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 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.

Naturalization Records

I decided to do some catch-up with reading my back-log of magazines. I started with the September 2007 issue of Family Tree Magazine. It is their issue with the 101 best genealogy sites. I like these issues because I always hope their is some great website out there that I do not yet know about, even though deep down I assume I already know all the important sites.

So I start reading with hope that one of these sites will inspire me to find something I have not already found. I have not even read pass the first page, when I saw a website I should try out. Footnote. I have been here in the past, so it is not really a new site for me; however, the article reminded me that they have naturalization records for MA (and some other states).

I have searched for my ancestor's naturalization records on this site before, but have been unsuccessful. I decided to give it another try, knowing that it is very likely one of my Italian ancestors must be in here somewhere. My first attempt was to look for Antonio Pompeo, my great grandfather. No luck. I browsed through all the Pompeos listed, and no match. I am not even sure he did file for naturalization. On the 1910 census he is listed as AL for Alien, on the 1920 census he may be listed as AL or perhaps PA -which could mean pending (the writing is difficult to read). I have to look into this information with more detail.

Anyway, I moved away from searching for the Pompeo family to the DeNicolas. I typed in "Denicola" hoping to find anything. Nothing. I did not want to give up just yet. In the past I have found records on the DeNicola's by searching with a space in their name - "De Nicola". I thought I would give this a try, and YAY! Arnaldo popped right up - my great grandfather! At first I was surprised I had not searched this way before on this website, but I guess it does not hurt to revisit sites after time to try new techniques or in hopes new records were indexed. In this instance, I am guessing I never did search this way on Footnote and the records were always there, I just missed them. Back to the records I found. What a great feeling to find something you have been looking for!!! So these documents led me to 5 naturalization documents for Arnaldo.

declaration of intention 1909
petition of naturalization 1916 - denied for lack of knowledge of government
declaration of intention June 16 1920
petition of naturalization July 20 1920 (accepted)
oath of allegiance July 21 1920

It was nice to have these records of naturalization, but they did not actually give me much new genealogical information on Arnaldo. Some things I did learn though were his and his wife Louisa's actual birth dates; I only had the years before this record. I found some contradictory information on their birth places though. I found previously from their passenger records that Arnaldo was born in Raiano, Italy and Louisa was born in Prezza, Italy. The naturalization records state they were both born in Rome. I am hoping that the passenger records are correct, as searching through all of Rome parish registers will prove more difficult than searching through the smaller areas of Raiano and Prezza (I am guessing as I have not started this task yet). However, on the 1930 Census, it also states that Arnaldo was born in Rome, Italy, while Louisa's simply states Italy. Looking more closely at the passenger records, the column for birth for Arnaldo could be read as Roma, which I mistook for Raiano?

To Do
1. Look into census records more closely for Antonio Pompeo
2. Search for naturalization records for Antonio on Footnote - if they exist
3. Find Arnaldo DeNicola's birth record in Raiano Civil Registration Records - order microfilm from the FHL library.
4. Find Louisa Terragnoli's birth record in Prezza Civil Registration Records - order microfilm from the FHL library.

Links on Topic
Naturalization Timeline from Family Tree Magazine