pompeo emigration

When I was searching for information on Antonio Pompeo on ancestry.com, I noticed that it seemed an earlier generation of Pompeos was also present in Massachusetts.  I wanted to make note of how many aunts and uncles and cousins of Antonio emigrated and when they left Italy.  I started by looking at Antonio's father, Croce's, family.  Domenico and Concetta were the heads of this family, which consisted of four sons and one daughter, as seen in the chart below.

Family View Sheet for Domenico Pompeo and Concetta Caldarelli

Croce:
Antonio's father, Croce, was the oldest.  I do not believe he ever left Italy, as he remarries in 1895 and is noted as living in San Valentino, Italy in 1905, at the age of 54.  I did not see any evidence of him in the US, no passenger record, no census record, and nothing in the Massachusetts directories. However; at least three out of five of his children settled in Quincy, MA, including my great grandfather, Antonio Pompeo, and his sister Adelina and his brother Guiseppe (Joseph).  One sister, Concetta, died at the age of 10 in Italy, the other, Amelia, seems to have remained in Italy.  (see previous post) (UPDATE : Croce remarries a third time and died in San Valentino, Italy on June 5, 1917.)

Giovanna:
Domenico and Concetta's next child was Antonio's Aunt Giovanna Pompeo.  Giovanna married Giovanni Antonio di Giulio in 1875 in Torre de Passeri, Italy.  I have found at least 7 children for this couple, the last one born in 1892.  Although I did not find a death record for Giovanna Pompeo in the Italian records, I also did not find a passenger record for either Giovanna or her husband leaving Italy.  (UPDATE : Giovanna died Aug 20, 1911 in Torre de Passeri) Out of their seven children, I have found hints of some of them in the US.

1. Vincenzo Nicola Carmine di Giulio - died in Torre de Passeri, Italy in 1882 at the age of 3
2. Fiorinto di Giulio - married to Maria Domenico Catore in Torre de Passeri, Italy in 1908, passenger record to Quincy, MA in 1909 - going to see brother Carmine, and states wife is Angiolina (the passenger above Fiorindo states father is Giovanni - maybe this was meant for Fiorindo, everything else matches).  Have not found any records in the US for Fiorinto.
3. Angela di Giulio - died in Torre de Passeri, Italy in 1901 at the age of 18
4. Antonio di Giulio - have not found a marriage record or death record in Italy.  Have not found any records in US.
5. Antonina di Giulio - married Giovanni Tarquino in Torre de Passeri, Italy in 1909.  Died in Torre de Passeri, Italy in 1965.
6. Carmine Antonio di Giulio - crossed the Canadian Border to the US in 1915 and in 1919 (brother Fiorindo passenger record in 1908 states he is going to see Carmine, so looks like Carmine has gone back and forth) I have not found Carmine and wife in any MA directories or censuses. 
7. Nicola di Guilio - WW2 draft card - lived in Quincy in 1942, and died in Quincy, MA in February 1975.  I was able to find Nicola and his wife Mary in the Quincy directories, but not in any of the US censuses.  I also have not been able to find Nicola's passenger record.  (see note 1) 

Giovanna Pompeo di Giulio's youngest son, Nicola, seems to be the only child that has a distinct presence in Massachusetts, settling in Quincy, just like his cousin Antonio Pompeo.  Some other cousins definitely traveled back and forth from Italy, but it is not clear where their families settled.  There is at least one di Giulio cousin that remained in Torre de Passeri, Italy, Antonina di Giulio Tarquino.  I am not able to search the records to see if she had children since she was married in 1909 and the birth records end online in 1910.

