Looking for any info or direction on my g-grandfather Sperone.

[amis89]

My great grandfather immigrated to Philadelphia at the age of 17 on February 11th 1910 on the S.S. Virginia sailing from Naples.

My grandfather said he was very stoic and never spoke of his past much, but knew he was an orphan from Abruzzo with no connection or family left in Italy.

His Americanized name was Joseph Sperone, but on the manifest he was listed as Giuseppe Speroni. On other documents his last name was also spelled Spironi, and Spirone.

He couldn’t read or write, so was unable to correct any misspellings. I have no clue if the Italian spelling is even close to correct.

He has his birth town documented as Arsiti/Arsita, and his last address as Bisenti.

Where it asks for a name and address of closest relative in origin country, it just says, “no one.”

On the friend or relative in arriving country he has an uncle Nicola Melchiorre listed at (?700) Christian St, Phila.

I did track down records for Nicola, but can’t find any connection to my great grandfather other than he also has last known town listed as Bisenti, but was originally from Chieti.

Any help or guidance is appreciated, thanks in advance!

[PippoM]

The town registers for Arsita are here:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/cat ... %20Library

but can be seen only at Family History Centers of the Mormon Church.

[rlw254]

I had a look for this without too much luck. I did not see any births with this surname, nor Esposito, nor 'Giuseppe Melchiorre' in both Arsita and Bisenti from 1891-1895. It is possible that his entry uses a different surname, I have not read through each record one-by-one.

Is the person you believe to be Nicola Melchiorre the one born around 1885 from these ship records?
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JJ4X-C6K
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JNB3-DQS
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JN11-8ZW

If so, this one was born in Arsita on 18 Mar 1885 to parents Alessandro Melchiorre, 30, and Maria Antoniella di Casmirro, 25. This record contains a marriage annotation to Maria Giuseppa di Cristofaro.

I saved the indices for both towns for each of these years if you want to have a look for familiar names, you can send me a PM as I have no more bandwidth here.

[MarcuccioV]

Looking at the surname map, the most likely correct spelling of the surname is Speroni. it is rare in Abruzzo, however. It is mostly found in the NW (Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, & parts of Toscana and Lazio). More than likely his ancestral roots lie in one of those regions...