I truly have no interest in any of these services. I'm fairly well-informed as to who my grandparents were on either side, and where they came from, etc. I have no need to find out I'm the 9th generation offspring of a Spanish sea captain who brought slaves over to the New World from Liberia. (Perhaps you don't want to brag about that one.)
Not that I can't find out something new, but it has to come through a personal recollection, or a newly found document. And one such document has now come to my attention.
My cousin's wife Janice in San Diego for some reason seems to have a good many of the family photos and documents. She long ago created the website to honor my uncle, my cousin's father, and the father-in-law she never met, who was the first Greek-American to graduate from Annapolis and who became a career Naval officer, retiring in 1959 as a Rear Admiral. He was a fairly highly decorated commander of destroyers in the Pacific during WW II and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
But not all her family photos and documents relate to my uncle George. Whatever made her dig further, she came up with a wedding photo from 1951 of George and his second wife Maria, my cousin's mother, and therefore my aunt.
George is front and center with Maria, flanked by his mother and father, my grandparents, and several others in the back row that I helped identify.
I had never seen the photo, but there in the back row were my mother and father, (my father was George's younger brother) and two other brothers, Angelo (the oldest) and Jimmy (the youngest). Jimmy's wife might be one of the two women alongside Jimmy, but I have no memory of her, or even her name. These two other women still remain unidentified. I had never seen the photo.
As interesting as the photo was, the other emailed piece was even more interesting. It is a photostat of a U.S. Department of Labor, Naturalization Service form filled out by my grandfather, John. It is dated July 29, 1926. My guess is the form was needed to be sworn to before he could be declared a citizen. I've seen family naturalization papers, but never a form that preceded the granting of citizenship.
I now know the stated birthday of my grandfather, March 6, 1886, and where the family lived in 1926, which by then consisted of my grandparents and the four brothers, (the last of whom was born in 1916), one of whom was my father. I had always heard before the 18th Street address above the flower shop at 202 Third Avenue, that I remember, they lived at 32nd Street and Second Avenue, a building my father once pointed out to me. I have no idea if it is still there.
In 1926 they apparently lived at 134 2nd Avenue, hard by St Mark's Place. I always heard of the shoe shine parlor (hats blocked as well) and then flower shop they owned at St. Mark's Place, so I guess then they either lived above the business, or nearby.
If you've ever had a reason to view a NYC birth certificate from the early 20th-century you would see there were choices pre-printed on the form as to what your father's occupation was. I always remember seeing "sawyer" as an occupation possibility. I forget the others listed.
The U.S. Department of Labor form reveals that apparently that government agency ran the Naturalization Services, not the State Department, as I would have expected.
The date of my grandfather's entry into the country is noted: March 2, 1903, coming out of the Greek port of Piraeus, on the vessel "Unknown." Apparently you didn't need to know everything to become a citizen. If he was only 17 when he came here he was not yet married. But he was soon after, because the first son was born in 1907, or so.
From another document I've seen, my grandfather went back to Greece to retrieve his 18-year-old brother Peter in 1912. Together they were business partners for life.
But the best part is the last part: what was being sworn to.
"it is my bona fide intention to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, and particularly to (filled in) The Present Government of Greece of whom I am now a subject..."
"I arrived at the port of New York..." there's more to attest to:
"I am not an anarchist; I am not a polygamist nor a believer in the practice of polygamy; and it is my intention in good faith to become a citizen of the United States of America and to permanently reside therein: SO HELP ME GOD."
So in 1926 the United States was naturally worried about anarchists, because they tended to blow things up. But worrying about polygamists is a fear I never knew the country had.
We've come a long way.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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