Where Have You Been All My Life?

When you've been at this crazy business of genealogy as long as I have, the past years of research seem to melt away. Those countless hours of searching, gathering and documenting are a blur because you're so focused on what you need to find next.

As a long-time subscriber to ancestry.com, I'm always pleased to see new collections added to the mix. Often when I thought I had every possible document there was to find for a specific ancestor, a new collection of documents becomes available, and I've got to gather the new bits of information, too. That's why I keep renewing my subscription.

If you subscribe to any genealogy sites, or if you use free sites like FamilySearch.org, it's important to keep going back to see what new tools and records they've made available.

The other day I saw a post in a genealogy forum on LinkedIn that mentioned the many treasures available for genealogists with family from the Benevento province of Italy. Well, lucky me. Every branch of my family comes from the Benevento province. The post included a link to the State Archives of Benvento. I feel sure I have visited this site in the past, but now its collection of vital records is astounding!

In pretty short order (despite the intense slowness of the website) I found the town birth record for my maternal grandfather and his brother, my paternal grandfather and his father, and my paternal grandmother's parents and one set of her grandparents.

That last one was a true miracle. It was only in the last few weeks that I discovered the maiden name of my paternal grandmother's (the Maria Rosa Caruso I've written about a few times) mother. It was Girardi, and I first found it misspelled in two or three new Social Security Applications Claims records on ancestry.com. I felt sure that the bad transcription of the name was really Girardi. Then I found a death record for Maria Rosa Caruso's brother Giuseppe. There I saw his mother's name in handwriting, but it had been Americanized to Gerard.

But last night I found my Maria Luigia Girardi's original birth record in the Benevento State Archives and lo and behold! I learned her parents' names! Now I have a brand new last name to add to my wildly long list: DiNigris. And equally exciting and mind-blowing, I discovered that Maria Rosa Caruso had a twin brother. There were a few twins in that branch of the family, so it's very interesting to trace it back to my great grandmother—especially when she did not pass down that trait.

So the lessons here are (a) you're never finished with this hobby, and (b) keep revisiting your sources to find out what's new.

Case Study on "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

Here's a lesson that supports my earlier post, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" I have one branch of my family where the information was pretty scant. In fact, I never knew my great grandmother's maiden name was Caruso until the eve of my first trip to Italy—the trip that sparked my interest in genealogy. Later I heard from a distant cousin named Michael who was very interested in the Caruso family tree and shared a great deal of first-hand information with me.

As with any information I receive without documentation, I set about proving all of the facts Michael had shared with me, and in doing so, I learned quite a bit more facts.

My great grandmother, Maria Rosa Caruso, had at least four older brothers, all of whom came to upstate New York in the very early 1900s. Giuseppe came here first because each of this brothers' ship manifests says they were joining their brother Giuseppe at 827-829 Canal Street, Elmira, New York.

Maria Rosa's ship manifest was the hardest to find, and even after finding it, I was not sure it was the right Maria Rosa Caruso for quite some time. The manifest has some facts that are correct for her (born in 1880 or 1881 in Pescolamazza, and coming to join her brother Giuseppe), but it also has facts that do not work.

The manifest says she was married as of July 1906, but that doesn't work because I have her November 1906 marriage certificate from Hornell, New York. It also says her final destination is Addison, New York. While that is not terribly far from Elmira, or even Cameron, New York, which is another place her brother Giuseppe lived, I have no facts putting any members of this Caruso family in Addison. There is an address beneath her brother Giuseppe's name, but it appears to say "236 Bore". I can't make anything out of that.

I kept returning to this 1906 ship manifest and finally noticed something very important. Where the manifest shows an "m" for married, in much lighter ink there is an "s" for single overwriting the "m". (See the far-right side of the image.) So it was an error.

That left me with the troubling town of Addison. But in a web search today I discovered that Addison was the end of a particular railroad line that connected with the New York Central Railroad. So there is a good possibility that Maria Rosa had her ticket from New York City to Addison and then had to get on the Erie Railroad to get to her brother. At that time, Giuseppe lived in Cameron, New York, on a street parallel to the railroad tracks where he worked. I can see a railroad line on Bing Maps that runs from Addison to Cameron. And on her marriage certificate, Maria Rosa lists her residence as Cameron.

Now I feel as if the 1906 ship manifest finally makes sense. And this illustrates how important it is to gather as many provable facts as possible about your ancestor and their entire family.

Case Study on "What If There's No There There?"

This case study supports my earlier post, "What If There's No There There?"

When I began researching my great grandmother Maria Rosa Caruso, I found a distant cousin-in-law through a message board who was also researching the Caruso family. Her mother-in-law, as well as my father, had always heard their grandmother Maria Rosa mention her hometown, calling it Pisqualamazza.

But there is no such town as Pisqualamazza in Italy.

When I finally found her 1906 immigration record (which is a subject for another story), her hometown was fairly clearly written as Pescolamazza.

Aha! Maybe "Pisqua" was a result of her accent—the way the locals said it. But there is no Pescolamazza on the map, either!

That's when I turned to a search engine. I quickly found a link to a tourism website for the town of Pesco Sannita. Well, it has a Pesco, so let me read on. On the website's town history page, they provide the original Latin name of the town, as well as the town's name until after World War II: "Pesclum, now Pesco Sannita (Pescolamazza until 1947)…".

I would never have thought the town would change its name, but this was my proof. Modern day Pesco Sannita is in the province of Benevento and neighbors the towns that all the rest of my ancestors came from.

