New Perspective

I've been working on my maternal line for years and I come up empty handed at every turn it seems like. I think I've found something only to find out that the information isn't right or it doesn't match the person in my tree. I've got a few 90 year old great aunts who have given me as much information as they can on the family, but the details are starting to get fuzzy. My grandpa (these are his parents I'm researching) was the baby of the family and knows next to nothing about how his parents came to be in the United States from Italy. No matter how hard I've tried, I've been unable to even get a glimpse of light through this brick wall. Until today. 

I was online and I saw a post on Facebook that encouraged people to post their brick walls on their Facebook page to see if others could help at all. My first reaction was, "No way. If I can't find anything and these are my people, then how is someone who knows next to nothing about them going to be able to help me?" Then I thought, "What the heck? I've tried everything else I can think of." So I posted what I knew about my great grandmother and then logged off and went to work. When I got home, I found that several people had commented on my post. Most had suggested things I had already tried, but there was 1 lady who was telling me that on the ship's manifest she was able to find the first name of the father of my person.

 Hold on a minute! I've looked at that manifest at least a dozen times and I didn't see that. I immediately pulled it up and scanned it again. I can't possibly be that clueless right? Nope, nothing. Not even a hint of a name on there. Now I'm perplexed. Could there possibly be some secret to these manifests that I'm not aware of? Am I not in the know? I post back to her on Facebook asking if she can tell me how she found that information. In the meantime, I go back to the Ellis Island website and pull it up again because, honestly, it's going to drive me crazy until I find the information that this lady was able to see. As I'm perusing the page, something catches my eye.

Apparently there's a disclaimer on there that says that many manifest entries span across a couple of pages. Not only is there a disclaimer but it is preceded by the words "Important! Please Read!" in red lettering What?! That's never been there before! Ok well maybe it has, but honestly do you really read all the crap they put on the websites above the information that interests you? I surely don't. Clearly in this case, it would have been helpful. I click "next" on the page and low and behold there is a mysterious page 2 to this thing.

Holy buckets I didn't see that one coming! Now I look like a complete idiot and I shoot off a quick message on Facebook to tell the lady that I found it. In the meantime, I'm searching the page for any new information. There really wasn't anything that I didn't already know, but I was able to confirm things that I had been told by others. Her father's name is listed as Filippo and I was told that it was Philip. Close enough to satisfy me. Then I started looking more closely at the new page. Right next to the names, there were little scribbles. I looked next to her name and it said "niece." Huh. Well that's kinda weird. Who's niece? Then I saw what originally looked like someone just slipped with their pen and made a mark on the page. What it actually turned out to be was a line with a bracket at the end noting which passengers were traveling together. Holy crap! Now I'm getting somewhere!

What I found is that she was traveling with 3 other people. One was a child, but the other 2 were adults. I had been thinking it was really weird that she would travel all the way from Italy to the United States all by herself at age 16, but I suppose it wasn't impossible. Now I have found that my suspicions are correct and that she was traveling with other people. I now need to figure out what her relationship to them is and how they are all related to me.

The moral of the story is, always read what's on the page in red lettering especially if it's followed by exclamation points. Well, that and get another person to help you look at your brick wall. Even if they only know the basic information about someone, they may see something that you are missing. Many times you may find you are too focused on the information you're looking for rather than seeing everything that's already there. Take the time to look at something as if you were seeing it for the first time. You may be surprised at what you're missing.