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

How to Read Names on Badly Written Vital Records

Imagine you're searching through a collection of old, hand-written vital records. You're winding through a reel of microfilm or clicking through a collection of images.

At last you find what you want: the marriage record for your 2nd great grandparents. Eureka! Now you can learn the names of two sets of your 3rd great grandparents.

You grab a magnifying glass or zoom in on the document, eager to see those new names.

But what do they say? They're almost completely illegible. You aren't sure of any of the letters!

What would you do? I've seen people share an image on Facebook, asking for opinions on a hard-to-read name. Time and again, the people who can read the name with authority are already familiar with the exact name.

That's the answer! I've been documenting vital records from all my ancestral hometowns for years.

I'm pretty fast at it. Why? Because this practice helps me decipher even the most sloppily written names in no time.

Scientists say we're able to read by recognizing the shapes of words. That's why it's easier to read this THAN IT IS TO READ THIS.

So, get familiar with the names from your ancestral hometowns. Then you'll find it easy see the difference between:

• Chiusolo and Ciusolo
• Anzuino and Anzovino
• Ferella and Ferrara.

And bonus! If you're examining a small town, there was no doubt a lot of intermarrying. You may find you're related to the majority of the town! So it's worth your while to learn those names.

This image shows some examples of names that didn't slow me down for a second—once I made myself familiar with the town.

And speaking of foreign-language documents:

• What Language Barrier?
• Tips & Tools to Help You Translate Foreign Genealogy Records
• You Can Read Foreign-Language Genealogy Records

How I Tracked Down My 4th Great Grandmother's Parents

In my last article, I mentioned how tough it was to find the names of my 4th great grandmother's parents. She was Apollonia Grazia Caruso. Here's what I knew about her when I set out to find her parents:

• Born around 1775, Apollonia had three children in the town of Circello, Benevento, Campania, Italy between 1809 and 1813.
• Her son Francesco Saverio Liguori, my 3rd great grandfather, married in the next town, Colle Sannita, in 1840.
• Her husband, my 4th great grandfather Gregorio Liguori, died in Circello in 1814. He and Apollonia had three children under the age of 10 at the time.

Apollonia's death record was missing from Francesco Saverio's 1840 marriage documents. Instead, a long letter testified, "Yes, she is dead, but we don't remember when she died. It was a long time ago."

The town clerk wrote that he couldn't find her death record because he didn't know which years to search. That meant I couldn't find her death date or her parents' names.

What would you do next?

I turned to my knowledge of these small towns in the province of Benevento in the 1800s. I've documented thousands of birth, marriage and death records from the area.

I learned that in my rural, ancestral hometowns in the 1800s:

• Couples married at the average age of 25.
• They had a child about every other year until the wife was in her mid-forties.
• When one spouse died, the survivor remarried within a couple of years.

With this in mind, I examined what I knew. Apollonia's husband died when she was about 40 years old. She had three small children. She needed to remarry.

Her husband died in December 1814, so I looked at the 1815 marriage records for Circello. No Apollonia.

I looked at the 1816 records, and there she was. At the age of 44, Apollonia married Salvatore delGrosso. He was a 66-year-old widower from Colle Sannita. As a tailor, he was most likely able to give her a better life than she had before.

Their marriage records finally gave me the names of the 5th great grandparents I was searching for. Francesco Caruso and Francesca d'Andrea were born around 1750.

The facts I had about her family led me to discover more about Apollonia.

Apollonia died in Colle Sannita only six years after her second marriage. Her children were ages 13, 11 and nine. I can only hope that their elderly step-father continued to care for the children.

I know Francesco Saverio, the youngest child, grew up, married and had children. I plan to search the Colle Sannita death and marriage records for his sisters.

Isn't it amazing how many things had to align for you to be born?

If Apollonia hadn't become a widow and married a man from another town:

• My 3rd great grandparents might never have married.
• They wouldn't have had a daughter named Maria Giuseppa Liguori.
• She wouldn't have had a daughter named Libera Pilla.
• Libera wouldn't have married Francesco Iamarino—my grandfather's father.

Thanks to the hours I spend examining old Italian vital records, I learned about these people. I knew I had to search for Apollonia's second marriage soon after her first husband died.

Here's your challenge.

Learn all you can about your ancestral hometown through its vital records. Don't search only for specific people. Take the time to look at the surrounding documents. Look for patterns and facts.

Act like a detective and think about what your ancestor might have done. This tactic could help you find those missing names—or solve that family mystery.

You may also enjoy:

• Re-examine Documents to Find the Answers
• Download Entire Record Collections to Get the Bigger Picture
• This Simple Search Technique May Be Just What You Need