Marinio Elenesa?

[jpetrelli]

Thank you all for your comments and assistance. Feel free to run up your Post counters. I appreciate the attention and assistance!!

I have posted a longer response in another forum about my GFF.

Thank you all for your help and input. Your comments and responses on my other thread for Marinio Elenesa have added some wonderful food for thought.


[hr]First of all, I will now investigate possible family roots in Gaeta. This forum thread on <a href="http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-3166187-10456885" TARGET="_blank">Ancestry.com</a> suggests that Elena was a commune that was merged into Gaeta. "Marinio Elenesea" having been absorbed into Gaeta matches your helpful research, family stories and explains my difficulty identifying that location.


[hr]Secondly, I am now wondering if my GGF's surname may have actually been Traniello.

As obvious as this document makes the point about the spelling of the last name, I was always told it was Tranello (or Tranella for his brother's branch of the family). So I always presumed misspellings within this document.


[hr]Finally, combining my first and second points together, searches for "Traniello" quickly lead to hits referencing Elena, Caserta, Italy. For example, [url=http://search.<a href="http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-3166187-10456885" TARGET="_blank">Ancestry.com</a>/browse/view.aspx?dbid=1174&iid=USM1834_50-0107&pid=1236892&ssrc=&fn=Antonio&ln=Traniello&st=g]this naturalization document[/url] for an individual I am not aware of relation.

[hr]This discussion has given me new angles to investigate this family line.

Thank you again and I continue to welcome thoughts, observations and suggestions.

[jpetrelli]

could this be yours?

First Name: Agostino
Last Name: Trancilli
Ethnicity: Italy
Last Place of Residence: Borgo Gaeta
Date of Arrival: Mar 26, 1894
Age at Arrival: 25y Gender: M Marital Status:
Ship of Travel: Rugia
Port of Departure: Naples
Manifest Line Number: 0223

Maestra36,
Investigating this, I think this is my GGF.
1. The age matches.
2. The destination matches.
3. The immigration year matches the year reported in Census documents.

Of course I never found it in Ancestry.com because the last name is indexed as "Franielli".

The Passenger List could be more helpful if it contained typical information, but I am excited to be able to document my GGF's arrival.

Thank you.

[liviomoreno]

The name on the manifest is Agostino Tranielli

[maestra36]

The name on the original manifest looks like Tranielli

You missed where I stated this on an above post on this thread.

Peg

[liviomoreno]

The name on the original manifest looks like Tranielli

You missed where I stated this on an above post on this thread.

Peg

[jpetrelli]

maestra36 and Livio,

Thanks for your continued participation in my search.

I was not clear about the intention of your responses about the Passenger Manifest's recording of my GGF's name. I wanted to clarify your input...

The name on the manifest is Agostino Tranielli

I was not able to find this record myself, but believe it is the travel record for my GGF. I presume that Passenger Manifests commonly had misspelled names. That's why I was not that concerned about "Agostino" vs. "Augustus" or "Tranielli" vs "Traniello" (ignoring the "Tranello" version for the moment).

Do you not agree that this is likely my GGF's travel record?

Do you think there is some importance to this instance of his name's spelling?

I wanted to make sure I understood the significance of your pointing this information out to me deliberately.

Thank you again. This search has been getting more enjoyable with your help.

Joe

[johnnyonthespot]

If I might jump in -

First, Agostino is an Italian spelling; Augustus is not. If your great grandfather was truly Italian (and I am not disputing that at all) then his real birth name was almost certainly not Augustus, and Agostino is the most likely probability. Yes, for reasons open to debate, many Vincenzo's took the name "James" in the US (one thought is that in Italy a person named Vincenzo is often called "Cenz" for short and that this sounds a bit like James...), but Agostino -> Augustus seems reasonable.

Second, we find that names on manifests are, in actuality, rarely incorrect. Yes, they are often indexed incorrectly because they were misread by the transcribers who first created the computerized indexes; but the manifests themselves are more likely correct than not.

Third, we see many names which look somewhat Italian but do not hold up under scrutiny. One of the things we look at is whether the name exists in modern Italy; if it does not, our (well, mine anyway) ears perk up and suspicion sets in. Suspicion increases when we cannot find a travel manifest for the name in question. When searching Ancestry . com for manifests indexed as Tranello, there are only three hits, at least two of which when examined closely appear to actually be written as Tranelli. And, the Italian telephone directory lists just a single entry for Tranello in all of Italy ( http://www.paginebianche.it/execute.cgi ... anello&dv= ). With 14 Tranelli's and 27 Traniello's, the possibility that your GGF's name was not originally Tranello increases.

So, what my cohorts are suggesting, I think, is that your GGF's birth name was in fact Agostino Traniello and that he purposely anglicized (actually Latinized) the first name to Augustus and also that the "i" in Traniello was lost either deliberatly or without intent somewhere else along the way.

[jpetrelli]

Carmine,

What a wonderful and thorough response. It's great to get the final answer, but I, for one, really appreciate understanding and learning the rationale and details contributing to the answer. Your answer did that on many levels. (You even resolved an unasked question regarding my own family Vincenzo->James switch that I was not comfortable with until now.)

Prior in my research I had casually dismissing name variations on Travel Manifests. If their accuracy is actually fairly good, that has me thinking I need to revisit some of my research for possible name shifts I ignored.

I agree about my GGF's name being Agostino.

If I could impose for clarification of another detail... What about the vowel at the end of the name? I can understand the interior "I" being dropped or lost, but going from "TraniellO" to "TraniellI" seems a larger leap. Do you think this manifest suggests that I should be investigating the name ending in "I"?

Thank you again for your very helpful response.

[johnnyonthespot]

I confess that I was paying so much attention to the first "i" that I totally missed the second one at the end of Tranielli.

This does make the situation a bit more complex, as there are zero Tranielli's in the Italian telephone directory and zero records of any kind in Ancestry . com's indexes.

I feel my ears perking up again...

[maestra36]

Traniello is a surname in the current Italian white pages, so maybe the surname dropped the letter i in the U.S,

There are 12 results for the surname with an o at the end from Gaeta in the current Italian white pages

[maestra36]

Loved your "If I might jump in" post, Carmine.

Peg

[johnnyonthespot]

Loved your "If I might jump in" post, Carmine.

Peg

I don't know; I think it was actually a bit too pompous...

[maestra36]

Joe
I've seen many state civil records in which in some years a surname will end with an i and then in other years that same surname will end with an o-such as Caputi vs. Caputo, Rossi vs. Rosso, Chiancazzi vs. Chiancazzo, etc., etc . To get into the subject from an etymology point of view is very complicated. If you are interested in doing any further reading on the subject, you may want to purchase a book called Our Italian Surnames by Joseph G. Fucilla.
Peg

[johnnyonthespot]

Joe
I've seen many state civil records in which in some years a surname will end with an i and then in other years that same surname will end with an o-such as Caputi vs. Caputo, Rossi vs. Rosso, Chiancazzi vs. Chiancazzo, etc., etc . To get into the subject from an etymology point of view is very complicated. If you are interested in doing any further reading on the subject, you may want to purchase a book called Our Italian Surnames by Joseph G. Fucilla.
Peg

Civil records on my mother's side jump between "Iacovo" and "Di Iacovo". My grandfather's birth act says Iacovo; his marriage act says Iacovo as well, but then his signature is on the document as De Iacovo. He entered the US as Iacovo but naturalized as De Iacovo.

His father's birth act says Iacovo but marriage and death say Di Iacovo.

And so on.

[jpetrelli]

I wanted to provide the answer I uncovered regarding “Marinio Elenesaâ€