Raffaele:
Antonio's Uncle Raffaele arrived in New York in March of 1901.  He was traveling with other men from Torre de Passeri, including Cristoforo Gagliardi and Bernadino di Lorenzo, age 41.  Raffaele's wife, Giovanna Antonia, arrives over a year later in 1902 with their four children.  They have three more children once they settle in Quincy, MA.  Raffaele's family seems to be the first of my ancestors to have settled in Quincy.  Raffaele and Giovanna have a total of 12 children, of which only six lived into adulthood.  At least four of these children, Alexander, John, Loretta, and Henry remained in MA.  Their sister Julia seems to have moved to FL, and I have not found too much information on another sister, Marie Concetta. (UPDATE : in contact with ancestry user JoanT92, a distant cousin.  Maria Concetta married Nicolo Di Antonio, and she died in Quincy in 1973.)

Felicantonio:
Antonio's uncle, Feliceantonio, marries Carmela Montopoli in 1884 in Torre de Passeri, Italy.  He does seem to have traveled to the US in 1893 with nine other men from Torre de Passeri.   (Some of the surnames of his companions are familiar to me - di Lorenzo, Montopoli, Laureti, Tarquino).  Even though Felicantonio arrives in the US before his brother Raffaele, it does not seem that he remains in the US as I found records of his children's birth in Torre de Passeri in 1894, 1898 and 1901.  I have not found any other records for Felicantonio in the US; and I also have not found his death record in Italy.  His children, Antonio's cousins, Pasquale and Dominic, were the only two children of Felicantonio and Carmela that settled in the US; in Quincy also. (UPDATE: Felicantonio died in Torre de Passeri on Oct 12, 1916.)

Luigi:
Antonio's youngest uncle, Luigi, also married in Torre de Passeri (1889), and later traveled to the US in 1893 (4 other men from Torre de Passeri), 1903, and 1906.  Just like his brother, Felicantonio, I believe the records show Luigi did not settle in America; but returned to Italy.  He married a second time in Torre de Passeri in 1908 after his first wife died in 1905.  I only found two children in the Italian records for Luigi, Sabatino and Francesco, but both died as babies.  I did not find any other records for Luigi in the US, and I did not find Luigi's death record in Italy.

I did all this research into the Pompeo cousins because I wanted to see which generation first left Italy, and how many cousins my great grandfather, Antonio Pompeo, may have had in Quincy, MA or the surrounding area.  It seems that the only person from the generation before Antonio that actually settled in Quincy, MA was Antonio's uncle, Raffaele Pompeo, in 1901.  A couple of other uncles did travel to America as early as 1893, but they did not stay, eventually returning to Torre de Passeri, Italy.  Although not all of Antonio's father's siblings settled in the US, many of their children did.  Antonio had the following cousins in Massachusetts: Giovanna's son, Nicola di Giulio; Raffaele's children Alexander Pompeo, John Pompeo, Loretta Pompeo, and Henry Pompeo, (their sibling Julia moved to FL and not sure about Maria Concetta); and finally Felicantonio's sons, Pasqual and Dominic Pompeo.  Most of these cousins had families of their own, expanding the Pompeo name in Massachusetts.

notes:

1. There is another Nicolas DiGiulio that lives in MA born same year who marries a Mary.  He lives in Haverhill, MA.  Looks like this Nicholas also has a brother Antonio and maybe Giovanni.  They are from a different part of Italy, and this Nicholas has a separate WW2 draft card.  A Nicola DiGiulio went to US in 1905 - Nicola at the age of 13 - states going to see his brother Antonio in Boston, MA, not sure which Nicola this is (going to 5 N. Square, which is a recurring address my ancestors have given on passenger records).  Does not state which town in Italy, and no contact in Italy is listed.  If this is my Nicola, it would mean Antonio is also in MA by 1905 - is this antonio or carmine antonio?  I found an Antonio DiGuilio who travelled in 1904 to NY - going to Albion PA to see his brother Giovanni - this could be the other family.

antonio pompeo

Antonio Pompeo was my great grandfather, born in Torre de Passeri, Italy.  I just finished writing a post about his wife Angelina Gagliardi, and now it is time to focus on Antonio and his family to see how far the records will bring me back in the Pompeo line.  Below is the result after spending some days searching through the records.

