Sunday, August 6, 2000
Some other documents have come in the mail in the past week or so:
Grandma Horbal’s application for a Social Security number gives her full name given at birth as "Josepha Zurbyk", and her parents’ names as Maria Sobol and Antony Zurbyk. She applied for the number on March 13, 1975.
I got the state-issued death certificate for the missing Ralph Brandi. It also list his mother’s name as "Anna Washnaski", gives his birthdate as January 31, 1912 and date of death as May 30, 1912. The place of death was 227 No. 6th; the Saginaw city directory for 1912 puts their residence at 627 No. Franklin, so I"m not sure what the story there is. Young Ralph was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery on June 1, 1912, not in the Brandi plot in Calvary, oddly enough. Philip, who died in 1898, and Vincent, who died in 1913, are buried there, but not Ralph. Weird. Maybe there’s another cemetery to visit while I’m in Saginaw. The cause of death was Infantile Convulsions, according to the coroner. The informant on the death certificate was someone named Fred Frazer of Saginaw. I have no idea who that is; the name hasn’t shown up before, and I don’t know what the significance is.
The state of New Jersey only took two months to cough up the birth certificates of Laura’s Grandma and Grandpa Pantano and the death certificate of her great-great-grandfather, Vittorio Minnocci. Grandpa Pantano’s given name at birth was Giovanni, and he was born on January 3rd, 1908 at 144 Oliver St., Paterson, NJ. Grandma Pantano was born Adelina Sarracco (that’s how it’s spelled on the certificate) on March 20, 1908, at 22 Camden St., Paterson, NJ. Interestingly, they were both delivered by the same midwife, Filomena di Lorenzo of 45 Mill Street in Paterson. I think we actually had most if not all of this information from copies of their birth certificates issued by the city of Paterson that Laura got from her Aunt Ginny (and that I haven’t scanned in yet, shame on me).
Vittorio Minnocci’s death certificate says that he was born on September 3rd, 1863, and died on December 15, 1934. Vittorio is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Paterson, which I think is the same one the Saraccos and Pantanos are buried in. I don’t remember seeing their graves when we were there a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the state of New Jersey seems to be one of those that blocks out the cause of death, because there’s a big blank in that section of the certificate. The certificate gives his wife’s name as Anna Maloretta. Interestingly, Grandma-on-the-hill’s (Laura’s great-grandmother, Felicia (Minnocci) Pantano) Social Security application gives her name as Anna Magliocchetti (whoops, guess I didn’t scan that one yet). The informant on the death certificate was Felicia’s brother Arthur Minnocci, so I can’t really say which is correct. If I could find something that Vittorio or Anna filled out which said, then I could be more sure. Vittorio’s profession is listed as a retired "Dyer Helper", so I guess he did that after he stopped making macaroni and being a grocer. And the certificate lists his parents’ names as Carlo Minnocci and Angela Sciardi, both born in Italy (no more specific than that, but presumably they’re also of Alatria, where Felicia was from). Those are names we didn’t have before. Records from Alatri seem to be pretty sketchy in the Mormon Church’s holdings; they’ve only got civil registrations between 1877 and 1898, and even then only for a few years. Bummer.
- Josephine Horbal, Social Security Number application, form SS-5
- Ralph Brandi (1912), Death Certificate, issued by the State of Michigan
- Giovanni Pantano, Birth Certificate, issued by the State of New Jersey
- Adelina Sarracco, Birth Certificate, issued by the State of New Jersey
- Vittorio Minnocci, Death Certificate
Posted at 11:25:15 AM
