My cousin died in August of last year. She and I have been doing genealogy on several branches of our tress that are common. However she was stumped on her great grandfather's history. He was born Feb 2, 1859 in Palermo, Providence of Sicily, Italy. He married Alida Blanchard however her first name is spelled three different ways. According to his nationalization papers they came from Italy in 1881 at age 22. However, his wife's papers are dated about 18 years earlier. I don't have that record myself but it is in her family tree.
Her family states that they went to France and crossed over to Canada. They purchased a houseboat and went along the east coast to Louisiana and on to Port Arthur, Texas where they lived on the houseboat on the Inter-coastal Waterway. I've a picture dated 1923-1924. He and Alida are in it with a son a grandson and two great grandchildren.
The primary issue is not only the date of naturalization and when they came to the US but the surname. He changed it for some reason to Cropper.
His family owned a winery in Sicily. The theories are he was dodging the draft which would have been the Franco-Prussian War but Italy was not involved in that. The other theory is he was dodging the Mafia.
DNA testing has been done however autosomal testing was not done. My cousin Wilie ( my cousin's brother) is still alive. He did DNA but the wrong test was done. His DNA is still on file. I am wondering what kind of success can be found doing an autosomal test. That cannot reveal the surname but can narrow down the region(s) the ancestors came from hopefully on the "Cropper" side.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We are truly stumped. I have taken over where Violet left off.
* * * Login issues? Please login directly under the forum * * *
Is this the family in Louisiana in 1900 US Census?