Pedigree Chart for Antonio Pompeo

I was able to find the names of three sets of my 5th great grandparents from Antonio Pompeo's line.  I also found that Antonio's mother, Elisabetta Cappola, died in 1894, when Antonio was only 12 years old.  Antonio's father does remarry, a year later in July of 1895, to Rosa Martino, who was only 22 years old.  I am not sure if they had children, as I think they may have moved out of Torre de Passeri.  I was not able to find a death record for Croce Pompeo, but I know he was still living at the time of one of his daughter's marriage in 1905.  This marriage record states Croce was living in San Valentino, Italy.  This commune's records are not available online on FamilySearch. (see note 1)

As with Angelina, I was also curious to see if I could find more siblings of Antonio's that may have stayed in Italy.  Searching through the birth, death and marriage records for Torre de Passeri, I found the following siblings of Antonio, all children of Croce Pompeo and Elisabetta Cappola.

Family View Chart for Croce Pompeo and Elisabetta Cappola

Before searching through these records, I knew that Antonio had an older sister Adelina, who married Cristoforo Gagliardi (the brother of Antonio Pompeo's wife Angelina).  They also settled in Quincy, MA.  I also knew that Antonio's younger brother Guisseppe, or Joseph, settled in Quincy.

I did find two new sisters, an older sister Amelia, and a younger sister, Concetta.  Concetta died at the age of 10, a week before her mother Elisabetta died.  Since their deaths were so close, I would guess they had a similar illness.  I am sure it is written in their death records, but I am not fluent in Italian to decipher their cause of death.

Antonio's older sister, Amelia, married Fiore Lugi Ferrara in Italy in 1905; 10 months after her brother Antonio left for America.  Amelia and Fiore had at least three children in Italy; the last one I found was born in 1909 (the records online only go up to 1910).  I have not found a passenger record for either Fiore or Amelia, but I was able to find a WWI draft card for Fiore, dated 1918, which states he was living in Quincy, MA.  It does not seem that Amelia came to the US though, as the closest living relative listed on Fiore's draft card is a Mrs. Marietta Ferrara; living in Italy.  I am guessing that Amelia may have died sometime soon after 1910 in Italy and Fiore remarried Marietta.  It is possible that Amelia came to the US with Fiore, but I have not found any records indicating this.

As with Angelina's family, it seems most of Antonio's generation left Italy in the early 1900's.  This must have been such a difficult but necessary voyage to America, and it is nice to think that eventually my family settled together; even if they did not emigrate at the same time.  It also seems likely that Antonio left some ancestors behind in Italy, which makes it likely that I have distant cousins still in the area of Torre de Passeri.

Notes:

1. The commune of San Valentino was in the province of Chieti until the province of Pescara was formed in 1927. Since the Torre de Passeri records are under Pescara, and it was in the province of Teramo until 1927 also, I would also assume San Valentino records would also be filed under Pescara. There is no Chieti Province to check under anyway. Familysearch does have the San Valentino records on microfilm, but only up to 1865.

angelina gagliardi pompeo (part 2 of 2)

Family

As I mentioned in my last post, the Italian records that the area of my great grandparents are from, Torre de Passeri, are now available online through familysearch.  Since I have more information on Angelina Gagliardi's family, it is time to look for her family's vital records.  Below is the information I was able to obtain through these records.  

pedigree chart for angelina gagliardi pompeo

I was curious to find out if Angelina left Italy (1911) while her parents were still living.  I know her parents died after 1906, as they are listed in their daughter Giacinda's marriage record as living at this time.  I looked through the death records up until 1910 for Torre de Passeri, and did not find a death for either Angelina's father, Ruggiero Gagliardi, or her mother, Donata Lucia di Lorenzo; so I do not know at this point if Angelina's parents saw her off to America.

