My Grandmother Maria Pernici

Yesterday, I received in the mail, the first official document related to my quest for Italian citizenship jus sanguinis. It was my paternal grandparents' marriage certificate from the Municipal Archives in New York City. I had requested this document through an online form on November 30, 2009. Marriage certificates that are over fifty years old are considered historic documents and are public records, so I had no trouble requesting a copy.

There are many small discrepancies in these old documents. Take the case of my father's mother, for example. Until yesterday even my father did not know when his parents had been married. One reason for that is that she passed away when my father was only two. My father recently sent me a copy of his mother's passport. It indicated the date of her birth and the date the passport was issued. According to her passport she was 16 years old when she emigrated to America. The ship's manifest (the S.S. Berlin sailing from Palermo) indicated that she was 16 years old. Her marriage certificate says she was 18. I am inclined to believe the passport, since it was issued in Italy, the land of her native tongue.

In the days of my forebears public services in the U.S. did not seem to employ translators. I recall that my grandfather hardly spoke any English. I do not wonder that with his heavy accent the clerk or clergyman filling out his marriage certificate wrote what he thought he heard and thus the certificate says, "Rebera." In 1930, family data was recorded on a U.S. Census form; my father's name (Caleb) is written as my grandfather pronounced it: "Colbi."

Back to my grandmother. My father was unsure when she and his father were married. We knew the date of my grandfather's immigration. Giuseppe got his passport on February 6, 1910; he was 22. He finally set sail for America when he was 25. According to ship records (S.S. Calabria sailing from Palermo) he arrived in New York on May 16, 1913. (Who my grandfather sailed with and what he did during that year is the subject of another investigation.) My grandmother got her passport on Monday, March 28, 1914, set sail from Palermo on Saturday, April 4, 1914, and arrived in New York City after a voyage of 12 days on Thursday, April 16, 1914. According to the marriage certificate she was married the very next day, Friday, April 17, 1914.