The Problem with Italians

And probably with a lot of other ethnicities, too.

Imagine a family consisting of a widowed father and his 5 children: Domenico, Vincenzo, Rosa, Angelica, Maria, and Giovanna. The census taker can't spell their last name, D'Ingeo; the only time you've found them on a census, it's spelled Dengao.

Vincenzo, in that unusual trick of Americanizing the name Vincenzo, goes by James, or Jimmy.
Rosa can be Rosa or Rosie.
Angelica might go by the Italian nickname my grandfather pronounces "Yaneen" or "Aneen;" she may also take on an American nickname the way her siblings did, but I have yet to discover it.
Maria, of course, is sometimes Mary.
Giovanna is Giovannine in Italian; she's Jenny in English.
Their father, of course, could be Dominic, Dominick, Domenico, Dominico, Dom, etc.

They immigrated in 1909 (Jimmy), 1911 (Rosa) and 1917 (the rest of the family). Some portion of them should show up on the 1910 Census (I've found no one), the 1915 NYS Census (no one), the 1920 Census (I may have found Maria, grown-up and married to my great-grandfather), and the 1925 NYS Census (no one). They finally start showing up in 1930, grown-up and married, where I've found Jimmy with his family, Jenny with her family, Maria with her family, and Domenico with Jenny's family.

I simply can't figure out how to search for them more thoroughly. Usually I'd resort to exact-search functions and searching for the relationships between family members, but between the misspellings and the nicknames, the permutations are absolutely endless and I haven't had any luck.

Who has a tip who can get me back on track with these troublesome Italians?

Rosa D'Ingeo's Immigration Records

For a long time, I'd had immigration records for all the D'Ingeos but one. Vincenzo's was easy to find and Domenico brought his all younger daughters over together, but Rosa's immigration record eluded me. A few weeks ago, I described the process of finding it using the always-helpful Steve Morse One-Step site.

Rosa D'Ingeo is found on line 13 of these pages. She's listed as Rosa D'Inseo, 16. She's listed as a domestic, although it appears to have been written in after the fact by someone with different handwriting than the person recording the other information. Her nearest relative "in country whence alien came" was her father, Domenico from Toritto, and she's going to New York. She had a ticket to her final destination, said she paid for her own passage, and it looks like she had $28 with her. She was being met by her brother Vincenzo, and there's an address given for him, but it's difficult to read. She was 4'8" tall and was born in Toritto, Italy.

Rosa also shows up at the back of the passenger manifest on the Record of Detained Aliens. She is, again, listed as Rosa D'Inseo. She was detained awaiting her brother, Vincenzo, whose address is here given more clearly as 221 W. 19th St.

Looking just a little harder to find Rosa D'Ingeo

I have long had the immigration records of my great-grandmother, Maria D'Ingeo Gatto and a portion of her family; she immigrated in 1917 with her father, Domenico, her sisters Angelica and Giovanna, and an unrecognized woman, Maria Lupo. The family said that they were being met by her sister Rosa; I know that she also had a brother, Vicenzo "James" D'Ingeo. I had never been able to find arrival records for Rosa or Vicenzo on Ancestry, but some time ago I searched a little harder and came up with Vicenzo's arrival records on the Ellis Island website. But I never had any luck at all finding Rosa.

Then, last week, Ben bought the Who Do You Think You Are book by Megan Smolenyak, and I read it. In it, she mentions the Steve Morse One-Step webpages. Now, of course I knew about the One-Step site. Of course I had visited the One-Step site. But it occurred to me that I had never really used the One-Step tool to systematically search for and find something that was eluding me.

I didn't even go into it looking for something I couldn't find; I went into it looking for something I knew was there. My Ancestry.com subscription has lapsed, and we're letting it stay that way for a little while longer, and then maybe discussing if it might be more worthwhile to direct our limited genealogical funds towards a different database for a time. So when I needed information about Maria and her father Domenico from their passenger manifest (and this week I'm on a computer that includes neither my saved documents nor my genealogy software), I used Steve Morse's Ellis Island Gold Form to find the passenger manifest I'd already seen, by filling in information I already knew it contained. And I realized that this long-ignored tool might be able to do what it was intended to do and help me find something I had never been able to find. So I tried a little harder, and in 15 minutes or less, I had Rosa's arrival records, dated 6 Dec 1911, where she was recorded as Rosa D'Inseo. She stated that she was meeting her brother Vicenzo and that her closest relative in Italy was her father Domenico, in Toritto. It was really her! I think I'd begun to suspect that she had married before immigrating, and I'd never find her arrival records without knowing her married name. But it turns out that I just wasn't looking hard enough!

Later this week I'll share Rosa's elusive arrival records with you!

(The above post includes Amazon.com affiliate links.)

D'Ingeo Family Immigration

These are the immigration papers of Maria D'Ingeo (Grandma Gatto) and her family. The information was recorded across the two pages of an open book, so you have to follow the line numbers on one page and then the next. The family is listed near the bottom of the page, as Domenico D'Ingeo, 55; his wife Maria Lupo, 58; and his daughters Angelica, 17; Maria, 14; and Giovanna, 11.

Grandpa tells me he doesn't know who Maria Lupo is. According to the story we've been told of Grandma Gatto's life, by the time they imigrated, Domenico D'Ingeo's first wife had died and his second wife had been thrown out for the sake of his children. Either that is in some way mistaken, or there was, perhaps, a third wife? I don't know yet.

Both Domenico D'Ingeo and Maria Lupo, interestingly, are listed as housewives, and neither could read. The three daughters, however, are literate, and the elder two are servants. All are Southern Italians, and all are listed as having last lived in the town of Toritto. Their nearest relative in Italy is a "sister, Maria" in Toritto. It doesn't say whose sister, but it's probably safe to assume that Maria was the sister of the head of the family, Domenico.

On the next page, we see that they're heading to Brooklyn with $129. They're heading to meet Domenico and Maria's daughter, and Angelica, Maria, and Giovanna's sister, Rosa D'Ingeo, who appears to be living at 1628 Batte Ave. in Brooklyn. (Google Maps can't find this address.)

There's something written across the lines for Domenico and Maria in the next columns, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it says. Take a look at the records yourself (just click to enlarge the image) and see if you can make it out! Let me know what you think it says!

I assume that whatever it says has something to do with this next image, the record of the D'Ingeos being detained upon arrival.

They appear to spend about 3 days (the last column tells you how many meals they ate, because the ship's company had to pay those costs, and the 5 of them ate 15 breakfasts, 10 lunches, and 15 dinners) detained on Ellis Island because of concern that Domenico and Maria Lupo were "LPC" or "Likely Public Charges." The reason for this concern, given as "Cert," is, I think (don't take my word for this) that there was a suspected medical condition. I imagine that the notes on the passenger manifest might shed light on this, if legible. Maria the younger, Maria D'Ingeo, has "HOLD" noted next to her name. I haven't a clue what this means.

Returning for a moment to the original manifest, there are a handful more pieces of interesting information. Everyone's height is given: Domenico is 5'6", Maria is 5'4", Angelica is 5'1", Maria is 5', and Giovanna has no height listed, perhaps because she's so young. They all supposedly have a "regular" complexion with brown hair and brown eyes. So does everyone else on the page, though, so they may not have been making nuanced distinctions here. They also list a place of birth for everyone, and, for everyone, it's given as "Italy." The town doesn't look like it says Toritto, though it could. I'm more inclined to think it's two words, the first of which is "Cento." This would be evidence against my growing suspicion that the D'Ingeo children might have been born in Brazil. (See: 1930 Census). I'm still working on trying to figure that one out.