I thought I had verified the information on the three family records I had, but there was a backstory to each one that raised new questions and uncovered more information.

The first record concerned the date of my grandfather’s arrival in America. In 2002, while searching the database at the immigration center on Ellis Island, the arrival record my niece Kristyn found showed that her great-grandfather had arrived on June 8, 1913. But in 2016, after reading that the immigration center on Ellis Island had added more records, I searched again and uncovered an earlier entry. My grandfather made his first trip to America in 1906 seven years earlier, when he was only 16 years old. What did that mean? I began wondering.

The answer led to my discovery that he was a “bird of passage,” a migrant worker who intended to return to his homeland after working in America.

To clear up the mystery about the second record, showing that my grandfather’s cousin had deeded him the land for one dollar, I turned to one of my father’s and aunt’s first cousins, who had interviewed dozens of our town’s first Italian immigrants in the 1990s. My grandfather would have paid more than one dollar, she explained. Banks were reluctant to make loans to temporary workers, so newcomers arranged their own financing to buy land. My grandfather would have paid his cousin cash for the value of the land and any back taxes due, she said.

The third record showed that my grandfather had become a U.S. citizen on June 28, 1929, but while packing up for my move, I reached up to take the framed document off of the dining room wall and studied the date.  Above “June 28, 1929,” my grandfather listed his address at “Cook Avenue,” not at “408 Stout Avenue” where built our house. “Cook Avenue,” I knew, was the two-story house at #358 that he rented from his sister, Filomena. Sadly, that meant that my grandfather got sick with Parkinson’s disease sometime between 1926, when he finished building our house and was 37 years old, and 1929, when he became a U.S. citizen, shortly after his fortieth birthday.

I welcome you to send me a comment or question about your search for your family here. I would also welcome the opportunity to speak to your civic or community group or to write an essay or article for your media outlet. You can contact me here.

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