Armed with this information, I was able to switch from searching for Pisqualamazza to searching for any Caruso from Pescolamazza. That nugget of information helped me find records for Maria Rosa's many brothers.

If you can't find what you'd always thought was your ancestor's hometown, search for anyone with their last name, and be sure to use several search engines and try to find out more.

Case Study on "Where Did Grandpa Come From?"

How to Find that Hometown

Let me share with you a case study that supports my earlier post, "Where Did Grandpa Come From?".  It details the steps I followed to find the true hometown(s) of my great grandmother's family—the Saviano family.

For many years I heard my grandmother and her siblings mention two towns: Pastene and Avellino. She and her siblings had heard those town names from their parents and repeated them throughout their lives.

It turns out they were slightly off. The family was from Avellino and Pastene the same way I'm from Rockland County, New York. That doesn't tell you what town I lived in, does it?

Pastene, ending in an E, is difficult to find. Plus, there's more than one Pastena, ending in an A, that could throw you off the trail. But I also knew the family was from the Benevento province, which borders the Avellino province. (A province in Italy is similar to a county in America.) In that area, there is a comune (municipality) named Sant'Angelo a Cupolo that contains a frazione (hamlet) called Pastene.

To put it more simply, Pastene is a tiny section of the town of Sant'Angelo a Cupolo. For proof that the Saviano family was from this place, I found their 1898 ship manifest when the whole family came to the U.S. They listed their hometown as "S. Angelo Cupolo".

Once I found the town on a map, this was perfectly legible to me.

I had never heard of that town before I found this document. At a later date, I found the New York City marriage certificate for my great grandmother's sister Filomena, and it listed Pastene, Italy as her birthplace.

But why did my relatives also say the family was from Avellino? Avellino is both a city and a province a few miles away from Pastene. My answer came from the World War II draft registration card for my great grandmother's brother Semplicio. It very clearly (albeit misspelled) lists his place of birth as Tufo in the province of Avellino, Italy.

Aha! Once I found that, I went to the Family History Center near where I lived at the time. Miraculously, someone had ordered a roll of microfilm from Tufo, so it was sitting there in the drawer!

On the microfilm I found the 1877 birth record for Semplicio Saviano. The big surprise was the 1875 birth record for an older brother no one in my family had ever known about. He died as a child. In fact, he had the same first name as another brother who was born later in Pastene: Raffaele.

So, although I haven't a clue why, this Saviano family moved from Tufo, Avellino, Italy, to Pastene, Benevento, Italy. A few miles was very far in those days, and my great great grandfather was not moving for a job.

And if you're thinking I may be looking at the wrong family in Tufo, I'm not. The mother in this family had the uncommon name of Colomba Consolazio, and that is seen very clearly on the Tufo birth records.

All of this is another example of the importance of locating as many documents as possible for your entire family.

What If There's No There There?

How do you find documents from your ancestor's hometown if you can't find it on any map?

Did the Town Change its Name?

Sometimes your genealogy research requires some history research. For example, I learned that my great great grandmother's town, which family members often heard her mention, had changed its name after World War II.

The name change hampered my search for a while, but the truth was out there. I was able to visit the town in 2005 after I discovered its current name.

Beautiful Pesco Sannita—formerly Pescolamazza.

Did the Borders Move?

Then there are situations like this: You search for your Polish family's hometown only to find it in Germany. "How could they not know they're German?" you ask.

But a little Googling of the history will tell you that the Germany/Poland border fluctuated over time. So your ancestor came to America from Poland, but if he were to return today, he'd be going to Germany.

When you can't find what you believe to be your ancestor's hometown on the map, use a search engine to learn about the surrounding area. What events happened there after your ancestor's emigration?

Didn't They Love Their Homeland?

When I first began looking into my two grandfathers' decision to leave the idyllic Italian countryside I'd visited to come live in a cramped apartment in the Bronx, New York, I couldn't understand it. (See Why Did They Come To America?.)

How could they leave the most peaceful place on earth to come to the gritty city?

Then I read about the extreme poverty and lack of hope in Southern Italy as early as the 1800s.

My grandfathers were faced with the idea of never being more than a menial worker who sold his products only to his own little town. They each followed the example of a relative who found almost unlimited work in American coal mines and railroad yards.

It must have seemed like their only option because—and this amazes me—they came to America and never saw their families again.

It is quite hard to imagine. So read about it. Don't ignore the history that goes along with your ancestor's immigration.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Fan Out Your Search for Better Results

There's Donata's missing brother John!

Do you trace your direct-line ancestors only? Or do you explore other branches and in-laws when working on your family tree?

I believe strongly in gathering as much information as possible and presenting a more complete timeline for each family in your tree.

Most of my ancestors simplified my genealogy research by coming to America in a relatively short time span, and living within a few city blocks of one another.

Recently I was tracing one ancestor's sister through the years in census forms. In one census I found her brother Giovanni living with her. Giovanni had been missing to me, and he wasn't showing up in a search for his name.

If I hadn't been tracking his sister, I might never have found Giovanni.

This is also a good way to find a widowed ancestor.

When following the records for one of your great aunts or great uncles, you may find your widowed great great grandmother living with them. That helps narrow down the stretch of years when your great great grandfather died.

I guess you could say I prefer my family tree wide like a maple, not tall and thin like a spruce. Spread out and see how your family tree flourishes.

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• Why You Should Track Down the Extra Cousin