I also thought it would be interesting to see if any of Angelina's siblings remained in Italy.  In my last post on Angelina, I wrote a little about some of her siblings, and how they emigrated to America and were all living close to each other in Quincy, MA.  This includes her brother Cristoforo, and her sisters, Secondina and Giacinta.  From the Torre de Passeri records, I found four other siblings; one sister and three brothers.  Below are Ruggiero and Donata Lucia's children.

family group sheet for Ruggerio Gagialrdi and Donata Lucia di Lorenzo

I found from the records that two of Angelina's brothers, both named Gaetano, died as children when Angelina was still living in Italy.  That leaves two more siblings unaccounted for in their later lives.  These two siblings are her oldest sister, Marianna and a brother, Carlantonio.    The other three siblings settled in Massachusetts with Angelina.  I did some further research to see if I could find out if Angelina left any family behind in Italy.

Marianna, the eldest child, married in Torre de Passeri in 1893, to Venturo Cicchetti.  I looked through the birth records for Torre de Passeri from the years 1893-1903 and did not find any children born to this couple.  They may have not been living in Torre de Passeri though, as their marriage record states that Marianna's husband, Venturo, is from the commune of Sulmona.  The Sulmona records are not available online at this time, so I cannot look in these records.  I did a search on ancestry.com passenger databases and found that the couple did leave Italy in 1903 to Boston, MA.  They were traveling with one of her brother, Cristoforo's, wife, Adelina Pompeo.  The passenger record states that Marianna and Venturo were living in Sulmona, Italy before leaving.  They are not traveling with any children though, which leads me to believe if they had any, they died at a young age.  The record also states their destination is to see their brother-in-law, Giovanni Ferrara, at the same address as their traveling companion's, Adelina, husband and Marianna's brother, Cristoforo Gagliardi.  Unfortunately; that is the last bit of information I have found for Marianna and Venturo Cicchetti.  I was unable to locate them in any Quincy directories, MA censuses, or death index for MA.  They could have moved out of state or returned to Italy?

Carlantonio Gagliardi, Angelina's other sibling that may have stayed in Italy, was also a little difficult to trace.  I was able to find some of his children's birth records, beginning in 1901.  I suspect these are his children, as the age of Carlantonio matches, and also some of the witnesses listed are his father Ruggiero Gagliardi, and his brother-in-law, Venturo Cicchetti.  The complication arises when some of his children are listed in the supplements of the Torre de Passeri registers, as they were born in other parts of Italy.  One commune listed is at the northernmost part of Italy (Gattico, Novara), far from Torre de Passeri.  So it seems this family traveled back and forth from Torre de Passeri throughout their years.  Also, I have been unable to find the marriage record of Carlantonio, but his wife is listed on the children's birth records as Ersilia D'Nario.  They must have married outside of Torre de Passeri.  The couple had five children that I could find.  They had two sons, and three daughters; although one son and one daughter died as young children.  The records online end in 1910; so they may have had more children that I have not found.  Since they also moved around a bit, they could also have had children in other communes that I have not found.  I have been unable to find any passenger records that show Carlantonio and Ersilia traveling to America.  I did; however, find a passenger record for one of their children, Licinio at age 16, in 1922.  The record states that his father, Carlo, is living in Torre de Passeri.  It seems likely that Carlantonio and his wife stayed in Italy for the remainder of their lives. (I could not find any other information on Licinio Gagliardi in the US).

It seems that it must have been a difficult time to stay in Italy in the early 1900's.  Most of Angelina's generation emigrated to America and settled in Quincy, MA.  Even a nephew of hers left Italy at the age of 16, Licinio, heading to Quincy, MA.  It is also likely though that at least one of Angelina's brothers, Carlantonio, remained in Italy with most of his children.  Perhaps I have cousins from this line still in Torre de Passeri.  I would have to find out the names of Carlantonio's daughters' husbands to go further with this line and find living cousins.

angelina gagliardi pompeo (part 1 of 2)

I have written a bit about my maternal Italian ancestors, including my great grandparents Arnaldo DeNicola and Louisa Terragnoli; and their mothers, my second great grandmothers, Eugenia Farnetti and Francesca Lucente.  I have hardly any information to write about my second great grandfathers, Adolph DeNicola and Guisseppe Terragnoli, as they both seemed to have died fairly young in Italy.

