Genealogy Reviews Online

Immigrant Ship - Stampalia

I was browsing the New York Times archives recently and stumbled across an article about the ship that delivered my grandmother to the port of Philidelphia in September 1913.  I knew that my grandmother came to the US on the ship Stampalia and also read about how the ship was sunk (Aug 17, 1916) during World War I, but the article I found was press reporting on the event only three days after the fact (Aug 20, 1916).  The article also provides additional details on the ship I hadn't seen before. 

I was so full of myself for finding this nugget, I kept looking for more and found another article( dated Aug 21, 1914) about the Stampalia.  It seems a US banker had a whacky adventure trying to get out of Italy shortly after the start of World War I, and he was able to finally get passage on the ship.  It's a good story, but I really like the description he gave of his accomodations (steerage) on the Stampalia.  It's a small part of the article, but it interests me because my grandmother was in steerage on that very ship about one year prior.

To me, this kind of discovery is more exciting than any other and also goes to show how important newspaper archives are to family history.

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My Greatest Genealogical Mysteries - Illegal Immigrant or Not?

I was in my idea booth recently (a hot steamy shower) trying to think of a topic to write about, and for some reason, I started thinking of various mysteries surrounding some of my ancestors.  These thoughts weren't necessarily about brick walls, but about events in my ancestor's lives where I just scratched my head and wonder what the heck happened.  Over the next few days I plan on writing about a few of these characters.  I'm not sure how many I will get to because we are leaving early Saturday morning for a week long vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and I don't know how much time I will get to work on this series.  I'm hoping to have some quiet time where I can just sit back, listen to the ocean waves, and write.  So here we go with the first installment...

Canadian Border crossing of Antonio Agazio.  My paternal grandfather was born in the town of San Giovanni in Fiore located in Calabria, Italy in 1884.  He boarded a ship in Naples sometime in 1900 and immigrated to Canada - there's a story behind this too, but I'll save it for another time.  A family story has him traveling with a slightly older cousin (my grandfather was about 13-14) and entering North America somewhere in Canada.  He then worked in the Canadian timber industry and eventually crossed the border into the United States.  I don't have any official documentation showing this as fact, but in his citizenship paperwork from the mid 1920s he says he arrived at the port of Quebec, traveled by train across Canada, and crossed into the Untied Stated by ferry at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan in July of 1901.  He goes on to say he traveled to Spokane, Washington and I assume his intent was to look for work.  Nine years later he shows up in the 1910 census as a railroad worker in Idaho's pan handle - a short 74 miles from Spokane.  This is all good information, and it's probably true, but the only documentation I have is what he wrote in the Citizenship documents about 25 years later.   

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