Italian Immigration to America - 1850s

Tracing one's ancestors can be easy or it can be quite a chore, depending upon the quality of record keeping associated with the locations in which one's family members have lived.

Here is an example. I've traced some of my ancestors from a small cluster of distant "cousins" of the royal-stuart clan, their name being Tyrell, or Tirell or other variations. The descendatns have a special club and web page to join. They were very distantly related to the Stuarts that make up the Royal Family in England; therefore, I am permitted to wear a small pin or dagger with the Stuart crest if I should choose to obtain a full Scottish kit (kilt and accessories). However, "Inglish" means "an Englander living abroad" or in my poetic opinion -- a stranger in a strange land. The family "English" split, and a portion moved to Ireland, others to Scotland, others retaining the original spelling and staying in England. A great-great grandfather went to London and shipped out to America with his brother in the early 1800s in order to make a better living. They progressed through the eastern US to Ohio and the borhter traveled onward, I know not where, but likely all the way through to Califonia. The records in Ohio are pretty good and I have information from aruond 1820 through to today.

However, my mother's family turns up a couple of birth certificates and dead ends. I don't know what country was their origin, although it appears to be English moving through Germany and France to America (W. Va. and Ohio), and Native Americans, specifically the Mohawk Nation. My maternal grandfather was part French and largely Mohawk, but his records were lost. So I am stymied for the time being.

With the Italians, family tracing could be easier, because Italian immigrants often stayed together when they came to America, as you will read further on. I've included links to records of families, military records, etc. for you to use. However, free accessto records avaiable only to members with a paid membership, such as those at Ancestor.Com are available at :

• Public Libaries
• University and College Libraries
• State Libraries
• The Library of Congress

Another good source are the Vital Statistics Departmentsof the state and local governments/heralth departments where your relatives have resided, along with the local Catholic Church records, given the large number of Italians that have been Catholic.

Much success to you in your searching!♥

From 1850 - 1930 in particular, the many Italians who came to America settled on the US East Coast. Here, they opened stores and restaurants that featured foods from home in their neighborhoods, often called "Little Italy." Ths was comparable to the various "Chinatowns" in the country - interesting and full of good food and cultural flavor.

Catholic records of Italian Immigrants in Amerca:

Between 1821 and 1850 the Italian immigration into the United States amounted to 4531. Since then the figures by decades are as follows:

• 1851-1860: 9,231 Itallian immigrants
• 1861-1870: 11,728
• 1871-1880: 55,759
• 1881-1890: 307,309
• 1891-1900: 651,899
• 1901-1908: 1,647,102

A further breakdown:

• 1831-1870: 25,082
• 1870-1880: 55,759
• 1880-1890: 307,309
• 1890: 52,093
• 1891: 76,055

Total by 1908: 2,743,059

[This information is furnished by http://www.NewAdvent.com]

Although many Italians returned to Italy, some of their American-born children remained in America and were also considered Italian. The number of Italians in the US in January 1910 was roughly 2,250,000.

The US was the largest recipient of Italian immigrants globally. In the year 1850, about 4,000 Italians were reported in the US, but by 1880, some reports had the population skyrocketing to 44,000. By 1900 it may have been as high as around around half a million, depending upon whether first-generation Italians (the children born in America) were counted as immigrants -- some were in certain locations.

Italian immigrants actually represented specific regional/ethnic and job titles. These immigrants also came from specific regions of Italy and worked in specific fields and job titles in the home country. They brought their skills with them and stuck to the same occupations overall in America.

Italian business owners and workers moved to large metropolitan areas in the US where there were high-demand markets and adequate labor pools that needed additional workers. They settled in New York City successfully. More than half of the Italians from Molise and Abruzzo (working-class regions) took their usual jobs in construction and excavation and related industries in Pennsylvania.

Most of the Italians that came to America had lived in rural Italy, but in moving to the US, they located in the big cities. Most went to the biggest cities in the Northeast US, because they did not have enough money to travel westward. They stayed around where the passenger ships droipped them off at Ellis Island. Thus, many settled in New York City, large cities in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania.

Most Italians settled with other people from Italy and even from their own native villages, so friends/relatives could help with housing and food. These cohesive settlements were called "Little Italies." This explains the high concentration of Italians in certain parts of the US, while their are few in other parts. It appears that Sicilians moved to New Orleans, the Neapolitans and Calabrians to Minnesota, and northern Italians to California. However, most Italians settled in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

So, relatives that came over from Naples may have settled in Minnesota. That could be a good place to look for records.

For Italian surnames, you may find and order a Coat of Arms for the name from:

Collegio Araldico

Via Santa Maria dell'Anima 16

00186 Rome, Italy

Italians introduced America to certain types of pizza and pasta that many people love. Then there is opera.

The Metropolitan Opera rose to become one of the best opera companies globally under its manager, Giulio Gatti-Casazza (1869-1940) who brought singers Enrico Caruso, Rosa Ponselle, Amelita Galli-Curci, Beniamino Gigli, and Ezio Pinza and conductor Arturo Toscanini. Gatti-Casazzi managed the Met from 1908 to 1935. Then there is Pavarotti!

I heard and saw "A Street Car Named Desire" as an Italian opera - very interesting.

Hollywood also owes much to Italy:

• Hollywood's first "Latin Lover" was Rudolph Valentino.
• Frank Sinatra was known as "The Voice".
• The legendary Carmine and Francis Ford Coppola included four Oscars in 1975 for The Godfather, Part II. Nicholas Cage is Francis's nephew.
• Sylvester Stallone, Jimmy Durante, Frank Capra, and Joseph Barbera ( Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and other cartoons), are all Italian.

And of course the Food Network: Rachel Ray, Giada DeLaurentis, Iron Chef Mario Batali...

From the pizza, pasta, bread shops and cottage industries in Little Italy circa 1850, Italian and Italian Americans have become famous singers, writers, poets and artists, as well as top business people in the 21st century.

Emma Lazarus was a secular Jew with Spanish ancestry and she promoted America to the fullest. In her home of New York City, she had the opportunities of learning music and several languages in childhood, as well as gaining skills that led her to an early mastery of music, writing, and translation (including Hebrew). As an elementary school first grader, I learned the words of the Lazarus sonnet The New Colossus as a song. We sang it, all six grades together, at holiday assemblies and for visiting dignitaries. In addition, it was always presented by our capital-city's youth choir in annual music festivals each spring, the words of Liberty herself particularly moving:

"Give me your tired, your poor.

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

Send these, your homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I never forgot the words of that poem that stands with our Statue of Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes' counterpart in the New World. Indeed, she is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, this Liberty. The Colossus guarded an ancient Grecian waterway, while Liberty stands watch at our gateway and welcomes the stranger home.

America and American democracy are wonders in themselves, despite the sometimes misuse and misunderstanding of it liberties. While not all of the free have learned the responsibility of the gift that is America, this land still deserves such a tribute as that Emma Lazarus provided in her poetry. Millions across the globe are still tired and poor, huddled in oppression, and yearning to breathe free. The New Colossus on its plaque is the mezuzah that protects and blesses the entranceway into the House of America with the sacred texts of Hope and Freedom. Lazarus was the evangelist of America and Liberty as an example to the world.