L'Italo-Americano

Located on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City, Trastevere is a world apart. For centuries, this district was dis- connected from central Rome, geographically and administra- tively. Low taxes and light regu- lation attracted Italians from far- flung regions. Most of Rome's Jews lived here, before the Ghetto was created across the river in 1526. Local fishermen and sailors based at Ostia also made the neighborhood their home. Until recently, the countryside penetrated Trastevere. Vine- yards, orchards, gardens, and chicken coops abounded, and artichokes and zucchini grew in the hidden courtyards. From a maze of narrow streets and weathered cobblestones, rises the Janiculum. When the breeze blows from the southeast, pine and myrtle scent the air. Partial isolation and a unique subculture give this working- class enclave a bohemian atmos- phere. College students string lingerie across the alleys. Widows smoke Nazionali ciga- rettes and water geraniums on rusted balconies. Fortune tellers in Piazza Santa Maria use trained parakeets to predict the future. Accordionists play mazurkas in cafés. "Romans are one thing," resi- dents say. "Trasteverini are another." Every July, they hold a block party called the Festival of Noantri (Us Guys). Its origins reveal much about the neighbor- hood's character. On July 16, 1535, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a torrential storm nearly drowned some fishermen on the Tiber. Pulling to shore, they found a wooden statue of the Madonna near the mouth of the river. The grateful fishermen donated the statue to the Carmelite friars at the Church of San Crisgono in Piazza Sonnino, who called her la Madonna Fiumarola (the Madonna of the River). A generation later, Pope Gregory XIII transferred the stat- ue to the Church of Sant'Agata in Lago San Giovanni de Matha. This outrage occurred on the anniversary of the statue's dis- covery. Best known for reform- ing the calendar, Gregory had notoriously bad timing. After the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, he celebrated a Te Deum mass in Rome. Under a cloak of piety, the faithful creat- ed a religious festival to subvert the Vatican. Each year, the Madonna Fiumarola returns to her original home. Bejeweled and elaborately dressed, she is carried from Sant'Agata back to San Crisgono, where she stays for eight days before returning by boat along the river. Cheers greet the fireworks from the Aventine's Giardino degli Aranci. Scattering over the Tiber and drifting passed the Ponte Garibaldi, sparks illuminate the statue of Trastevere's other patron saint. Giuseppe Gioachino Belli was born on Via dei Redentoristi on September 7, 1791, on the eve of the French Revolution. He died on December 21, 1863, seven years before the House of Savoy defeated the Papal States. Liberal friends teased that he had wasted his life in a reactionary backwa- ter during a century of progress. Belli retorted that it was a mira- cle he had survived at all. Dysentery nearly killed him in infancy. His father died of cholera or typhus shortly after taking a clerkship in Civitavecchia. Moving back to Rome, the family was forced to take cheap lodgings in Via del Corso. After drudging as a copy- ist, Belli married a wealthy widow from the noble Conti family. The couple settled in Palazzo Poli, beside the Fountain of Trevi. Leisure allowed Belli to write poetry, but his health was poor. He suffered from stomach cramps and bad nerves. When his wife suddenly died, he sold the furniture to pay their debts. An accountant and later a cen- sor in the Vatican bureaucracy, Belli belonged to a small but har- ried middle class, squeezed between an ecclesiastical elite and the masses. He was anything but a man of the people, but in a wild burst of creativity during the 1820s and 30s he wrote some 2,300 sonnets in Romanesco, Rome's rough-and-ready street language of lopped syllables and stuffed consonants. Nearly every day, he would visit me in Piazza Pasquino and recite his latest poem on gourmandizing pontiffs or masturbating penitents. Time and routine turned this sly man-about-town, so hand- some in cape and cravat, into a pince-nezed civil servant with plastered hair and wispy mutton- chop sideburns. The Revolution of 1848 appalled him. After Pius IX fled Rome, he repudiated pol- itics. On his deathbed, he begged his confessor to burn his work. Now he stands in Piazza Belli, immortalized in white travertine, wearing a beaver hat and holding a knobbed cane. Respectability is the kiss of death. Belli is now a monument, and Yuppies have gentrified Piazza S. Cecilia. But as long Romans say bbuono instead of