Category: Italy

Great-Grandma's 120th Birthday

1/6/2015

A Young Adele Parazzini Licciardi

On this date in 1895, my great-grandmother, Adele Parazzini Licciardi, was born in Milano, Lombardia, Italy. A couple of years ago, I wrote this post about what I remember about her. Today, I thought I would share her Petition for Naturalization from 1945. (Click for larger image.)

On this form, as well as on her ship manifest from 1921, her surname is listed as 'Parrazzini,' but her birth surname may actually be spelled 'Parazzini, as the former does not seem to be at all that common in Italy. Adele came to America in 1921 and passed away in 1990 at the age of 95.

Petition for Naturalization for Adele Parazzini Licciardi

Adele married Luigi Licciardi in 1913 at the age of 18. (The petition lists her marriage date as 1919, which is incorrect.) Luigi was a Sicilian, and they met in the north when Luigi was on military duty with the Italian Army. So, my grandmother and her sister had the unusual combination of a northern AND southern Italian parent.

I do not (yet) know the names of Adele's parents. They did not come to America and probably lived out their lives in Milano or in a nearby area.

More about the Adele and her descendants can be found here:
Licciardi Family Documents

©2015, Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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Louis Licciardi in the Newspaper

11/4/2014

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On this day in 1935, my great-grandfather, Louis (Luigi) Licciardi, had his photo in The Cleveland Plain Dealer! He was the president of the Italian War Veterans (Cleveland Branch), and the newspaper article recounted a large event in honor of several commemorations important to the city's Italian-American community. (Click for larger view.)

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4 Nov 1935, page 7

This article reminds us that Mussolini and his actions were looked upon favorably by Italians in America, at least for a time before the onset of the Second World War.

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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CIAO Italian Genealogy Seminar

6/27/2014

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This past weekend, I attended the Cleveland Italian Ancestry Organization (CIAO) Italian Genealogy Seminar at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio. The all-day seminar featured two nationally-known expert Italian genealogists: Paola Manfredi, AG and Suzanne Russo Adams, AG, both of whom are currently employed with FamilySeach.org.

The seminar consisted of four main presentation sessions, with each presenter speaking simultaneously on a different topic, so I had to choose which talks I wanted to attend for each session. I attended Suzanne's first session, entitled 'Beginning Italian Research,' and, although I do not consider myself a beginner, it was a great review of some of the documents and resources I already know about. And, I actually learned things that I didn't know about, especially with regards to the hierarchy of how the records in Italy are made and where they are kept.

During the second session, I attended Paola's talk entitled, 'Post Napoleonic Civil Records in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.' Her previous presentation was about Napoleonic Civil Records, and she did give a little review of how the recording of civil records differed between the two periods. (Quick note: Both presenters did a great job of explaining the history behind the record-keeping, which was both interesting and helpful.) Paola showed us a lot of examples of actual birth, marriage, and death records so that we could get a feel for how they are arranged, which really helps in picking out the important information. Before this seminar, I was pretty intimidated by records written in Italian. However, I've learned that once you can recognize certain repetitive words and phrases, deciphering the information within the records becomes much easier. Here is the link to FamilySearch.org's educational page on Italian civil records.

I stayed with Paola for the third session. She presented on Italian military records, which a.) I knew nothing about and b.) I wanted to learn about because my great-grandfather served in the Italian Army during WWI. This presentation was fascinating; Paola spoke about the liste di leva, which lists information about ALL 18 year old men in a particular comune (town). Not only can you discover a man's parents' names from these records, but they also include a physical description of each 'draftee.' We also looked at a sample ruoli matricolari record, which is basically a description of a soldier's entire military service. While many state archives throughout Italy have started to put indexed records online, Sicily (where my great-grandfather was from) has not yet done so. (FamilySearch.org has a nice summary of Italian Military Records at this link.)

For the fourth and final session, I went back to listen to Suzanne present about online Italian research resources. She gave us a list of fifty websites that could potential help us with our Italian ancestor research. She highlighted a few of her favorites, including the Portale Antenanti, which contains over 19 million images from state archives all over Italy. Suzanne really emphasized trying to learn about your ancestor's hometown and the region's history, even before you delve into the search for individual records. She told us to try to Google location names in Italian, because doing so will likely yield more results. Currently, there are 30(!) cameras all over Italy, digitizing records that will soon be made available on FamilySearch.org (for LDS members) AND on the Portale Antenanti (for everyone). So, Suzanne told us, if your ancestors are nowhere to be found online as of yet, they probably will be there soon. Exciting news, for sure!

