My Dad’s grandfather, Erasmo, was born in 1857 in a small fishing village in Italy called Gaeta. He was one of 7 children. For years all we knew is that he immigrated to Massachusetts with one of his brothers when he was about 19, then when he was 42 he sent back to Italy for a wife. His family sent a 27 year-old school teacher, Marietta. (So he was still 15 years older than her).
They had six children together. A few years before he died he started an old-fashioned soda shoppe on the corner in Watertown, MA near a street car stop. He died at age 68 when my grandpa was only 10 and his youngest child was 3.
His wife took over the soda shoppe and eventually turned it into “Piccolo Pharmacy” with my grandpa as the pharmacist and many of his siblings helping with the family business.
Because my grandpa’s dad died when my grandpa was so young, my grandpa never really knew anything about his Piccolo side of the family. All we had were the names of Erasmo’s siblings written on a pedigree chart. We could go back farther and knew about Erasmo’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents and their families but there was a gap between about 1860 and 1930.
So I spent years working with microfilm then eventually indexed records for the small town in Italy where the Piccolo line is from. All that time hoping and praying that eventually something would be indexed that would give me a clue about any of Erasmo’s siblings.
Well, I eventually got a hint about five years ago when some immigration records and censuses were indexed. I found out that Erasmo immigrated about 1887 with his brother Stefano and owned fruit stand with him in Medford, MA until sometime between the 1910 and 1920 census.
Then, because of indexing, I was able to find Stefano, his wife and seven children all born in Medford, MA. I have been unable to find any living relatives but there is still hope that someday I will.
But that leaves 5 siblings I still didn’t know about. Starting in 2016, I started getting hints for Stefano’s brother, Domenico from Family Search. There were records that had been indexed. They were all in Hartford, Connecticut. Hartford? I don’t really even know where that is. I would have never, ever been able to guess to look in that city for records for Domenico’s family.
I was able to find out a ton of information about his family, including his nine children. He owned a grocery store called Piccolo Market. I was even able to get down to some of his grandchildren and was able to email his one remaining grandchild a few years ago. Her name is Elena and she was 93 at the time. She was able to tell me about her family and I told her about mine.
It was a wonderful thing – and it was all possible because of indexing. Without indexing, I would not have been able to do almost any of the family history I have done over the years. There is no way I would be able to guess where family members moved to or where they immigrated to.
But there is so much more to be done. I still know nothing about Erasmo’s five other siblings other than their names. We all need to work together to index anything and everything because you never know what you index could be the little hint someone is desperately searching for they need to put together an important piece of their family history puzzle.
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