Another set of my paternal great grandparents were also from Italy, Antonio Pompeo and Angelina Gagliardi.  I have written some posts about them, but the last one was in 2010.  I was able to find records from their area of Italy (Torre de Passeri) online, and was able to take their lines back a couple of more generations; so I believe they are in need of a new post with updated information.  I will focus first on Angelina Gagliardi.

The last time I wrote about Angelina I only had two of her records; her marriage record and her passenger record from Italy to Boston, MA.  From these records I was able to get an estimated birth year of 1886 and her parents names, Ruggiero Gagliardi and Lucia Di Lorenzo.  Now that I have access to the Italian records from familysearch for Torre de Passeri, her birth record should be easy to find with this information.

The passenger record also gave me some additional familial information for Angelina; such as her brother's name, Cristoforo Gagliard, who was already living in Massachusetts. She was also traveling with Pasquale Pompeo, son of Felice Pompeo and brother to Dominic in US, age 23 in 1911, and Cleonice Gagliardi, daughter of Guisseppe Gagliardi and sister to Palestino in US, age 22 in 1911.  Since I have the Italian records, I will also search to see how Angelina, or her husband Antonio Pompeo, relates to her traveling companions.

First I searched for Angelina's birth record from the familysearch database, "Italia, Pescara, Pescara, Stato Civile (Tribunale), 1865-1910"; under the province of Pescara, and the comune of Torre de' Passeri.  (Torre de Passeri was actually in the province of Teramo until Pescara was formed in 1927; but it is still listed under Pescara in the familysearch database.)  I did find what I believe to be her birth record; Angela Gagliardi, born April 28, 1885 in Torre de Passeri, Italy to the parents of Ruggiero Gagliardi and Donata Di Lorenzo.  A couple of items are a little different from her marriage record, such as Angelina's name as Angela and her mother's name as Donata, not Lucia.  I think this is a pretty good match though, with her father's name the same, and estimated birth year very close.  Torre de Passeri does not have a large population, so it seems very likely to me this is Angelina.  I also searched for her brother, Cristoforo's, birth record, hoping it would also state his mother was Donata Di Lorenzo.  Unfortunately, the record lists Lucia Di Lorenzo as his mother, the same as Angelina's marriage record, but different from her birth record.  I am thinking that maybe their mother's name is Donata Lucia, and perhaps she goes by one or the other.  Generally, I have seen multiple names listed on birth records for Italian children, and have found they usually only use one name in their adult records.  I still wanted to provide more evidence that Lucia is Donata; so I searched for Donata Lucia's birth or marriage record in the Italian database.  Her marriage record to Ruggiero Gagliardi again only states Lucia, not Donata.  (see update under note 1) I was unable to find Donata Lucia's birth record as she was born around 1850 in the province of San Valentino in the province of Chiete.  These records are not available online at this time.  (see note 2)

Now onto looking in the Italian records for more information about who Angelina was travelling to Boston, MA with.  The birth record of Pasquale Pompeo shows that his parents are Felice Pompeo and Carmela Montopoli.  Felice's birth record shows he has the same parents as Antonio Pompeo's father, Croce.  So Antonio, Angelina's soon to be husband, is first cousins with Pasquale Pompeo, who Angelina travels to Boston with.  Angelina's other companion on her trip to Boston from Italy is Cleonice Gagliardi, who lists her father as Guisseppe Gagliardi and her brother in the US as Palestino Gagliardi.  According to the passenger records, Cleonice would have been born around 1889.  I have not found any connection between these two Gagliardi families after looking at their family records.  I am sure they were probably distant cousins, with the same last name living in the same small comune in Italy.  (see note 3)

Since my last post in 2010 on Angelina and Antonio, I also did not have Angelina's date of death, or where she was buried.  I have since found these.  Angelina is listed in ancestry.com's database, Massachusetts, Death Index, with a death year of 1956.  With this year, I emailed the librarian at the Quincy Public library to do an obituary look up for me.  As always, they got right back to me and sent me a pdf of Angelina's obituary which was published in the Patriot Ledger on July 6, 1956.  Angelina died July 5, 1956 "at a Boston hospital, from a long illness." The obituary lists many family members, including three sons, a daughter, and her two living sisters.

