52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #35: At Work ~ My Trash Dump Ancestor Antonio Marotta, Likely a Zingaro ~

This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks theme is At Work.  For this theme I chose to focus on my 5th great grandfather Antonio Marotta, a trash collector/trash dump worker.  He was part of a family I strongly believe to be Zingari//Gypsies.

How does he relate to me?  Antonio Marotta is the great grandfather of my immigrant second great grandmother from Nola, Napoli, Filomena Napolitano Ferraro,

Antonio Marotta was born around 1740, likely in Campania, to Giacomo Marotta and a lady possibly named Girolama Stellato.

There Marottas were living in Nola in the first half of the 1800s and appeared in the civil records as horse wagon drivers or trainieri, in the Neapolitan language.  Sometimes the word used for them was traignante.  Antonio lived in the Navaretta neighborhood of Nola in 1811.  His brothers and nephews were referred to as traignante in the Nola records on Antenati.  To speed up my finding of his family, I searched the indexes for Nola for anyone with that profession, regardless of their surname.  It paid off, because they were all related in some way or another.  Some of them married those with the Napolitano surname in Nola or had a close relationship to males with menial labor professions in Nola.

I even found a trainiero in the death records whose name was unknown because, according to my translation from Italian, “he died in disgrace and his family didn’t wish to identify him!”  Could he be my relative?  Maybe.  Additionally, I came across several signatures of some of the Marottas in the records in Nola.  They spelled their surname as Marotto.

So naturally, since Antonio had his own wagon, I found him referred to as a mondezzaio or trash collector/trash dump worker on his daughter’s death record in 1821.  I researched the history of trash dumps and trash collectors for this week’s theme.  Trash collection was and still is a Zingaro occupation in some parts of Europe.  The trash collector would be paid to take away trash.  He could peddle some of it if he chose, haul it to a pit to be buried, burn it in a pit, or in some cases, the trash collector would dump the trash in a body of water.

Antonio’s Immediate Family

Antonio was married to my 5th great grandmother Giulia Notaro and they had at least three children: Rosa – born about 1775, Gennaro, and Fortunata – a fruit peddler.  Rosa is my ancestress.  She married Antonio Camillo Pasquale Napolitano and was the mother of Carmine Napolitano – Filomena’s father.

Like her husband Antonio, the origin of Giulia Notaro is also unknown.  She was likely born about 1750 somewhere in Campania, and according to her death record from 1818, her father was Francesco Notaro and her mother was Teresa Parziale.  Giulia was a lacemaker by trade.

Antonio ended up outliving Giulia who passed away in 1818.  He died on May 7, 1829, while living at Strada Sant’Anna, Nola, at the age of 92.  If he was 92 in 1829, he would have been 84 in 1821 while working as a trash man.  Coincidentally,  daughter Rosa and her husband Antonio Napolitano lived on Strada Sant’Anna.  It is very plausible Antonio was residing with my fourth great grandparents at the time of his death.  His son Gennaro remains a mystery to me.  I am unsure if he even married.

The nephews and great nephews of Antonio Marotta moved up the chain some, because, by the 1850s and early 1860s Nola Civil records, they are found with the profession of making wagons for a wealthy landowner.

I wish I knew more about Antonio’s wife’s family the Notaros at this time.  That is something for future research!

Do you have additions, corrections, or questions about my sources?  Please feel free to email me at cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #34: Tragedy ~ The Tragic Losses in the Early Life of Giovanna Damiani ~

This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks them is Tragedy.  My four times great grandmother Giovanna Damiani suffered tragedy after tragedy in her early life.  She was born in 1804 in Farindola, Italy to contadini Domenico Damiani and Laura Rosa.  Present at her baptism on March 23, 1804 at the Parish of San Nicola di Bari, were her godmother Domenica Fragasso, and the midwife named Anna Dell’Orso.*  The baptism was performed by Arch Priest Giovanni Mantricchia.

