Expanding on Julia’s Notes

The importance of finding primary sources.

My Mom, Julia K. Petorella Studlo, penned this brief Petorella family history:

Julia’s Notes circa 1992 [my notes in orange]

Petorella or Pedorella--Dominico Petorella’s Family [Domenico is the correct spelling per 27 Apr 1918, Declaration of Intention for U.S. Citizenship, Birth Certificate of son Innocenzo born 1910 and Social Security application dated 26 Jun 1930.]

Mother and Father’s first names are unknown. [according to Domenico’s Death Certificate, his mother’s name was Madeline and on his Social Security Account application, he listed his father as James and his mother as Madeline Fusco]

1) Son [Angelo] Charles [aka Charles A.] was born  [Ship manifest for the Victoria, arriving 10 Apr 1890 states Angelo’s (Charles A) birth year as 1868, the 1905 Rhode Island Census lists Angelo’s birth date as 16 Oct 1868, Angelo’s death record states Angelo was born in 1869, U. S. Naturalization Record Indexes 1791-1992 states Angelo’s birth date was 17 Oct 1872] in Caserta, Naples, Italy. Married Concetta [born 15 Aug 1872]. Died 2 Feb 1924, 55 yrs. old of heart disease. Had three children: 1 boy Americo [aka Amerigo, born 6 Dec 1896, according to 1905 Rhode Island Census] who was a doctor-married had daughter; another son Victor [Vittorio born 25 Mar 1900, according to the 1905 Rhode Island Census] played violin; and a daughter Julia [born 1 Apr 1903, according to the 1905 Rhode Island Census].

[The family resided at 59 Thames, New Port, Rhode Island, as listed on the 1900 U. S. Census; 84 Thames, on the 1905 Rhode Island Census and 86 Thames on the 1910 U. S. Census. Immigration year for Angelo is listed on the 1900, 1905 and 1910 census reports is 1888.]

[The 1925 Newport City directory lists the Charles Pedorello family as follows:

• Americo physician boards 84 Thames
• Concetta widow Charles A. provisions 86 Thames house 84
• Julia M boards 84 Thames
• Victor music teacher boards 84 Thames

In the 1924 directory Charles’ passing is noted.]

2) Dominico [Domenico]. Born in Caserta, Naples, Italy on 6 Aug 1884 [alternate date 6 July 1884 per Social Security Account application dated 26 Jun 1930]-died 17 Apr 1940 in Chicago, Illinois.  Married Pearl Giunta born 29 Apr 1892, Chicago, Illinois AKA Ganta-died 19 Oct 1956, Hinsdale, Illinois. 5 children: Mildred, James, Sylvia, Julia born 4 Nov 1914, Julia (the second one) born 1 Apr 1916.

3) He had a sister I don’t know her name. She married and had three children

4) [Giacomo] James Petorella born 8 Dec 1887 and died [11] July 1913 age 26 [25 y, 7 mos], Chicago, Illinois. Never married. Died of lockjaw after stepping on a nail. He played the guitar and liked to dance.

Charles was 16 years older than Dominico. I think the sister was born before Dominico, James was about 3 years younger than Dominico.

The Charles Pedorello family spelled the name correctly [? I believe the correct spelling is Petorella. The only Pedorella’s I have encountered are the Rhode Island Pedorella lines.  I did a “white page” search of Italy and did not come up with any Pedorellas but found Petorellas ]. Charles lived in New Port, Rhode Island, James with Dominico  [lived] at Charles house then the two brothers traveled around the country. [Ship manifest for the SS Roma lists 17 year old Domenico as a passenger.  His destination was the home of his brother Angelo in Newport, RI, however, the address listed for Angelo on the manifest does not match his actual address as shown on either the 1900 US Census and the 1905 Rhode Island Census. I cannot find any record of a Chaney Street in Newport where Domenico was to stay.  I have no reason to doubt that he was in Newport after he arrived, as I have found an address listing for him at 6 Duke (around the corner from Angelo and Concentta’s home on Thames), in the 1904 Newport City Directory. Sixteen year old Giacomo, on the other hand, arrived in April of 1903, on the SS Citti di Torino.  Giacomo’s relative and final destination is listed as brother Petorella, Domenico at 86 Thames (which is the address of (Charles) Angelo and Concetta’s grocery business).  It is my belief that Angelo and  Concetta owned adjacent buildings at 84 and 86 Thames.  In later Newport City Directories I have found the names of Angelo and Concetta’s children residing at 84 Thames.]    They worked at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, La.  [Have evidence that the two Petorella boys were actually at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, LA as we have in our possession some flatware labeled as such.] Then went to Montana and finally settled in Chicago, Illinois.

