Tracing my Italian family

The family has long talked about visiting Italy and our grandparents’ hometown. With changes in Italian law, one can claim (reclaim?) Italian citizenship through either the paternal or maternal line. So, down the rabbit hole to collect a variety of records and see what we all might be able to do.

Step 1: See if we can find the ship manifests for when each of my grandparents came to the US. We know the year for each of them. Family lore indicated that Pappa, at least, came in through New Orleans. But we didn’t know where Mamma came in — New Orleans or New York or another port.
We found Pappa on the SS Plata, which went from Palermo to New Orleans in 1891. And then Mamma on the SS Spartan Prince, from Naples to New York in 1898 with her mother and sister and cousin. All of these records are difficult to read.

Step 2: Pull up the copy of the marriage license that I made back in med school. The Omaha public library has a great family history section, and I found that it was a double wedding with one of her sisters. The two licenses also gave me a bunch of other family names.

Step 3: Figure out if either of them were naturalized citizens. This is the hard step, because before 1906, there was no central process or location for records. Naturalization could happen in local, district, state, or federal courts. And most of this is not available on-line. Notations on Census records may or may not be accurate. So there may be a trip to Omaha or the National Archives in Kansas City in our future.

Step 4: Verify all of the US Census records, through 1950 (the most recent year that’s available). This has been the most interesting yet tricky thing, because the family name has been spelled 4 different ways between 1900 and 1950. Pappa’s name is 4 different spellings, and Mamma’s is 3. I finally found them in the 1950 census by searching for their address!

Step 5: Now the hard part – finding records in Italy. This requires professional help. And time.