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My grandmothers family is from Naples immigrated in 1900, to upstate New York. Her parents were illiterate and could speak no English, god bless them. She said they called her Minigail. That is not necessarily the way to spell it, just what it sounded like to her. When she was baptized the Irish priest couldn't say it or spell it so he put down Margaret. My grandmother's Mom died when she was very young. So I think they just continued to call her Margaret. Does anyone know of a Italian girls name that sounds like that?
This is a tough one. You might try going through the names on this site http://www.nomix.it/700m.php to see if anything catches your eye.
Keep in mind that masculine names can, and often were, made feminine merely by changing the final vowel. So, don't confine your search to the "Femminili" side of the list.
Carmine
My hobby is finding things. Having found most of my own, I am happy to help others find theirs. PM me!
Also, keep in mind that the italian "i" is pronounced like a long English "e". The italian syllable "mi" being usually pronounced like the english pronoun "me" for example. Similarly, the italian "e" is usually (but not always) pronounced like the english letter "a", hence italian "de" sounds like english "day".
Final hint: the italian "a" usually has an "ahh" sound, but not drawn out - just a short, stilted, ah! almost exclamatory.
Carmine
My hobby is finding things. Having found most of my own, I am happy to help others find theirs. PM me!
Was your GM born in Italy or US? If Italy, do you have the ship manifest for her and her parents? If not, maybe we can help locate it... It would be interesting to see how it was spelled on the manifest.
If she was born in US...do you know where? A birth record might also give a clue.
Can you provide names, approx. dates of birth for you grandmother and her parents?
her mother was pregnant for her when they came over, they couldn't read or write,let alone speak English. I don't know if there is a birth certificate as they had midwives back then and they lived in a enclave so to speak of all Italian immigrants. I will ask my Uncles, but I am sure if there was a birth certificate we wouldn't be having this conversation. Everything else that was documented was Margaret. Like I said the Irish Priest named her that as he couldn't understand her parents at her baptismal. Also remember she was telling her kids her real name as she heard it from her parents,
so again it is not a written name, just what she heard them call her. Strange isn't it,
phonetics.
If she was the first or second born girl, she may be named after one of her grandmothers. Do you know the names of the grandmothers? If it wasn't for that "n" in the name, I was thinking that it might have been a derivative of Michela. In the dialect, often times the "c" is sounded like the "g". Similar to the way "capicolla" is pronounced "gabagool" in the dialect.
to Bette, my thoughts exactly when I looked at the list. Simply because she was saying the name the way it sounded when her parents who spoke no English said it. I will present that thought to my Uncles.
Which conditions may have an effect - positive or negative - on your Italian family history project. The following insights, based on many years of experience in Italy, pertain to factors that have very little to do with Italian genealogy per se, but involve vast cultural differences that influence ...