buono and prepare pollo alla papalina for Sunday dinner, Trastevere will live in our hearts and on our tongues. Pasquino's secretary is Anthony Di Renzo, associate professor of writing at Ithaca College. You may reach him at direnzo@ithaca.edu. Finding Our Immigrant Ancestry – Census Searches ANGElO F. CONIGlIO Faithful carry a statue of the Madonna del Carmine in the streets during the annual festival 'Festival de Noantri' in Trastevere If you still live where your immigrant ancestors settled, your local public library should have hard copies of the US Census covering the region. However, if your ancestors lived elsewhere, you must search on-line censuses (or travel to the other region). I find that even for local informa- tion, using on-line searches is easier than using hard copies, which must be searched by town, enumeration district, ward, etc. On-line venues permit searching by name of the individual, so knowing the street address, or even the city, is not required, to do a broad search over many years of censuses. Many public libraries allow free access to subscription sites which have these records, and Mormon FamilySearch Centers (FSC's) allow patrons free access to subscription genealogy sites. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of sites. Here are the most popular ones dealing with censuses. www.familysearch.org/ is the site maintained by the Mormon church. It's free and allows users to order microfilms con- taining US Federal Census records, as well as a host of other federal, State, local and foreign records. Many records are now also available there on-line, as images of original documents. The site offers many free on-line lectures and tutorials. Henceforth, I'll refer to this site as familysearch.org. Free sites that include infor- mation about federal censuses and/or access to records include the US National Archives site at www.archives.gov/ which fea- tures pages for each decennial census and lists the questions asked on each; and http://steve- morse.org/census/ which allows searching of the latest census available, that of 1940, in several different ways. www.Ancestry.com is a sub- scription site which has all the released US Federal Censuses, from 1790 through 1940. They can be searched by inputting a person's name. It offers free two-week trial subscriptions and a variety of monthly or annual subscriptions, depending on the region of interest (US, world, etc.) In my columns I'll refer to this site as Ancestry.com. Many public libraries, as well as Mormon FSCs, allow free access. To find FSC's in your area, go to www.familysearch.org/ locations. While searching on-line, many new researchers are frus- trated when they can't find infor- mation usng an ancestor's name they 'know' to be correct. We've discussed much of this when considering Italian names, but let's briefly review: Misspelling on original records: Many of the members of Italy's 'Great Migration' to America were illiterate. In addi- tion, often American census tak- ers, clerks, and other officials did not speak the immigrants' lan- guage, resulting in errors even on official documents. This can include misspelling by sound: 'Gelia' instead of Giglia; 'De Carlo' istead of Di Carlo, etc. Misspelling by computer transcribers: Even if the name is correct on the original record, indexers unfamiliar with the name or early handwriting may record it in the data base incor- rectly. This can include mis- spelling by looks: ('u' instead of n; 'j' for i; 'i' for e, and so on. Switching given names with surnames: Immigrants often gave their surnames first. A clerk or transcriber might not know if the name should be 'Alessi Rosa' or Rosa Alessi. Be prepared to look for ances- tors using wide variations from the presently accepted names. If you have no luck on one site, try another; the name may be mis- pelled and indexed incorrectly on one site, but correctly on another. If you know that a neighbor of your ancestor had a simpler name, try searching for the neighbor. Your ancestor may be recorded on the same census sheet as the more easily-found neighbor. Coniglio is the author of the book The Lady of the Wheel, inspired by his Sicilian research. Order the paperback or the Kindle version at http:// amzn.to/racalmuto Coniglio's web page at http://bit.ly/AFCGen has helpul hints on genealogic research. If you have genealogy questions, or would like him to lecture to your club or group, e-mail him at genealogytips@aol.com THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2014 www.italoamericano.com L'Italo-Americano 15 ANTHONy dI rENZO Noantri Pasquino celebrates Trastevere

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