Overall, it was a great seminar. I learned a lot, and had an enjoyable time, too! We were served a yummy, yummy lunch and there was even a raffle of some great Italian- and genealogy-related books, food, and gift certificates. We were given awesome, comprehensive syllabus materials and a neat bag in which to carry everything. The price ($45) was very reasonable, and I hope the organization sponsors something like this again in the future.

CIAO Italian Genealogy Seminar Materials and Hand-Outs

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Foto Friday: The Dante Alighieri Society

11/2/2012

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My great-grandfather, Luigi Licciardi, was a founding member and the first secretary of the Cleveland Chapter of the Dante Alighieri Society. (He is pictured here standing, third from the left - next to the bust). This short news article from The Cleveland Plain Dealer describes the establishment of this group in 1934.

Source: The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 15 Apr 1934

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Adele

9/19/2012

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Adele Licciardi, 1944

No, not THAT Adele; not the sassy, soulful British-born singer-songwriter. This post is about the person with whom I associate the name, my Great-Grandmother, Adele.

She was born Adele Parrazzini in 1895 in the northern Italian city of Milan. We don't know much about her childhood or upbringing. My uncle has told me that she met my great-grandfather, Luigi Licciardi, when he was on business in Milan; he was originially from Palermo, Sicily, and back then there was not a whole lot of intermingling between the north and the south. They were married in 1913 and my grandmother, Dina, and her sister, Yola, were born in 1914 and 1915, respectively. Luigi (Louis) became a captain in the Italian army during WWI.

I don't think anyone in the family knows why they decided to immigrate to the United States. Like many other European nations, there was a post-war recession and civil unrest in Italy, so perhaps they had good reason to leave. Or perhaps they had heard about what America had to offer from friends and their adventurous spirit won out. Louis arrived at Ellis Island in October 1920. As was the common practice among immigrants at the time, he made the journey ahead of the rest of the family in order to secure a job, make connections, and find a place in which to live. Well, apparently Adele got tired of waiting for her husband to send word to come over, because she sold some of her jewelry and bought passage tickets for her and her two young daughters. Below is her ship manifest. The fact that she declared her MAIDEN name may have had something to do with the fact that she wasn't too happy with her husband at the time. My uncle told me that the first thing Louis said to her when he met them in NYC was, "Where's your hat?" Ah, the romance :) They arrived in New York City on May 12, 1921.

Ship Manifest for Adele, Dina, and Yola Licciardi.

Once they were settled in Cleveland, both of my great-grandparents became very involved in the Italian-American community. Great-grandpa was a member of Italian societies and served on influential committees that were active in hosting events when Italian consuls visited Cleveland. (My mom was looking at my grandmother's wedding photos a few months ago and said something to the effect of "Who knows? One of these guys (in the photos) could be Chef Boyardee!," because Louis loved hobnobbing with the top notch Italian-Americans of the city.) Adele was just as active as her husband. Here is a 1934 Cleveland Plain Dealer photo of her with a group of Italian students who she helped greet with some of her local Italian neighbors and friends:

Source: The Cleveland Plain Dealer

One of the interesting things I learned about Adele during my research is that she ran into some snags when she applied for citizenship. Louis was granted full citizenship in 1927, but Adele didn't begin her petition for citizenship until 1942. (I found this to be the case with my Polish immigrant great-grandparents as well; the husband applied for and was granted citizenship long before the wife. I don't know why, but it may have had something to do with being able to work.) Shortly after she filed her petition, Adele received this letter:

Adele, the ENEMY ALIEN! It's hard to imagine my short, little old great-grandmother as a threat to anybody. But it was World War II; Italy was an enemy. According to the Nationality Act of 1940,

"An alien who is a native, citizen, subject, or denizen of any country, state, or sovereignty with which the United States is at war MAY be naturalized as a citizen of the United States IF such alien's declaration of intention was made not less than two years prior to the beginning of the state of war..."

Adele did NOT make her declaration of intention two years before the U.S. went to war with Italy, so that explains this letter. Of course, her classification did not last forever, and she became a full cititzen of the U.S. on June 15, 1945.

What do I remember about my great-grandmother? She had an apartment in the only high-rise apartment building in our suburb. She had lived there by herself since great-grandpa died in 1974. My mom and grandma would sometimes take me and my brother to visit her on Sundays after morning mass. We loved going out onto her balcony and looking down at the street. She always had a tin of these butter cookies for us to eat. We always thought they were so fancy!