Dominico married Pearl Giunta and James lived with them until he died. Dominico worked in laundries, and then he went into business with three partners. They called the laundry The Universal Laundry. They had it for many years, then in 1936 or 1937 he retired and ran a gas station, until he died 17 Apr 1940 at age 56 of pneumonia. He had 5 children one died at 5 months old. When he died he had 2 grandsons and 1 granddaughter. Pearl died at age 64 of a stroke. She had 9 grandchildren 2 boys and & 7 girls.

Sicilians-Not Italians, Siblings and a Wedding

Letter to Bette Jane Cole from Uncle Frank Ganta (Pearl Ganta Petorella’s Brother) age 91.

I have made additions/corrections in orange.

July 1, 1993

Dear Niece Bette,

Received your letter of June 22 want to thank you for it. Since then I have been hunting through my papers locating things might be pertained to what you want to know. So I apolize [apologize] for being so slow in replying.

First off I want to give you my lineage. When I am referring to my mother and father that means your great-grand mother and your great-grand father, by the same token I am your great Uncle. Of course you understand that on my side we are all Sicilians not Italians, while Sicily is governed by Italy it is still a separate state and has been so for as back as 500 B. C.

Ma came from Termani Immerse and Pa came from Palermo. The marriage was consummated by both families, in other words an arranged wedding. Ma’s maiden name was Salvatora Scolaro and Pa’s was Vincenzo Giunta. They had fourteen children of which two died as infants and one at the age of 12. Therefore we are talking of the other 11 who survived. I’ll start with your grandmother who was the first-born.

1. Pearl born in 1892 and married to Dominick Peterela [sic]
2. Mary born in 1894 and married to David Marchese
3. Emily born in 1896 [1895] and married to Fred Cozzi
4. Jenny born in 1897, died Oct 1912
5. Mike born in 1998 and married to Lillian
6. Frank born in 1900, died 1901
7. Frank born in 1902 and married to Anna
8. Rose born in 1904 and married to John Kolodziej
9. James born in 1906 deceased, died Jul 1910
10. Phillip born in 1908 and married to Doris-Beatrice
11. Vincenzo born Oct 1910 and died Oct 1910
12. Josephine born in 1911 and married to Fred Cerceo
13. James born in 1913 and married to Eva
14. Charles born in 1915 and married to Leola-Cleo
15. Edward born in 1917 and lived with Mary

In my next letter I will describe the children, offspring of the marriages, which will be cousins first and second. Of course all the women should be called great Aunts, (Zia) and the men great Uncles (Zio). I am sending funeral cards of those that I have more than one, the others I will make Photostats. I am sending several photos which I have duplicates of weddings. On the back I have written the name so you can identify them. Also ones of me alone at Francis (?) wedding and HJ Lodge we stay while our home was being finished. As I stated before my next letter will describe the children of there marriages.

However I will describe one of thing [sic]. As I said before your grandmother my sister Pearl had the grandest wedding of them all. Now this goes back a long way in the year of our Lord 1910 [1908]. She had a full veil from head to foot, and they had a two-horse carriage, and as they came out of the house going to the carriage all of us were throwing rice and hard candy almonds at them and they rode to the church. Our Lady of Pompeii where the marriage was consummated. NOTE: Frank was not yet 6 when Domenico and Pearl were married.

I am going to close as my hand is getting tired and I am no longer used to writing as I used to, since I have been retired for 28 years. I hope that I have filled the vacuum you had regarding who your relatives where as you have as many as a hundred relatives however the older ones are dying out. Out of the twelve original boys and girls only 3 boys and 1 girl life [live].

When you write again let me know if there is anything you would like to know.

God be with you.

Uncle Frank

Using a Timeline to Help Prove Facts

The timeline feature in Roots Magic is a good tool to review the events in a person’s life. It allows you to see a person’s age at the time of a particular event and helps you find inconsistencies.  For example, take a look at Frank born about December 1900 and James born about June 1901.  The glaring error is that there was only six months between births.  Not an impossibility, but unlikely.  However, combining this information with the following information, I have eliminated James born in 1901 as a child of Salvatora and Vincenzo James.

