Sprufera / Sprofera

[barbarasprufera]

Laura, you have been such a wonderful help to me!!! I so appreciate it! I will keep working on this on my end - many, many thanks! I hope to speak with you again sometime!
Barbara

[barbarasprufera]

Laura, one more question if you are still on-line...where did you go to find this information and am I able to join ?
Thank you!
Barbara

[wldspirit]

Hi Barbara,
Most of us have a subscription to Ancestry. I was very skeptical and wary of the site when I first started doing my own genealogy....to have to pay for the information when I'm a firm believer in free records!!
But now I am more than convinced that my money is well spent. I have found numerous records on my family, and continue my subscription.

I have also had HeritageQuest, great census feature, but the 1930 census is limited and I found that it did not provide me with other useful information.

Footnote is good, but mainly for East Coast records, alot of naturalization records.

And I had a subscription to another site, Genealogy.com...lousy search feature, I had to go thru hundreds of records with no way to really narrow down the results as you can in Ancestry.

Hope this helps.
wldspirit

[pink67]

Hi Barbara,

you can sign up for a free two week trial at Ancestry.com, so you can see how it works....

There are also free sites that you can use, try also:

http://www.italiangen.org/vitalreclist.stm

here you can find:

Vital Records:

*New York City Death Index 1891-1948

*New York City Groom Consisting of:
Brooklyn 1864-1907
Manhattan 1866-1907

*New York City Grooms All Boroughs 1908-1936

*Suffolk County Marriage Index 1908-1935

*Nassau County Marriage Index 1908-1935

*New York City Brides Consisting of:
Brooklyn 1871-1913, and 1931-1937
Bronx 1899-1937
Queens 1904-1937
Manhattan 1866-1937
Staten Island 1898-1937

You can check and find for example death or marriage dates with their certificates number, so if you'll decide to order a copy you can do it easily....

I think that Giuseppa/Josephine (John's wife) last name should have been Lo Monte (present in Sicily):

http://www.gens.labo.net/it/cognomi/genera.html

I don't know if you're familiar with the Family History centers, they keep the microfilms of the civil or churches registrations of many towns...
I noticed they have microfilms from Mezzojuso:

Title Registri dello stato civile, 1820-1901
Authors Mezzojuso (Palermo). Ufficio dello stato civile (Main Author)

Notes Microfilm dei registri originali nell'Archivio di Stato, Palermo, e nel Tribunale di Palermo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Per matrimoni e morti, 1883, vedi: Marineo (Palermo). Ufficio dello stato civile.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alcuni microfilm ad alta riduzione (42x). Si consiglia di adoperare una macchina ad alto ingrandimento.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Births, marriages, deaths, banns; supplements to births, marriages, deaths, and miscellaneous documents from the civil registration office in Mezzojuso, Palermo, Italy. Text in Italian. Some years missing or out of order.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subjects Italy, Palermo, Mezzojuso - Civil registration

I can point you to a very helpful guide that member Trish did time ago:

Microfilm

A guide to using this resource:

The proper way of obtaining microfilm from a Family History Center

1. You go to http://www.familysearch.org/

2. Click on the tab on the top right called Library

3. Click on the words Family History Library Catalog

4. Click on the words Place Search and type in the town you are looking for. Then click the word search.

5. A list of the results will show up. (an example: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

6. Click on the link you are looking for such a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Vital Records. A new page will appear where it will show all the films for Vital Records

7. Click on the link you want such as Death Registries.

8. Click on View Film Notes and a list of the microfilm numbers will appear.

9. Click at the bottom of the page, For a printable copy, click hereand you will get a form to print out with all the film numbers.

10. Click print.

Ordering Microfilm

1. Now the FHC does not have all the microfilm in their possession.

2. You have to order the microfilm which takes 3-4 weeks for it to arrive.

3. It costs about $5.75 a roll for 30 days of viewing time.

4. If you need to renew the microfilm, it cost about $5.50 for another 60 days.

5. If you need to renew it after the 60 days, it will cost another $5.50 and the films can be kept on an indefinite bases.

6. Microfilm must be viewed at the FHC.

7. Copies are $0.35 a page.

Written and Created for the Family History Center of Cherry Hill, New Jersey - by PTCTM - Trish - 02/2006

To locate a center near you:
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/library ... et_fhc.asp

You'll be able to check by yourself in these microfilmed documents and find the ones you're interested to, for example the birth acts for the child born in Italy or the marriage act for John and Josephine....

