Certificates of Arrival and Passenger Lists

[sacesta]

Years ago I received from the National Archives a Certificate of Arrival (along with a Declaration of Intent and Petition to Naturalize) for my paternal grandfather, Rocco Aceste. The CoA shows that Rocco arrived in New York on the 18th of August 1922 aboard the SS Presidente Wilson. The certificate is stamped June 9th, 1941.

At the time of Rocco's passage the EQA was in effect, limiting the immigration quotas of southern and Eastern Europeans and Japanese immigrants.

Although I know the details of Rocco's arrival, I have been unable to find his name on the manifest of the Presidente Wilson.

My father used to say that Rocco was a stowaway and I am beginning to believe that my father's story may be true.

Here is my question: If an alien arrived in port aboard a steamship as a stowaway could or would he have been admitted legally as the CoA indicates? And wouldn't the passenger list be the source of information for the issue of the CoA so many years later? Or is there some other document?

It is possible that maybe the page Rocco appears on is missing. I haven't checked the page numbers of the manifest to see if any are missing.

But here's the thing. The story is the same for Rocco's brother Camillo who arrived in New York aboard the Giuseppe Verdi exactly 3 weeks after Rocco arrival. I have the CoA for Camillo and have been unable to find his name on the GV manifest.

Two stowaways?

[PippoM]

I don't know what the Certificate of Arrival is based on, but I've found that most of the declarations found in naturalization documents are favke or not accurate.
Have you found their birth records in Italy?

[sacesta]

Yes. I have. Rocco was born on the 26th of July, 1893 and baptized in the chiesa di San Silvestro Papa in Calatafimi, Sicily on the 29th. Camillo was born on the 21st of May, 1895 in Castellmare del Golfo.

[erudita74]

I don't know what the Certificate of Arrival is based on, but I've found that most of the declarations found in naturalization documents are favke or not accurate.
Have you found their birth records in Italy?

@Pippo-on June 29, 1906, a basic naturalization act was passed by the U.S. Congress, and this act established new rules for attaining U.S. citizenship, one of which was that the individual applying for citizenship had obtain a certificate of arrival. This certificate therefore was not created at the time of arrival but rather at the time the individual started the citizenship process. It was needed to prove the length of stay of the immigrant in this country and indicated his/her place of entry into this country, his/her manner of arrival, and the date of the arrival.

@Steve-I also went page by page of the 1922 manifest looking for Rocco. I only saw 4 stowaways listed on the passenger list, but they had embarked in Trieste. Their names are given, and two also had the names of individuals to whom they were destined in the U.S. BUT all 4 of these individuals were deported. So possibly the page with Rocco was just missing. Also, the stowaway story about Rocco could just have been a cover-up story to hide an embarrassment. My paternal grandfather, for example, used such a story to hide the fact that he had been abandoned as a 1 day old in his native Italian town. His surname was changed by a notary in his town when his natural parents, who married 6 weeks after his birth, reclaimed him when he was almost 3, and his surname was then changed that of his father. I only discovered this when I received his naturalization records with his certificate arrival. So, I had previously been searching for him on passenger lists under the wrong surname.

[sacesta]

Thanks Erudita. Glad to see you here. It's been a long time and I've only recently gotten back into Genealogy but I've been researching my mother's side and she's of German descent.

[erudita74]

Hi Steve,
Happy to see you here too. It has been a long time. Glad you're resuming your genealogy research. I tried to find some German records about a year ago for the ancestry of the father of my one daughter-in-law, but didn't have any luck then. If I ever find the time, I'll try again, but currently I'm trying really hard to concentrate on my own ancestry and that of my husband-which is all southern Italian and Sicilian. My knowledge of German is also extremely limited, even though I tried studying the language for about a year and have been to that country twice. Anyway, continued good luck with your research.
Erudita

[parkergambino]

Regarding immigration data found on citizenship paperworks, the information provided by the applicant is commonly inaccurate, and is perhaps what Pippo refers to. I have found Certificates of Arrival, created as per Erudita's note, to usually be accurate, and can be cross-checked by the added notations found on the manifests.

But this one is a real head-scratcher! I'll be curious to learn if and how a resolution is ever achieved.

Parker