Immigrant #3 ~ Retired Army Captain and Merchant Angelo Ferraro

Immigrant Angelo Ferraro, my great great grandfather, sailed from Napoli to Ellis Island in 1903.  As I have repeatedly written here, a seemingly harmless 61 year old retired Italian Army Captain was detained and held for special inquiry when he arrived.  As I have also revealed here, the reason for his detainment is not listed at the end of the batch of ship manifests for that day that are held at the National Archives.  The above photograph on the left is likely a photograph from Italy before his immigration.  The photograph on the right is likely a photograph taken in Ohio after his immigration.

Because I have written before on Angelo here and on his life here, I will instead note what still can be found on Angelo.  I have also written about the place our Ferraros came from in this older blog post: Ferraro di Talanico, San Felice a Cancello, Caserta, Campania, Italia. The surname is present in that Casertan town back to the 1400s.  So far I have only been able to trace our direct line back to 1590.  I have no doubt the tangle of church records could take it back to the 1400s.

The following puzzle pieces can be focused on for further exploration of this immigrant’s life:

*Finding the marriage record of Angelo and Filomena Napolitano.  That record could be found after the civil records of the Archives of Napoli are added to Antenati in the future.  The marriage record should have data about his profession and the professions of his parents.  It could contain military service information.  The record should seemingly be in the town of Filomena’s birth – Nola.  Maybe writing to Nola is in order.

*If the aforementioned civil records are added to Antenati, clues could be gleaned about Angelo from the records of his children’s births.  While we do have the birth record of my great grandfather, Angelo and Filomena had 5 other children.

*Newspapers.com keeps adding more newspaper collections.  I  have to keep checking to see if there is information about him in the Ohio newspapers.  I love newspapers.com.

*The possibility of the digitization of historic Italian-American newspapers.  After all, Angelo’s son, my great grandfather, was the Publisher and Editor for one in Columbus, Ohio.  What a gold mine those could contain on all of my Italian immigrant ancestors.

*Angelo’s father was a soldier in the Terzo Cacciatori, which was a regiment in the Army of the Bourbon King of Naples in the 1820s.  If a military record is ever retrieved from Italy (I am still trying), it could aid in the Angelo research.

*Speaking of military service, I have requested Angelo’s pension from Caserta.  I think they may be sending what I already have. We will see.

*Last, but not least, the Board of Special Inquiry case file.  We are entering the 9th month of waiting for this file to be found by the USCIS.  At this point, is there any hope left the genealogical request to that government agency will be fulfilled before a professional Philadelphia team wins another championship?  Villanova does not count.  Do I have to be a famous person on Who Do You Think You Are for them to pull and copy it for me?  As of ten minutes ago, the search request that required a $25.00 fee before they would even start looking, is STILL listed as active.  Once, I asked my congressperson for help getting a federal file on one of my ancestors and it didn’t even help.  I refuse to go this route again.  Sigh….I am not a fan of my congressperson either…

cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net

Next Immigrant:  Anne Marie Aloisia Heinzen Kirsch from Switzerland