Hello and thankyou for allowing me to join your forum.

For many years we have been searching for records of our ancestry, without any results, so I hope this might be the right place to finally find some history on our family.


Our grandparents were:




Domenico DONATO born 1st December 1903 in Plati, Calabria.
and Rosina MONTELEONE born 2nd February 1907 in Plati, Calabria.

They were married in Plati, reggio Calabria on the 26th October 1926. The marriage took place in the Madonna del Loretto Church.
They immigrated to Australia and had 5 children - heading our entire family group today.

Rosina Monteleone had a brother named Francesco Monteleone and sister named Maria Monteleone who remained in Italy.

Rosina's mother was Antonia Staltari, who raised her children alone after her husband Paulo immigrated. He was Paulo Monteleone, a tall and handsome man who immigrated to the USA, leaving his young family behind in Plati and they lost all contact with him.

The parents of our grandfather Domenico DONATO were Francesco DONATO and Emilia GLIOZZI, both born around the 1870s in reggio Calabria.

Francesco also left his young family behind when he immigrated and was never heard from again.

The house where Rosina was born, and Rosina celebrating her 100th birthday in Australia beside her grand-daughter, great grand-daughter and great, great grand-daughter :




Our Uncle travelled to Italy to try and discover more about our family history but the Comune of Plati were not prepared to undertake a search going back so many years for these records. We would love to be able to find out something or anything about our ancestry.

Welcome to Gente!

Since you haven't had much luck with the comune, you might try ordering the appropriate microfilm records for Plati to view at a local Family Center.

www.familysearch.org/s...m%2F372917

If you're not sure about the birth years of Domenico and Rosina's parents, I'd order the microfilms containing Domenico and Rosina's birth records. These should give you the parents' names and approximate years of birth.

Having determined their parents' approximate years of birth, you could then order microfilms for those years.

Thanks for sharing your pics!

Biff

This appears to be Francesco Donato's 1905 ship manifest. Line 2

www.ellisisland.org/EI...&line=0002

Approximate year of birth: 1872
Last residence: Plati
Destination: Allegheny PA to join borther in law Angelo Gliozzi.

Biff

Congrats to Rosina! Hopefully someone can help you here.

Biff83 wrote:

This appears to be Francesco Donato's 1905 ship manifest. Line 2 www.ellisisland.org/EI...;line=0002 Approximate year of birth: 1872 Last residence: Plati Destination: Allegheny PA to join borther in law Angelo Gliozzi. Biff

Thankyou so very much Biff !!!

Unfortunately the link you provided does not open. Where did you find the information that my great-great-grandfather had travelled to PA to join his brother in law? This is very exciting information for our family to have as it tells us he did not abandon his family after all, he went there to start a new life with the help of his inlaws.

Link to ship manifest on Ancestry. Line 2.

interactive.ancestry.c...sePUB=true

Biff

Ahhh thankyou. My membership at Ancestry has ended so it wont let me in to view the document. Looks like I will have to sign up again. Very exciting to finally discover another piece of the puzzle.

~~~~~~~~~

I have just renewed my membership at Ancestry, explored the document you provided (Thankyou) and have tried further searches, but cannot find a single thing. How would it be possible that someone who entered the USA has no death certificate registered anywhere?

Since Francesco Donato emigrated to the Allegheny PA area, I checked Pennsylvania death certificates from 1906-1963 but did not find him. Also checked 1905 PA mining accident records in the event he was killed before 1906 and likewise did not find him there.

Biff

Through microfilm, on loan from Plati, I have been able to learn much more information about our family. It may take me a few months to read everything but within a few days I could see from the town records that Emilia Gliozzi was in fact Amelia Gliozzi, and she remarried in Plati to a man named Giuseppe Trimboli and had more children. I presume that must mean that my great-great grandfather, Francesco Donato must have died young in the USA.

On the maternal side of our family, I have been searching for information about my other great-great grandfather Paolo Monteleone, with no luck.
Today I read the microfilm from Plati and it appears that his name is not Paolo at all, but some other name I cannot decipher. [attached]

Microfilm

Can anyone read the father's name To me, it looks like Morabito Concettre.

The person who presented the baby was a midwife (levitrice), Concetta Morabito, not the father. The parents' names, Antonia Staltari and Paolo Monteleone follow the street address where the birth occurred (Via Giardinello, numero tre).

Best,
Biff

Thankyou so very much. Do you mean line ten? I cannot see his name there?

Yes, lines 10 and 11. Part of the surname is on line 10 "Monteleo" and then completed at the beginning of line 11 "ne" followed by his first name Paolo. At first, I thought the first name was Carlo but comparing the first letter to the first letter of the midwife's first name, the two letters are different. It does, however, match the first letter of the comune name, Plati.

Biff

Could this possibly be your Francesco Donato? It's a Pennsylvania Sons of Italy death record which shows the age of this member to be 47 at the date of enrollment in 1918 which would make his birthdate around 1871. In googling 845 Wilder St in PA, I found that as a legitimate address in Philadelphia.

interactive.ancestry.c...dit/record

Biff