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 april 6

I recently blogged about Antonio and Angelina Pompeo when I found their marriage record on pilotfamilysearch.org in February. Since their anniversary was April 6, I thought I would write a little more about their lives together.

Antonio and Angelina* were married 99 years ago, on April 6, 1911 in Boston, MA, by Father John Vitale at 15 North Bennet Street. This is the address for St. Leonard Parish in the North End section of Boston. It seems that they were living in Quincy, MA at the time, so I am not sure why they were married in Boston, perhaps it was the only church that held mass in Italian. According to the 1910 census, Antonio was living with a Joseph Pompeo as boarders at 41 Union Street in Quincy, MA. Angelina did not come to the United States until February of 1911. Her passenger record (page 2) states that she was going to live with her brother Cristoforo Gagliardi at 41 Union Street, Quincy, MA. Since Angelina and Antonio were married only 2 months later and her brother was living with her future husband, it seems likely that they knew each other in Italy before Angelina came to the United States. Antonio and Angelina both came from the same town in Italy also, Torre De Passeri. If they did know each other, they probably had not seen each other for about 6 years since Antonio had been in the United States since 1905 (Antonio's passenger record). Angelina would have been 19 years old when Antonio left Italy. It is possible that Antonio traveled back to Italy during this time for visits home with his family, I will have to search for more passenger records for him. I did not find much information on the the commune of Torre de Passeri, other than it's location on the eastern part of Italy in the province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region, considered Southern Italy. As I could not find much information on Torre de Passeri, I would assume it must be a small commune in Italy.

By September of 1918, when Antonio registered for WWI, he and Angelina were living at a new address of 24 Alden Street in Quincy, MA. Antonio was working as a laborer at the Fore River Company on Howard Street in Quincy, I am guessing this was the Quincy Shipyard, where many of the people from the area worked, including my father. By 1918, they had 4 sons, the youngest was my grandfather Armedio. Antonio and Angelina had 2 more children by 1922, both girls. My father remembers that two of their children, Leo and Dorothy, died of Hodgkins Disease.

The 1920 Census lists Antonio, Angelina and 5 of their 6 children living together on 24 Alden Street in Quincy, MA. Also living on their street is Dominic Pompeo and his wife Secondina with their daughter and two sons. Secondina is Angelina's sister according to the Quincy Vital records on pilotsearch.org. Dominc and Secondina's family also has their brother-in-law and sister-in-law with a son living with them. The census is difficult to read, but it looks like the brother-in-law's name is Dominic Gizzarelli, who came to the United States in 1910. The sister-in-law's name might be something like Giacindo who came to the United States with her son. (My Dad said he thinks they called her Georgina). I did find Geocinda and her son's passenger record (page 2), coming to see her husband Dominic Gizarelli in New York in 1916 (by 1920 though, they were in Quincy). These in-laws would be Secondina's sister and husband, and therefore Angelina's sister as well. I do also know that Angelina had a brother Cristoforo who came to the United States in 1901 and was also married to a Pompeo, Odelina. Cristoforo and Odelina were marred in Italy according to her passenger record. I am grateful for these records, as they allowed me to find that Angelina had at least 2 sisters (Geocinda and Secondina) and one brother (Cristoforo) living in the same town of Quincy. I am sure it was a comfort to Angelina to have her siblings living so close, as it must have been difficult living in a new Country so far from home.

Antonio also had a least one sibling, Joseph Pompeo, living in the United States. There are other Pompeos in Quincy at this time, including Dominic (Secondina Gagliardi's husband), Odelina (Cristoforo Gagliardi's wife) and Raffeal, who came to the US with Cristoforo Gagliardi in 1901. On Dominic Pompeo's passenger record, it states that Raffael Pompeo is his uncle. I do know that Dominic Pompeo was not Antonio's brother, as he lists different parents on his marriage record in Boston, MA. Dominic's parents are Felico Pompeo and Carmela, Antonio's parents are Croce Pompeo and Elisabetta. There are many other Pompeo's living in Quincy in 1920, in all there are 33 Pompeo's. I am not able to see how many originated from Italy or are heads of households at this time as I do not have a subscription to ancestry.com. The records that I had searched in the past though do allow me to find that Cristoforo Gagliardi and his wife Odelina Pompeo were the first to come to the United States, he in 1901 and she in 1903. Cristoforo came with 4 other men from the same town of Torre de Passeri, Raffeal Pompeo being the oldest at age 43, Berandino Di Lorenzo next at age 41. As these men are a generation before Cristoforo, maybe they are his or Odelina's Uncles (Cristoforo's mother's maiden name is Di Lorenzo). If Raffael is Odelina's uncle, then Dominic Pompeo would be Odelina's brother. However, right now I just do not know how Dominic is related to Odelina or Antonio. Even if they were not close relatives, they certainly all knew each other coming from the same town in Italy. Again, I am sure there travel was made a little easier knowing others from the same part of Italy as they lived. (see to do list 5 and 6 below for update)


View Pompeo Family 1920 in a larger map











Antonio Pompeo lived at 24 Alden street until his death sometime before 1930.  The 1930 census has Angelina Pompeo as the head of household on Alden Street with all 6 of her children. In 1930, her oldest child, Crosie, was 16 and her youngest, Rita, was only 7. It must have been very difficult for her to be alone and caring for 6 children. According to this census, Angelina owns her house at a value of $5,000. The census also states that she is not able to read or write and she is not able to speak English. I find it surprising she was not able to speak English, as she had been living in the United States now for 19 years. Also by this time in 1930, she is naturalized. I did not find her naturalization record on footnote.com, and I am not sure if she was automatically naturalized because her husband was naturalized before he died. I will have to look through the naturalization laws at this time. I did not find Antonio's naturalization record either.

