Because yesterday was, genealogically speaking, a good day – I managed to add a new line of relatives to the Italian side of my family tree thanks to the combined help of AncestryDNA and available records online – I’ve decided to share my experience with you all in the shape of a new blog post!

I may not share much DNA with this relative, but let’s see if I can find out how we’re related anyway! Source: Ancestry

I started off, as I often do, by randomly looking at my own – in this case, my father’s – DNA matches to see if there were any new names on our AncestryDNA matches list. I selected one whose last name suggested a possible connection on my Italian side (that’s my American-born paternal grandfather, whose story you will remember from my dedicated webpage). This person’s tree is basic to say the least – it only contains eleven individuals, including my DNA match, his parents, his four grandparents and a very intriguing great-grandfather called ?? Bussi.

My DNA match’s rudimentary family tree – all names which are not relevant to this article have been redacted by the author. Source: Ancestry

Two clues

Now, this may not have appeared particularly encouraging at first, given that the information available was not very detailed – but there were two clues that I figured could well lead me to a genealogical goldmine: the surname Bussi, which was my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Clara’s maiden name, and the fact that this individual’s grandmother’s date of birth was featured on his rather rudimentary family tree. Unfortunately my earlier attempts to find out where this match’s grandmother had been born (yes, I have contacted him before) proved futile. Still, I decided to send him another brief message, saying I might be able to connect out respective lines, but to be honest, I’m not holding my breath for an answer any time soon. Anyway, moving on.

The lady recorded as this match’s grandmother was Pauline Bussi, and had a date of birth in 1893. Was she born in the United States, or was she more likely to be an Italian emigrant who went to the new world at the turn of the century, as so many other millions did, including my own great-grandparents?

From my match’s family tree I knew Pauline Bussi’s married name was Roseo, so on I went in search of a marriage certificate. And I found nothing. Niente. OK, let’s try a different angle, let’s have a look at emigration and naturalisation records…

A family of migrants

Aha! What have we here? A naturalisation record for the State of New York from 1927 filed by Giovanni Roseo, a labourer born on 3 April 1889 in Alexandria (sic, probably meaning either the city or the province of Alessandria), Italy. His wife is listed as Magdalina and they appear to have three children: Floreno (Florence?) and Giuseppe, who were born in Italy in 1914 and 1920 respectively, and Carolina, born in Brooklyn in 1924. It definitely looks like Giovanni and his wife Pauline (aka Magdalina?) had been married in Italy, and then emigrated with their young family. Usefully, Giovanni’s wife’s date of birth is also given: 23 March 1893.

But what I’m really interested to learn is about their origins, and if I can link them – presumably through Pauline – to my family tree. As the Roseo family went to America in the 1920s, the earliest census I can expect them to be on is the 1930 census. It doesn’t take me long to find them listed together (with an additional child, Frank), all living under the same roof.

The 1930 census showing the Roseo family living in Brooklyn. Source: Ancestry

Passenger lists are usually a good way of knowing where somebody came from, especially when tracing migrant ancestors whose place of birth on the census was narrowed down to the country only. By this point I was somewhat unsettled by the fact that Pauline was also known as Magdalina. Were they one and the same person, or could they be two different individuals? Was I even looking at the right couple?

My fears were dissipated when I managed to locate a passenger list from 1922 for Maddalena Paolina Bussi. Strangely there is no sign of her children, but she appears to have been travelling with two other women from her home town: San Marzano Oliveto – my great-grandmother’s village!!! The file also reveals that she was going to stay with her husband Giovanni Roseo (wrongly recorded as Bosco) and, more importantly, it tells me her next-of-kin back in Italy is her father Francesco Bussi, who resides in Calamandrana, a small village not far from San Marzano Oliveto.

Maddalena Paolina Bussi (line 13) on a 1922 passenger list. Source: Ancestry

My next step is to try and find a marriage record that will confirm once and for all who Maddalena Paolina really was. Unfortunately, records for Calamandrana are not available on FamilySearch, Ancestry or even Antenati, so – assuming she married in the village where her father lived – it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to find her marriage to Giovanni. But the passenger list does mention San Marzano Oliveto, a name I’m all too familiar with because it is the focus of what will soon become my first one-place study. I type in the name of the bride and groom, I select San Marzano Oliveto as the place of marriage… and hey presto, I instantly get a hit: the 1913 marriage of Giovanni Antonio Roseo and Maddalena Clementina (huh? not Paolina?) Bussi. I click on the image and before my eyes in the original record, signed over 100 years ago by my distant relative and her fiancé.

The 1913 marriage of Giovanni Antonio Roseo and Maddalena Clementina Bussi. Source: Antenati.

The marriage record confirms Giovanni’s parents were Giuseppe Roseo and Adriana Caligaris, while Maddalena Clementina’s parents were Francesco Bussi and the late Carolina Vaccaneo. While the groom was born in San Marzano Oliveto on 3 April 1889 (which is same date as on the naturalisation record in New York!), the document states that the bride was born in Calamandrana on 29 May 1893; OK, so there is here a slight discrepancy with the naturalisation record, which you will recall stated she been born on 23 March 1893. At any rate, I’ve noticed on several occasions that March/Marzo and May/Maggio often get muddled up in records, so I’m not too bothered about that for now.

I then decided to hover to FamilySearch, which contains a very handy collection of civil registry scans for births, marriages and deaths from 1866 to 1910. Would I be able to locate the marriage for Maddalena Clementina’s parents before 1893? Luckily there’s an index, so if I managed to locate a marriage between a Francesco Bussi and Carolina Vaccaneo, I would be able to prove once and for all if these are really cousins of mine on my Bussi line. After a bit of searching, I finally found the 1882 marriage between Carolina Vaccaneo, daughter of Carlo Vaccaneo and Paola Amerio, and Francesco Bussi, son of Antonio Bussi and his second wife Maddalena Caligaris. Hang on, haven’t we just seen that surname a couple of moments ago? Of course, Maddalena Caligaris is the paternal aunt of Adriana Caligaris. In other words, Maddalena’s granddaughter and namesake married her second cousin, Adriana’s son Giovanni Roseo. Still with me? Good!

The 1882 marriage between Maddalena Clementina (aka Pauline)’s parents Francesco Bussi and Carolina Vaccaneo. Source: FamilySearch.

Through my prior research, I already knew that Antonio Bussi was the younger brother of my aforementioned great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Clara. In fact he has many living descendants in the UK today through his daughter from his first marriage. But I digress. The point is that I’ve finally managed to find my link to the Roseo/Bussi family and claim a new line of relatives on the other side of the pond.

But what of the difference in names? Pauline was known at different times as Maddalena as well as Clementina, right? I actually think there’s a simpler, and perhaps more logical explanation for this: her marriage record – which she signed with her full name, see below – lists her as Maddalena Clementina Bussi. I can only assume that this was her official name. However, her maternal grandmother, and we’ve seen, was called Paola – it is quite possible that as a young girl, perhaps when she was christened or had her confirmation, she was given a third name in honour of her grandmother, and the name stuck within the family. Hence why she would have been known as Pauline, and listed as such on some – but not all – official records.

Maddalena Clementina’s signature on her own marriage certificate. Source: Antenati.

Giovanni Roseo’s signature on his naturalisation record. Source: Ancestry.

All that remains now is to tell my distant cousins in America about their ancestry – but I guess I’ll have to wait until they reply to my latest message, won’t I?