She would give us milk to drink in little colored depression-era glasses. She hated to cook so her freezer had microwave dinners in it. She spoke English very well, but there was the hint of an Italian accent to some of her words. Oh, and I'll never forget that she had these borderline scary-looking glass clown figurines placed around the apartment for decoration. I'm sure that they were antiques and probably worth some money, but that doesn't matter when you are eight years old and you feel like they are following your every move.

Adele lived until 1990, when she was 95 years old, and she lived by herself that whole time. She liked being independant; even during her last days, she didn't want to be in the hospital. She just talked about going back to her apartment. I feel like I was fortunate to be able to get to know her a little. I look at this photo of myself and am amazed to think "This is ME, with someone who was born in the 19th century!" Maybe this is one of the reasons I am so fascinated by learning my family's history; I have real memories of a person in our family who made the decision to start a life in America, and who is, subsequently, one of the people with whom I can credit for making ME an American.

My brother and I with our Great-Grandma Adele on my First Communion Day, 1987.

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The DNA Test

7/26/2012

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I turned on my phone this morning while making breakfast (don't judge me), opened my email and expected to see the normal accumulation of junk mail from the overnight hours. Among that junk, though, I see one that says "Your DNA results are ready." Yay! Several weeks ago, I purchased a DNA testing kit from Ancestry.com. I spit in a tube (again, no judging allowed) and sent it off to the lab. Here are the results:

Source: Ancestry.com

Ok, so I was not at all surprised at the big chunk of "Eastern European." Both of my dad's parents were children of Polish immigrants, and my mom's dad was the child of Croatian immigrants. Now, the "Central European" made a little bit of sense to me, because my great-grandmother was from Milan, Italy, which is in northern Italy not far from Switzerland. Plus, both Croatia and the area in Poland where my great-grandparents were born are pretty close to where the Central and Eastern regions meet, so I figure there may have been some genetic influence there.

I was NOT expecting to see the Persian/Turkish/Caucasus region anywhere in my genetic makeup. Actually, my first reaction when I saw the pie chart was, "Oh great, they messed up my test and the results are inaccurate." Then, I started to get a little more analytical and did some research. I looked at the map and started to think about my great-grandpa Licciardi, who was born in Palermo, Sicily, which appears at first glance to be isolated from any of the genetic regions highlighted. I do a little Google-searching about Sicily and its history. The more that I read, the more I begin to realize that, genetically, Sicilians are some of the most diverse people in Europe. It's a large island, situated right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, which, for thousands of years was the main conduit for travel, trade, and conquest for most of Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia. Even today, evidence of the island's unique history remains in some of the island's older architecture. This is a photo from a wall in the city of Palermo:

San Cataldo Church in Palermo (built 1154) shows both Norman and Arabic architectural influences.

Palermo was conquered by Arabs in the mid-800s AD and Sicily became an Arab emirate in 965 AD. A little over a hundred years later, the Normans moved in and took Sicily from the Arabs. After a short period of coexistance between the Christians and Muslims, fighting and an intolerance for Islam developed from the late 1100s to early 1200s and the Muslims were given the choice to leave or convert to Christianity. Many Muslims left Sicily at this time, but some remained, converted, and assimilated with the native Sicilian population. Following the Normans, Sicily was ruled by German, French, and Spanish nobilities before the unification of Italy in the 1860s.

So, it's possible that that Persian/Turkish marker came from my Sicilian great-grandfather, but I'll probably never know for sure. And my 23% of "Central European" also may partially come through my Sicilian roots as well, considering the influences of various western European kingdoms in Sicily after the Arab influence had mostly waned.

This DNA test is different from others out there in that it traces both your matrilineal and patrilineal lines by looking at the makeup of all 23 chromosomes, looking at 700,000 locations in the DNA. Ancestry.com claims that results are at least 98% accurate. If one of my siblings were to have their DNA analyzed, the results would probably be similar, but not exactly the same, because a person does not inherit genes from her mother and father equally (50/50). In fact, we can have ANY combination of our parents' genes in our DNA (40/60, 15/85, 96/4...you get the idea), and THEY have inherited some unknown combination from their parents, and so on and so on as you go back through the generations. Mother Nature is a wacky gal.

Ancestry.com claims that the results of my test may change slightly as they acquire new DNA data that they are continually collecting from people all over the world. That's fine; I didn't expect it to help me find specific names of my ancestors or anything detailed like that. I mostly did this for fun, but it has certainly changed my perception of what a European heritage can look like and it has driven me to learn more about my great-grandfather's homeland.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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Great-Grandma's 120th Birthday

Louis Licciardi in the Newspaper

CIAO Italian Genealogy Seminar

Foto Friday: The Dante Alighieri Society

Adele

The DNA Test

Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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