Since Angelina was raising her children alone in 1930, I looked into where her relatives were living at that time to see if she may have had some support. All of her siblings were living in Quincy in 1930, her brother Cristoforo Gagliardi was living at 36 Newcomb Street, her sister Geocinda was living at 29 Main Street. Secondina was living the closest to Angelina at 34 Lowe Street, probably giving her the most support.


View Gagliardi siblings 1930 in a larger map











Those are the last of the records I have for Angelina and Antonio. Their lives must have been very challenging, coming to a new country, speaking a different language and trying to adjust to a new lifestyle. Having their extended family around them was probably very comforting, especially to Angelina once her husband died young in his 40s.


notes:

*the passenger record and the marriage record state her name as Angela, not Angelina. When I first came across her name in the 1930 census, it stated Angelina, which is what I tend to use. Antonio's WWI registration card also states her name as Angelina.

to do list:

1. find naturalization records for antonio and joseph pompeo - and other pompeos - raffeal
2. find wwi record for joseph pompeo and raffeal pompeo - other pompeos. UPDATE: Joseph's WWI record is filed under Guisseppe Pompeo.
3. find marriage record for joseph pompeo - he is single in 1910. another joseph may have married a lauruno fertilli - this couple had a daughter avelina who b. 1914 and d 1915 - antonio's brother joseph in 1920 census has wife cristina - there are two joseph pompeo's in 1910 census in quincy (one born 1880, antonio's brother is born 1890) other joseph is married to laura fertilli.  UPDATE: Joseph - also named Guisseppe - marries Cirettina Gramazio in December of 1916 in Boston, MA, according to familysearch record.  States same parents as Antonio, Croce and Elisabetta.
4. find other passenger records for antonio pompeo to see if he went back and forth to italy and united states
5. find relationship between all the pompeo's that the gagliardi's married - antonio pompeo, dominic pompeo and odelina pompeo is odelina antonio and joseph's sister - odelina may have died before 1927 as cristoforo gagliardi is married again in 1927.  UPDATE: family search has posted these italian records online for Torre de Passeri and I was able to answer all of these relationship questions.  Odelina = Adelina ; she is the sister of Antonio and Joseph.
6. Dominic pompeo - lists uncle raffeal pompeo on his passenger record. the raffeal pompeo that lives in quincy in 1920 would make sense as uncle as he was born in 1858. (raffeal pompeo and cristoforo gagliardi came over to NY together with three other men from torre de passeri in 1901) maybe raffeal, felice and croce pompeo are brothers - also a luigi lists raffeal as his brother (felice and luigi seemed to have come to us - but they are not listed in any censuses - maybe they died or went back to italy) UPDATE: family search has posted these italian records online for Torre de Passeri and I was able to answer all of these relationship questions.  Raffael, Felice, Luigi, and Croce are all brothers, sons of Domenico Antonio Pompeo and Concetta Calderelli.  They also have a sister Giovanna - but did not find records of her in US, maybe she stayed in Italy or died young?)
7. find passenger records for the pompeos that live in Quincy in 1920 census - any siblings of Antonio.

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.

Antonio Pompeo

I decided again to try to look further into Antonio's naturalization. First I looked more closely at the information I do have for Antonio, specifically the census records and his WWI registration for the draft. In his 1918 draft record, he states he is a non-declarant alien. Looking into this, it seems this means he has not made the declaration of intent on becoming a US citizen, which also seems to mean that he could not be drafted in WWI. So I know in 1918, there should not be any naturalization records for Antonio. I then looked again at the 1920 census. It does seem to state under naturalization - pa: which I have found to mean he has started the paper process of becoming naturalized, which means there should be records for him before January 1, 1920 (date census enumerators went by for their questions). I decided now to go back to footnote to see if I could find his records in 1919. I browsed the documents and searched using name variations, but still no luck. I am not sure where to go from here in locating these records, but I will keep trying. I also noted in the 1930 census his wife Angelina (Antonio is deceased) is listed as being naturalized. Either she was automatically naturalized because her husband eventually became a citizen or she went through the process herself. So I have some more searching to do.

To Do
1. Find out if footnote database is complete for naturalization records for MA (as of 4.1.2008 - it was 99% complete)
2. Order microfilm from FHL - Norfolk County naturalization records if footnote's database is not complete.