Giovanna was the middle child, with two older brothers named Giuseppantonio and Antonio, and two younger sisters named Anna Emidia and Catarina.  How does she relate to me specifically?  She is the ancestress of my paternal grandmother, and the snipped image of her descendancy to my paternal grandmother is shown below.
On the night of January 9, 1810, when Giovanna was 5 years old, her father Domenico was murdered at Contrada Valchiera in Farindola, with other male members of his family – namely his uncles Donato and Nicola Damiani.  According to La Storia di Farindola by Antonio Procacci, these were likely vendetta murders.

My 5 times great grandmother Laura Rosa had been pregnant when he was murdered.  Their youngest child Catarina was born on July 28th of that year at Contrada Valchiera.

At some point, Laura moved Giovanna and her remaining family, to live with her Damiani in-laws according to addresses found in the 1811 Farindola Civil Records, to Contrada delle Tavo, Farindola.  There is a clue that perhaps Giovanna’s mother’s family had contracted an illness, because in April of 1811, Giuseppe Rosa, the brother of Giovanna’s mother, Giovanna’s mother Laura, and Giovanna’s youngest sister Catarina all passed away within a week of each other.  The deaths progressed as follows:

• Giuseppe Rosa passed away on April 5, 1811 at Contrada Santa Maria, Farindola;
• Catarina Damiani passed away on April 10, 1881 at Contrada delle Tavo, Farindola.  Informant was her grandfather Giovanni Damiani, also living at Contrada delle Tavo;
• Laura Rosa passed away the day after her daughter at Contrada delle Tavo, Farindola.  Informants were her father-in-law Giovanni Damiani(again) and brother Domenico Rosa from Contrada Santa Maria.

Note my 5 time great grandfather’s signature at the bottom – Nicola Carusi —–Remember him?

At age 7, Giovanna and her remaining siblings were now orphans.  Luckily, their paternal grandparents Giovanni Damiani and Veneranda Paolucci were still alive, for Giovanni successfully married off all of his orphaned grandchildren before he died in 1827 –  in the same place his son and brothers were murdered – Contrada Valchiera, Farindola.  They married the following individuals:

• Giuseppantonio married Elisabetta Colangelo;
• Antonio married Angela Maria Dell’Orso;
• Giovanna married my 4 times great grandfather Antonio Lucerini, son of Domenico Antonio Lucerini and Guiditta Urbana Dell’Orso in early 1825;
• Anna Emidia married Pasquamarino Riccitelli.

After a sad early life for my 4 times great grandmother Giovanna, she and Domenico had 10 children that survived to adulthood.   In their 47th year of marriage in 1872, Domenico left Giovanna a widow.  She passed away in 1886 at #24, Contrada Casebruciate, Farindola.

*I suspect that Anna Dell’Orso was a 5th or 6th great grand aunt of mine, because in my experience looking at the Farindola records, the midwives were usually relations to the children they delivered.

If you have any comments, additions, or corrections, or any question on my sources (Italian civil records on Antenati and La Storia di Farindola) please email me- cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.

 

 

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #33: Comedy

This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is Comedy.  This week I look at the comedic census data on my immigrant ancestors.

In 1880, after his wife had passed away, my immigrant third great grandfather Quirinus Eckebrecht was living with his son Charles in Chicago.  Not only was Eckebrecht spelled incorrectly, although not too badly, the census-taker wrote his name as Kareneus.

Also in 1880, my immigrant 3 times great grandfather Johann Schuttler was recorded as Schutttter in Chicago.

On the 1910 Federal Census in Chicago, my great grandparents Carmine and Helen Ferraro and grandfather Carmen were recorded on the census as: Carmein Ferier, Helen Ferier, and Carmein Ferier.

It has occurred to me this may be one of the names my great grandfather was using but who really knows for sure!

