Ann, I may suggest you to collect for first all the possible U.S. records so you might be able to detect the exact birth place of your ancestors...
Ancona is both a province and a town, so maybe they should have been born in the Ancona Province...
Moreover we are talking about early records..
Don't forget that Minia stated she was born in Turkey - Smyrne.
This afternoon I read a lot of newspaper's articles about the sad and interesting story of Isotta Oaksmith (I realized too that her brother Raniero died on December 24, 1878)...
She had a really hard life with her husband and she lost her child...
http://www.fultonhistory.com/Newspaper4 ... ehtml&.pdf
from Wikipedia:
With his first wife, Isotta Rebecchini, Oaksmith had 4 children,:
Buchanan Oaksmith (died in infancy)
Elizabeth (Bessie) Oaksmith 1858–1879
Corrine Oaksmith 1860-1879
Peyton "Randolph" Oaksmith.
From fultonhistory.com:
http://www.fultonhistory.com/Newspaper% ... ehtml&.pdf
APPLETON OAKSMITH.
His Four Daughters Drowned.
WILMINGTON, N. C , July 6.—Captain
Appleton Oaksmith, as reported yesterday,
started on Friday with his four
daughters and sou from Fort Macon to
Beaufort. The boat sank, and the eldest
daughter was drowned. Later advices
state that the three rescued daughters
afterward died.
NEW YOBK, July 6 —Appleton Oaksmith
was a slave trader and blockade
runner in the early part of the war. He
and Captain Gordon were arrested together
in 1861, for slave trading, and
Gordon was hanged ; but Oaksmith escaped
from Warren street jail, in Boston,
where he had been transferred from
Fort Lafayette. His first wife, the
mother of his eldest daughter, lives in
this city. Eighteen years ago she and
her child were saved from drowning.
While Oaksmith was a fugitive from
justice in England, he obtained what
purported to be an Indiana divorce from
his first wife, although she was unaware
of it for years afterwards. Oaksmith
then married a step-cousin. His applicattion
to President Johnson for pardon
was thwarted by his first wife who wrote
to the president the story of her wrongs.
Subsequently, however, he applied to
President Grant. His wife did not oppose
it, expecting that she would be
able to see her children, whom the Captain
had taken away from her, and his
pardon was granted. He returned from
England, settled in North Carolina,
being generally recognized as a conservative
Englishman, and was elected to
the legislature.
In another article you can read that Isotta went to visit her father in Smyrne (I believe it was at the time of her passport on October 1869)..
http://www.fultonhistory.com/Newspaper% ... ehtml&.pdf
He (Appleton Oaksmith) then told her he was
going with his vessel to the Indies, and advised
her to go to her father's for a while at Smyrna.
She went there, remaining four months, when
letters reached her father from the United
States, written by Captain Oaksmith's sister,
making inquiry about his daughter, saying that
she hadl disappeared, was believed dead, and
Captain Oaksmith had married again.
So, perhaps it's better before try to put togheter all these pieces and try to determine how many sisters and brother there were...
Laura