Patriot Ledger, July 6 1956

I knew that Angelina and her husband Antonio Pompeo were buried at Mt. Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy, so I decided to go find their gravestone.  I was hoping it would have Angelina's birth date on the stone so I could match it with her birth record and have more evidence to support her mother's name was Donata Lucia.  Indeed her stone did have her birth date on it, April 29, 1885.  One day off from the birth record of April 28, 1885; close enough for me!  It also seems that most of the records I found in the US have her name as Angelina, even though her birth record states Angela as her name.  I am certain she went by the name Angelina, not Angela.

headstone of Antonio Pompeo and Angelina Gagliardi Mt. Wollaston Cemetery, Quincy, MA

Notes:

1. While I was searching for more birth records for Ruggiero and Donata Gagliardi, I found another record that was listed in the supplements of the 1900 birth register for Torre de Passeri.  Since the record is in Italian, I am not sure what it states, but it seems to be discussing the name of Donata or Lucia di Lorenzo.  It lists the names of 4 of her children, carlantonio, giacinta, angela, and secondina.  This record definitely ties Angelina to her siblings and the same mother, Donata Lucia di Lorenzo.

2. The comune of San Valentino was in the province of Chieti until the province of Pescara was formed in 1927.  Since the Torre de Passeri records are under Pescara, and it was in the province of Teramo until 1927 also, I would also assume San Valentino records would also be filed under Pescara. There is no Chieti Province to check under anyway. Familysearch does have the San Valentino records on microfilm.

3. Cleonice Gagliardi's parents are Guisseppe Gagliardi and Giulia Tobia, obtained from her brother Palestino's birth record.  Guisseppe and Giulia's marriage record states Guisseppe's parents are Giovanni Gagliardi and Anna Fedele di Bartolomeo - not the same as Angelina's grandparents, who are Domenico Gagliardi and Chiarra de Novellis.  So Angelina and Cleonice are not first cousins as Ruggiero and Guisseppe are not brothers.  If Giovanni's parents are Lorenzo Gagliardi and Benedetta d'Innacenzo then they would be second cousins, I believe.  I would have to find the death record for Giovanni, but it does not seem to be in these records that are available up until 1902.  I can search online at family history center for later dates.

Antonio and Angelina Pompeo

Wow, it has been almost a year since I did some family research. I have been wanting to do more lately, but I let my subscription to ancestry.com and New England Historical Society lapse this year. I was recently reading an article about pilot familysearch though, and thought I would try it out as it has been a while. I was hoping they had indexed some registrations from Italy, as that is the least amount of information I have on my family line. I typed in some of my Italian surnames on familysearch and actually found something I have been looking for, not from Italy, but Massachusetts. I found Antonio Pompeo and Angelina Gagliardi's marriage record. Before this, I did not know if they were married in Italy or Massachusetts. The Massachusetts indices I searched in prior to this only went up to 1910, but the family search index goes to 1915. This is so exciting, as I was able to bring that line back one more generation, with Antonio's and Angelina's parents' names, including mother's maiden names. Antonio's parents are Croce Pompeo and Elisabetta Cappola. Angelina's parents are Ruggero Gagliardi and Lucia Di Lorenzo.

I also did a quick search to see if I could find any siblings for Antonio or Angelina, but I had no luck. In the past, Angelina listed her brother Cristoforo Gagliardi on a passenger list to Boston, but in my quick search on familysearch, I did not find any records for him. After looking more closely at pilot familysearch, I see that they do not have the Registrations for the area of Italy my family came from. However, they do have some registrations microfilmed at their library.

To Do List:
1. obtain microfilm from family History Library for Torre De Passeri for Antonio Pompeo and Angelina Gagliardi's birth records or their parent's marriage records - to find if they have more information on parents, such as place of birth.