These entries all could have been a lot worse, right?  But, this still doesn’t explain why I can’t find my immigrant second great grandparents Johann Leies and Emilia Bold on the 1870 Federal Census.  Perhaps it is because of the way the census taker spelled Leies.  After all, a Wooster, Ohio census taker spelled his uncle Henry’s surname as Lize on the 1850 Federal Census.

-cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net

 

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #32: Sister ~ Louisa Gerbing Schuttler’s Sisters Dora Gerbing Schieferstien and Marie Gerbing Weick (Immigrants #52 and #53)

This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks theme is Sister.  For this theme, I am focusing on  my 3 times great grandmother Louisa Gerbing Schuttler’s immigrant sisters Dora and Marie.

Marie was the youngest daughter of Martha Nicolai and Johann Friedrich Gerbing.  She was born in Vieselbach, Germany in 1846 and baptized as Maria Ernestina.  When she was just 5 years old, she came to the United States with the rest of her family to settle in Chicago.  At the age of 10, her father passed away.  I found Marie on the 1860 Census in Chicago living with her mother Martha.  The census taker did not record a profession for either of them.  Martha passed away in 1869.

On the 1870 and 1880 censuses for Chicago, Marie was living with her sister Dora and her brother-in-law Johann Schieferstien, and was working as a dressmaker.

In 1896, Marie married German immigrant Louis Eberhardt Weick, a widower, and a building contractor, who was in 1866, the secretary of Chicago’s German Masons and Bricklayers Aid Society.  Louis was born in Wurttemberg, Germany in 1832.  Unfortunately, I have not found the names of his parents.

I located a newspaper article stating Louis was in charge of the 48 bricklayers that were commissioned to build Chicago’s federal building in 1876.  Marie was a stepmother to his youngest son, Walter Phillip Weick, who was the son of Louis’s first wife Catharine Miller.  Marie left no biological descendants.  She passed away in 1922 and is buried in Graceland Cemetery.  Louis passed away in 1926, while Walter, who had worked in his father’s contracting business, passed away in 1947.

Dora was born in 1839 in Vieselbach, Germany and was baptized Dorothea Elisabetha Mathilde.  When she was 14 she came to the United States with the rest of her family.  Around 1866, she married German immigrant and shoemaker Johann Schieferstien.  Johann was the son of Franz and Elisabetha.  Dora and Johann have many descendants today.  The following are their children:

Mary (1867-1899) unmarried;

Emma (1869-1884) died at age 14;

Anna (1871-1899), married the son of German immigrants Otto Matthei and had two sons named Richard and Theodore;

Amanda (1873-1935), married Charles Washington Blackwell and they had a son and daughter, who both recently passed on (and for that reason I withhold their names);

John Walter (1876-1951), a traveling salesman, married Helen Belle Morris.  They had two children named Louis Elmer and Walter and divorced.  John Walter’s children took the surname of Helen’s second husband Sigmund Mayer;

Fredericka (Freida) Louise (1879-1957), married German immigrant Johann Carl Martin.  They had 5 children.  Her husband worked at a furniture store.  Freida and Johann seemed to separate at some point.  On the 1920, 1930, and 1940 censuses for Tacoma, Washington, she was listed as a Pastor of the Apostolic Church, while Johann was working at a furniture store in California.  I know there is an obituary somewhere for her.  Unfortunately I cannot find it on newspapers.com!

Garfield (1881-1932), married Mildred Brinckerhoff and had one daughter named Dorothy after Garfield’s mother.  He was a machinist at one point in his career.  A newspaper article from 1932 stated Garfield was found dead with a note that he had taken his life to escape alimony payments to his wife.

Dora’s husband passed away in 1889 in Chicago.  She passed away in 1899.  A voided probate record on Ancestry.com listed the estates of Dora and her daughter Anna together.  I wonder why.  How I wish I would have found obituaries for the sisters of my 3 times great grandmother Marie and Dora.

Do you have any additions, corrections, questions about my sources, or comments?  Please email me – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net