Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

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NASCAR88
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Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

Post by NASCAR88 »

Hello,

My wife and I are looking for any information on my maternal grandparents ancestral records for my family tree.

Nicola Vaccari was born May 24, 1885 in Vallo della Lucania, Salerno and emigrated to the United States on the ship Madonna, arriving in New York on June 27, 1907. This information I have from a copy of his Petition for Naturalization and it matches with the records online with the Ellis Island folks, with the exception of spelling his name as Vaccaro on the typed passenger record screen. He died in Mount Vernon, NY on January 9, 1926. Some online searches had his given name as Nicolo. The 1920 US Census in Mount Vernon NY had his family living with a brother Gaetano Vaccari and another brother Orecchio and their families in the same home.

Elvira Colino was born January 8, 1891 in Salerno according to my mom's oral history (we got this before she passed away in 1999), but we can't locate any passenger records or birth details for Elvira. Possibly she was from Vallo della Lucania as well. On Nicola's Petition for Naturalization he listed her as his wife with her first name as Elvida. My mom told my wife many years ago that Elvira and her father went to South America before coming to the U.S., possibly from Rio de Janeiro. According to the 1920 US Census she listed her immigration year as 1912. Elvira died in Mount Vernon, NY on December 17, 1964. Elvira had a sister named Sylvia according to my mom, but we don't know Elvira's parents' names.

We've not been able to locate a marriage certificate for Nicola & Elvira in any of the on-line databases we could search in NY, NJ, or CT, which could have helped us get their parents names. My paternal uncle recalls that Elvira first came to Greenwich, CT before meeting Nicola. As a couple they lived in Mount Vernon, NY and were on the 1920 US census, with Nicola's occupation as a shoemaker.

I filed applications with Mount Vernon to get copies of their death certificates but I have not yet received a response.

Any help in locating their vital records in Italy or further research pointers would be very much appreciated!

Thanks,

Craig
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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

Post by maestra36 »

First Name: Elvira
Last Name: Colma
Ethnicity: S. Italian
Last Place of Residence: Valla Lucas, Italy
Date of Arrival: May 13, 1912
Age at Arrival: 21y Gender: F Marital Status: M
Ship of Travel: Oceania (1909)
Port of Departure: Napoli
Manifest Line Number: 0024

Nicola Vaccaro is on the line above her on this manifest. Says she was her husband.

You can view this at www.ellisisland.org or at www.stevemorse.org
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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

Post by maestra36 »

They were destined for Bronxville
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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

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Hello and thanks again for responding so quickly! The ships records did puzzle me though. There is a matching Ellis Island record for a Nicola Vaccaro arriving on the Madonna June 27, 1907, showing him as single. That entry to the US matches with his naturalization petition. Then I looked at Page 2 of the 1912 ship record and in that hard to read script it does look like the column for "if lived in U.S. before" shows 1907 for him.

The Bronxville part does sound correct, as Bronxville/Mount Vernon/Eastchester are neighboring communities and at one time had common government oversight of records. Also on Nicola's petition it mentions their two children at that time were born in and residing in Bronxville.

Where the ship manifest was transcribed as Colma, I think could have been Colino with an un-dotted i and the nature of script writing for all those old documents being difficult to interpret at times. I now have the GIF files to print out on large paper to study them better.

According to the 1930 US Census Elvira was first married at age 21, and she was widowed by then. That would have made her marriage year the same as the immigration year, 1912. Next I would like to locate their marriage and birth records showing their parents names. Would this be something the LDS family history centers would be able to access on microfilm? Or going back that far is this something that would require hiring a researcher near Vallo della Lucania to determine that going through church records? Just doing a Google search for genealogy help turned up so much information and so many web sites it has my neophyte researcher head spinning. Of course, that's how I also found this wonderful forum! :lol: I also see from the sidebar menu the link to the Polish forum so I will use that to look help up my father's family.

Thanks again so very much for the leads!

Craig
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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

Post by Tessa78 »

Hi Craig :-)
Welcome to the forum!

If Elvira had a Social Security #, you can send for her Social Security application (for a fee). The application has her parents' names and her place of birth.

http://genealogy.about.com/od/online_re ... equest.htm

T.
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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

Post by maestra36 »

In looking through the LDS family history catalog, I don't see any microfilmed records for the town of Vallo della Lucania. Working with microfilmed records can be time consuming and expensive, but personally it is the main way that I have done my own research since 1997, and the method, which I believe, gives you the most information about your ancestors.

Here is the official website for the town -

http://vallodellalucania.asmenet.it/

You may have to write to the anagrafe or registry office in the town to get records. There is a mailing address for the town at the lower left corner of the home page of the website. I don't see an email address on this website though that you could use for any office in this town. In recent weeks, I have had great success emailing some of the anagrafe offices in my various ancestral towns.
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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

Post by NASCAR88 »

Thanks for the follow-up info. I'll look into that soon. We're waiting on getting copies of their death certificates from Mt. Vernon. They couldn't find Nicholas' information in the year my mom told us he dies. It turns out she had the year wrong. Mt. Vernon told us that Elvira was buried in the same cemetery that my Polish father's family plot is in. Well, my wife & I visited my mom's grave today - she's buried in my father's family's plot and we scoured the grounds and DID find the Vaccari plot with correct death dates different than what mom told us, and that plot was only two rows & four plots away! Now we can get Mt. Vernon to look for Nicholas' death information in 1929, not 1926, and provide perhaps further information for the registry in Italy - we found so many Nicola & Nicolas Vaccari names in immigrant lists. The person at the cemetery who could do grave registry lookups was out the day we found out about the Vaccari burial site so we just had a nice walk to search for ourselves.
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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

Post by scolino »

My Great Grandfather, Orazio Colino, came from Contursi (East of Salerno) in 1904. I will be travelling there next weekend, and maybe find history on the family.
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Re: Surnames: Vaccari and Colino in Vallo della Lucania

Post by NASCAR88 »

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!! :D Here is some information from my grandmother's death certificate. She was born January 10th 1891 to Constantino Colino and Maria Grazia (the copy of the death certificate we have shows it was handwritten in script, the surname appears to be Grazia), and she died on December 17th 1964.
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