1. The 1900 U.S. Census, enumerated on June 11, 1900, has the family living at 6719 S Hermitage, Chicago.
2. The July 1, 1901 the Death Certificate of Frank (born December 1900) states his address as 6719 S Hermitage.
3. The April 8, 1902 Death Certificate for James (born about June 1901) states his address as 221 S Jefferson St., Chicago.
4. In June 1.1902 When Frank A. was born, the family still lived at 6719 S. Hermitage.

The family could not be living in two places at the same time, therefore James cannot be a child of Salvatora and Vincenzo James.

Loose Ends, Dead Ends-Not the End

As you can see from the lopsided chart, our direct lineage can be traced back six generations on only one line.  There are only 21 names on this chart including myself. However, I have over 400 individuals in my genealogy program and I have more to enter.  Aunts, uncles, siblings of our relatives, births, deaths, marriages, occupations, where they lived and even relations living on the same street. provide a very interesting picture of our family.

It has been difficult to find links to many individuals due to spelling inaccuracies, poor or illegible handwriting, missing documents and lack of information.   For example, Aunt Millie and Aunt Sylvie, Mom’s sisters. Millie’s given name was Magdalene and she was called Mildred.  Sylvie’s given name was Palma and she  was called Sylvia.  Even with their birthdates I have yet to locate any birth records.  It could be that they have not been indexed by Ancestry.com.  But, in the case of Aunt Millie I even located the 1909 birth records for Chicago and went through them page by page online and after hours of searching, I finally gave up.  The birth record may be there but there didn’t seem, to me anyway, a rhyme or reason to  their order.

I will continue inputting the information I have collected thus far and maybe someday our missing ancestors and relatives will turn up. 

A Family Outing

Tom and I met Sister Sharon and Brother Jim at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois the other day. Armed with a list of the names of almost 50 deceased family members, a lawn edger, broom, brush and  bucket we began our quest. Our purpose was to find, spruce up and photograph as many gravestones as possible and to fill in some information that was missing on the list. Our first stop was the kiosk in the office that contains a database of burials in the Chicago Archdiocese, where we looked up the names of individuals that had blanks on the list.  There were only four names that were not on the database, however, we came up with three more that were not on the list and now have their information.  We then prioritized the graves to find and plotted those on maps of Queen of Heaven and neighboring Mt. Carmel. 

We set out with maps in hand first to find the “easy” graves, in Mt. Carmel, the ones we remembered visiting on yearly Memorial Day treks to the cemeteries. We found our Grandparents, Domenico and Pearl, Mom’s Uncle Jimmy and her sister Julia (both in the same grave) and our Uncle Jimmy in the military section.  Jim edged the gravestones, Sharon and I brushed the stones and then Jim and I took photos of each one. “Chauffeur,” Tom, took us from section to section and moved the van as we meandered around.

 

 

 

 

 

Now things got tough. There were only three more we wanted to find, but with difficulties finding block and lot markers and deteriorated or lack of gravestones, we had limited success.  We did find Grandmother Pearl’s sister, Mary (Marchese).  She wasn’t on our list but while looking for one of her uncles we came across the Marchese monument one row in from the road.  It was nice to see a pot of flowers placed near the monument.  However, we never did find the uncle we were looking for.  

Moving on to another section, we spread out to cover more ground, checking gravestones and searching for markers, but no luck finding our great-great-Grandfather Francesco Scolaro or his son Frank C. (in same grave) or baby James Giunta or his sister Jenny (in same grave).

We did find great-great Uncle Antonino Scolaro, his wife Rose, their son Anthony T. and his wife, Gloria and another son, Frank all in one plot under a large “Scolaro” monument.  Antonino was a fruit peddler and his sons Anthony and Michael continued the business,expanding it into Scolaro Brothers Produce, South Water Street Market.

At Queen of Heaven we trimmed and scrubbed the graves of our parents Leo and Julia Studlo and those of our aunt and uncle, Mildred and Dominick “Dutch” Columbatto.

So while we didn’t find everyone we were looking for, we did fill in many blanks on the list, we were able to fill in 15 grave locations, eight burial dates and confirmed that James Giunta born in 1910 and died at one month and Jenny Giunta were, in fact, siblings as they were buried in the same grave.  Not a bad day.