Another very helpful (free) site:

http://search.labs.familysearch.org/rec ... t.html#p=0

Hope this helps!

Laura

[barbarasprufera]

Laura your information has been fabulous!!! I was so glad to share what you sent me yesterday and I spent quite a bit of time with it last night! Off to work today, and back with it this evening. I so appreciate the help!! Many, many thanks to all.
Barbara

[pink67]

You're welcome Barbara!

Enjoy your search and please, if you have any doubts or if you'll need other help let us know... here you can find a great "team"

Just a little note:
I found on.line an interesting personal site which has a list of births form the Mezzojuso comune in Sicily.... I found several Giuseppa Lomonte... If you know your great-grandmother date of birth maybe you should find here their parents's name...

http://www.redpeach.net/mezzojus5.htm

Ciao!
Laura

[barbarasprufera]

Can we research Profera? I received an email that I will follow up on that indicates their family name from Siciliy is Profera - but they speculated the "S" could have been silent and in coming to NYC in the early 1900's it was interpreted as Profera? Any thoughts? Part of my family spells the name as Sprofera instead of Sprufera.
Thank you.

[rmk7148]

I know this is a while but I just saw your post on Sprofera/Sprufera. My Grandmother was Filippa Sprofera .(1890) Her father was Paolino Sprufera (1947) His father was Nicolo Sprofero. They were all from Mezzojuso and came to NY in 1896.I do have some information if you are still interested. She had a sister Maria brothers Nicolo and Giorgio who lived in LI. My grandmother lived in Little Italy in Manhattan then Brooklyn. She died in 1968. Contact me ....we are probably cousins !

[AJnyc]

Hi everyone, I hope you are still active on this board I see that it has been some time. I am excited to find you, I believe you all are my distant relatives! I am a descendant of the second wave of Sprofera's to arrive in NYC(1890). I have seen the name in some historic documents as Schrofera, Sprufera....i guess records were not all that accurate back then. please contact me when you can!

Guiseppe J sprofera born appx 1820's mezzojuso sicily
Paolo "paul" Sprofera born 1840 mezzojuso, died 1908 queens NY buried in new calvary cemetary(woodside,queens)
Peter J Sprofera dates unknown
Peter J Sprofera jr 1916-1988
peter j sprofera III living
myself

[Alhank]

Hi my mother was Josephine Sprofera born 1919 nyc and her father was Joseph Sprofera born 1880 in italy ( messojusso we believe) He came to America around 1890. His father was Giovanni Sprofera/sprufera and his mother was josephina Sprofera/sprufera. Josephina’ s maiden mane was lomonte or Lamonte. His siblings were Thomas, john, Leonard(frank) and Annie sprufera. Barbara sprufera person who wrote message above is Thomas sprufera’s grand daughter. Which I think makes us second cousins.... we share great grand parents. Joseph Sprofera my grandfather died 1963 and his parents died 1930’s approx. all are buried in Calvary cemetery queens. I know my grandfather had family in the nyc area because my mother talked about visiting them when she was young. We believe when they arrived in nyc they lived in little Italy and moved to the 50’s on second avenue. My grandfather moved to queens and raised his family in Astoria. I am sure we are related. I don’t know the names of my great grandfathers siblings...this might be our connection. I need to lookup his dob...I believe it’s around 1840’s.

[AJnyc]

Are you sure joseph's grandfather was named Giovanni, and not Paolo? on my family tree I have:

Josephine catherine sprofera, born in manhattan 2/11/1919 daughter of

Joseph john sprofera(born in sicily 1880 died in astoria 1963) and maria (mary/mamie) concetta cannaracioulo(1886-1972)

joseph john's father:

Paolo (Paul) Sprofera born 01/26/1840 termini, mezzojuoso sicily, and died 2/1/1908. He is buried in new calvary cemetary, near where I live. I visited his plot but there was no headstone.

paolos wife Nicolina (Nellie) Pinnachio BIRTH 1855 • Mezzojuso, Sicily. DEATH 20 NOVEMBER 1919 • Manhattan, New York City, New York

there is a chance that Paolos brother Joseph was AKA Guiseppi, and this tree branches off of him instead, but I am having a hard time finding that documentation. If only the sproferas would have stopped reusing names, to prevent all of these confusions and duplicate trees. hahah.

Anyway, Paolo, is my great, great grandfather, and he(likely)is our connection.