an all-in-one-place file to store your notes as you work to identify your matches. The big DNA sites still haven't given us a way to do this for ourselves.

Now a friend has shown me an impressive tool called Genealogy Assistant. It does tons of useful, time-saving things for you, the genealogy researcher. Downloading all your DNA matches from Ancestry and MyHeritage is just the tip of the iceberg.

Enjoy a hassle-free download of all your DNA matches with this feature-packed genealogy tool.

Quoting from their website: "Genealogy Assistant adds over 100 custom features to popular genealogy websites like Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, FamilyTreeDNA and more!"

Install this web browser extension, then click to use it on your favorite genealogy websites. Imagine these scenarios.

Scenario 1: DNA Matches

You're viewing your DNA matches on Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com. You notice that one site has lots of matches the other doesn't have. You'd love to be able to download them all and make notes about your discoveries.

No problem. Go to your DNA match list on each website. Activate the Genealogy Assistant browser extension if it isn't active already. You'll see a button labeled "Download CSV". Before you click that button, you need to see how many pages of matches you have. When I scroll to the bottom of my MyHeritage DNA matches, I see that I have 14 pages of matches. Whatever number you see, use the up-arrow button on the box next the to download button to reach that number. Then click the Download CSV button. When the file is complete, you'll find it in your default downloads folder.

Now it'll be much easier to review all your DNA matches. You may discover that a match who stumped you on DNA Site A has a family tree on DNA Site B, solving the mystery.

Scenario 2: Shortcuts Galore

You're building your family tree on Ancestry.com (here's why that's a bad choice), and you've got a big new branch to add. From any person's profile page, you can click "Gallery", then click "Add media" to see the upload box. With Genealogy Assistant, click the words "Upload photo" or press Alt-U to go straight to the upload box.

When you have to upload files for a lot of people, this is a real time-saver.

I've worked on Ancestry trees where a person has the right father but the wrong mother. After a lot of searching, I found "Edit relationships" in the Edit menu at the top-right of the profile page. This is where you can correct wrong spouses, parents, or children. With Genealogy Assistant, click "Edit relationships" or press Alt-R to go straight to the proper screen.

Become a power-user, searching 7 genealogy websites at once, with this Advanced Search tool.

Scenario 3: Advanced Search

I love when I search for someone on Ancestry, go to a resulting record page, and find links to suggested records. Well, Genealogy Assistant puts your family tree search on steroids. Their search button can search 7 different websites—all at once, if you like—and open each one in a new browser tab. You can do this with the Search button on a record page or the Advanced Search button on a person's profile page.

If you routinely carry out searches on several websites, I know you'll love this feature. It can search:

• Ancestry
• FamilySearch records
• FamilySearch trees
• FindMyPast
• MyHeritage
• Find a Grave
• Newspapers.com

How to Get Genealogy Assistant

Genealogy Assistant works on three different web browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Mozilla Firefox

Go to https://www.genea.ca/genealogy-assistant to read about its features, watch a demonstration, and install the extension. You can try it out for 14 days for free. If you want to keep using it for a little while, it's only $2.95 per month. If you find it to be a game-changer, pay $29.95 once and enjoy it forever.

The more time you spend doing genealogy research, the more you'll enjoy Genealogy Assistant.

And now, the end-of-the-prescription-drug-commercial disclaimer. Read it in a soft, fast voice: Please note that no one is paying me to discuss this product. Since I spend all my time researching Italian records, I don't plan to use this product beyond the 14-day trial. Ask yourself if Genealogy Assistant is right for you.