2026 #52Ancestors, Week 8: A Big Decision

I began writing this post (thinking it was a fresh idea) and then realized that I had written something very similar for a 2024 #52Ancestors prompt about immigration.  However, I do have a bit of additional information now, so I suppose it's worth revisiting. 

My great great grandparents, Rosario Sapienza and Anna LaPira, were born and married in Collesano, Sicily. They had 8 children, all born in Sicily:

Maricchia [Sapienza] Gullo b. 1867
Peter Sapienza, b. 1870 (immigrated 1902/1903)

Giuseppa Josephine [Sapienza] Iocolano, b. 1875 (immigrated 1903)

Thomas Sapienza, b. 1876 (immigrated 1901)

Theresa [Sapienza] Gullo, b. 1882 (immigrated 1907/1908)

Concettina Eva Sapienza, b. 1884 (immigrated 1900)

Serafina [Sapienza] Aloisio, b. 1887 (immigrated 1903)

Joseph Guiseppe Sapienza, b. 1890 (immigrated 1906)

Between 1900 & 1908, all of their children, except Maricchia, moved to the United States. Great Great Grandma Anna followed her daughter, Concettina Eva, in 1901.  I have speculated that Maricchia, who would have already been 33 by the time the family began immigrating, simply did not want to pull up roots for the long trek to the United States.  Her other married siblings did, though.  Somewhat more oddly, however, Great Great Grandpa Rosario did not join his wife in America.  That has always been the story, at any rate, and I had not found any concrete evidence confirming or denying it.  Certainly, there was no immigration information on Rosario.  Recently, though, I discovered this:

Per Google Translate, "In the year nineteen twenty-one, on the seventh of February...Dominic Mario, aged sixty-eight...declared to me that at ten o'clock and a minute yesterday...Rosario Sapienza...resident in Collesano...died...Born in Collesano...husband of Anna LaPira."  There is more to the document, obviously, but that's the important part of the translation.  While it's not concrete evidence that Rosario stayed behind (I suppose he could have been visiting family), it seems to fit the generally accepted narrative.

So now we get to the prompt - A Big Decision.  There are few decisions I can think of that are bigger than, "Do I follow my wife and the majority of my children to the United States, or do I remain in Sicily?"  It seems like a no-brainer to me, but I certainly don't have the whole story.  Maybe Rosario was ill and travel was difficult/impossible.  Maybe he sent the family ahead intending to join them but could never get together enough money to make the trip himself.  Maybe he left the big decision to Anna, and when she elected to immigrate, Rosario disapproved and, being a stubborn Sicilian, chose to stay behind.  😂

I'll probably never know why Rosario made this big decision, but at least I'm a bit more certain that he did. 

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 6: Favorite Photo

Wedding photo of Carl Oscar Swanson and Thelma Linnea Robertson

September 17, 1931

Great Grandpa Oscar and Great Grandma Thelma - that's who they were to me, and here's what they looked like by the time they earned those titles.

Grandpa was in his early 80s here, and Grandma was in her early 70s.  I am the smiling little goon in the plaid shirt.  Even though both of them were gone by the time I reached my teen years, I have vivid memories of the time I spent with them.  

Grandma Thelma crocheted.  My daughter's closet is home to a couple yellow capes Grandma made, and I think my mother still has the green blanket that graced our couches all through my childhood. Grandma also kept a plastic baby doll (that, if memory serves, she acquired through saving box tops) for me to play with.  It came with a yellow plastic carrier.  My daughter inherited both when she was born in 2015. We called the doll 'Baby Thelma.'

Grandpa Oscar taught me to play rummy.  For some reason, the smell of the tobacco aisle (before tobacco products had to be stored behind the register) at Walgreens always reminded me of him.  The whiff of a good cigar has a similar effect. My mom says he didn't smoke cigars (though his father-in-law did), but there's something about the aroma that takes me back to Grandma and Grandpa Swanson's house.

Their Chicago house had the old-style air vents - large, grated squares cut directly into the flooring.  I remember a gold coin in the vent in their dining room.  Maybe they put it there for me to find (the same way my dad leaves change all over his house when my daughter visits), or maybe it is one of those fabricated memories - the kind that seems so real but that no one else remembers.

I only knew great grandma and grandpa Swanson as the elderly people holding me in these photos.  I didn't really know what they looked like as young adults until I inherited my grandmother's (great grandpa's daughter) photos several years back and found this wedding portrait. I love it for many reasons - its simplicity, Great Grandma's bouquet - but mostly, I appreciate being able to view them 50 years before my existence. 

2026 #52Ancestors, Week 5: A Breakthrough Moment

It's hard to choose just one breakthrough moment; genealogy is full of them.  There are plenty recorded in my Pearson line (Horace, William, Pierson/Joseph, Roy, and the list goes on), but there are other lines in my family to discuss.  One line that gave me trouble belonged to my great grandmother, Thelma Linnea (Robertson) Swanson.  Great grandma Thelma was the only child of Signe Jonsson and Hugo Robertson, but that was as far as I could trace her father's line.  When he died of tuberculosis in 1911, his wife was the informant, but the blanks for mother and father held only the depressing words 'don't know.'  I knew Hugo was Swedish, and I had his birth date, so I visited what I have found to be one of the most helpful pages on Facebook for those with Swedish ancestry - the Swedish American Genealogy Group.

I threw myself on the mercy of the group and provided what little information I had about Hugo Robertson. In less than an hour, someone located the record below. What it provided was a breakthrough on several fronts, although (as is typical in genealogy) it left more than a few questions unanswered.

1st breakthrough - I now had the names and birthdates of Hugo's parents!

2nd breakthrough - Hugo's last name was not Robertson.  He was actually Carl Hugo Robert Jonsson, son of Johan August Jonsson.  If the family had been continuing the patronymic naming system, he would have been Carl Hugo Robert Johansson, but regardless, Robertson was apparently the surname he selected when he immigrated.

3rd breakthrough - Hugo was actually a twin! His twin sister was Anna Elvira Augusta Jonsson.

That third breakthrough triggered a memory.  When I first found great grandma Thelma's baptism record, I had been frustrated because I didn't recognize the names of her sponsors, Charles and Elvira Blomberg, but now I had a suspicion.  

With a name and a birthdate, I was able to flesh out Anna Elvira's profile.  She came to the United States in 1889 (perhaps with Hugo, as there are conflicting records about his arrival - anywhere from 1887-1889), and in 1906, she married Charles Blomberg in Lake County, Indiana.  In 1910, she was living not far from Hugo in Chicago!  Sadly, in 1911, the March 13th baptism of her niece might have been the last time Elvira saw her brother.  Hugo would succumb to tuberculosis just two weeks later.

I'm still searching for additional breakthroughs on this line.  It seems that Johan came to the United States the same year his daughter, Ebba Amalia Albina, was born.  I don't know if he remained in the United States or if he returned to Sweden.  I have been unable to find any further information.  Ebba and her mother, Augusta Annette, remained in Sweden.  Augusta died in 1923, and Ebba died in 1962.  I have no other information on either of them.  What does seem likely is that my great grandma Thelma was the only child of her generation.  Charles and Elvira did not have any children, and I haven't found any record of a marriage or children for Ebba.