U.S Census Records
If your relatives emigrated to the U.S., United States federal census records provide a lot of information. If a person was living with parents in one census and then was living with a spouse in the next, you have a rough time frame for when they married. If there are children listed in the census, by process of elimination you can determine a rough marriage date.
Example: in 1900 the person was 17 and living with parents. In 1910 the person was married with a three-year-old and a 7-month-old. You could guesstimate the marriage date as around 1907, giving you a rough idea of where to start looking at marriage records. If a parent was also living with the couple in 1910, you could surmise that the parent had been widowed between the censuses, and you would at least have a ten-year range to look for a death record of the other parent.
Ten Years is a Long Time
Granted, ten years is a long time. How can you bridge the gap? The two main resources that have been the most help to me are U.S city and business directories (available on both familysearch.org (free) and ancestry.com (subscription), and newspapers.com (subscription), where you can search newspapers for your relatives’ life and social events. See more on these resources below.
Also of note is that the 1940 federal census asked five-year look back residence questions: On April 1, 1935, in what town, county and state did the person live, and whether or not the person lived on a farm. It also asks supplementary information for two people on the sheet: the state where the person’s father and mother were born, mother tongue, whether the person is a veteran, and so on.
Immigration Records
Immigration and naturalization records are very helpful if your relatives were not born here and chose to become naturalized citizens. Studying ship manifests is a topic of its own, but in general terms the list of emigrees gives you name, age, occupation, sometimes the city or town of origin, with whom the person last stayed in the home country (with relationship – mother, grandparent, etc.), with whom the person planned to initially stay in the U.S. (often with the relationship – father, brother, etc., as well as the city). Also see NARA below regarding naturalization records.
Italy/Sicily – Ancestors Portal
Portal Antenati (Ancestors Portal) is a wonderful, free, genealogical research archive for all of the regions of Italy and Sicily, sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Culture and other archival government agencies.
Depending on the province and the individual town or city, Portal Antenati has birth, death and marriage records from the early 1800s until at least 1860 (sometimes later). These are handwritten Italian records, some on pre-printed forms, and others in which all of the form information is also handwritten. In a future post I will discuss the gauntlet of reading 19th century handwritten Italian records.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Familysearch.org)
Post-1860 birth, death and marriage records for most Italian provinces can be found for free at Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, online at familysearch.org, with even older records on microfiche at physical Family History Centers. It has a wealth of other online information, and its centers have genealogical records that are not online (as well as very experienced research staff). Registration is free; you can build a family tree and attach record you find in your searches. There is a ton of great info and links on the FamilySearch Sicily genealogy wiki page.
Here is information on why members of this religion research their ancestors: Why family history?
Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com is a paid genealogical research site that has countless genealogical records, and allows you to build your family tree, based on the information you enter and the records you find. Here is the Ancestry.com free trial offer page.
Ancestry.com also offers DNA testing – not only do you get your own results, but Ancestry provides DNA matches, sorted into your maternal and paternal sides. If this is something you want to do, if you can possibly have your parents do tests as well, you can achieve a level of understanding of your regional origins.
Newspapers.com
The paid Newspapers.com™ online newspaper archive contains 900 million+ pages of searchable historical newspapers. I have found very interesting “slice of life” social and cultural information in the early 20th century newspapers, which chronicled who visited whom, parties held, wedding accounts, etc.
Example: At age 15, my maternal grandfather was struck by a car while riding his bike. What he and my grandmother told me was that his hip was broken, was improperly set so that the leg was much shorter. The hip had to be re-broken and reset. Ultimately the leg was a bit shorter than the other, giving him a slight limp, and he knew when rain was coming because that leg would always ache. What I learned from the newspaper articles was how long he was in the hospital, that his classmates sent him get-well cards, and that he and his father sued the driver.
Another example: My paternal grandfather (Sicilian), who died before I was born, was very musically talented and played multiple instruments including guitar, banjo, mandolin and accordion (my dad inherited his wonderful 1902 Gibson guitar). I heard family stories about how he and his musical friends would serenade a newlywed couple outside their home on an evening, playing instruments and singing, with other relatives and friends in tow. The couple would invite everyone in, fix food and host the party late into the night. What I learned from newspaper articles is that he had a band, played at numerous city events and traveled out of town to perform.
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
“NARA is an independent Federal agency that preserves our nation’s history by overseeing the management of all Federal records.” (My grandmother was a postmaster from 1957 through 1970, and I found her records in Postmaster Appointments for the county where she lived.)
The NARA Genealogy Page explains what information is available and how to obtain it.
From the Naturalization Records page: If a naturalization took place in a Federal court, naturalization indexes, declarations of intention (with any accompanying certificates of arrival), and petitions for naturalization will usually be in the National Archives facility serving the state in which the Federal court is located. No central index exists. (Handy to know.)
Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation
If your family member emigrated to the U.S. in the 19th or early century, you should be able to find the ship manifest listing your relative on the Ellis Island Passenger Search site. The Passenger Search database allows you to look for family members who arrived at the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957. Ship manifests are a tremendous resource. Depending on the year (ship manifests varied over time), the ship manifest can list all this information:
Person’s name, age, marital status, health, physical description, last town of residence, name of relative the emigrant last resided with in the home country, final destination point in the US, name and address of friend or relative the person would initially stay with in the US.
The Ellis Island Foundation is also partnering with familysearch.org (see above) to allow researchers to annotate records, correct surname spellings, and so on, directly in the records.
The New York City Municipal Archives Online Search
The City of New York Department of Records has an online search portal for birth, death and marriage certificates. You can search by certificate number or by name. You can search by borough or by all boroughs. It’s worthwhile to read the information on that page as not all records are available, and also to read the City Clerk’s digitization information page to understand the scope of the records. This can be a gold mine if your family lived in New York City and had a life event such as a birth, marriage or death.
Rootsweb.com
The Rootsweb free genealogy system has tons of resources – databases to search, state and county resources such as local genealogy societies and census records, as well as world-wide information. Spend some time becoming familiar with what this system has to offer.
Cyndi’s List
Cyndi’s List has over 300,000 genealogy resource links – ethnicity, country and state. This is another site to become familiar with. Here’s the Italy category index.