ITALIANS IN EVANSVILLE

1863 - 1918

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WHERE WE CAME FROM

If one looks at a map of the United States, one might suppose that one of the last places you would find Italians in 1863 would be in Evansville, Indiana. The town is hidden in the southwest part of the State, many miles from any large city ...... from anywhere, really. But as I began the effort to document the arrival of my family (my cousin Pamela did a large portion of the actual search through records), the list of Italian names grew surprisingly large. By 1890 there were already over 100 immigrants (including fathers, mothers, and children); by 1900 the number had grown to about 150. Small, perhaps, in terms of a city of about 50,000 people in 1900, but still large enough to make one wonder how in the world these people found Evansville. 

Based on the City Directory 1863-1900, the earliest arrivals were in Evansville by 1863. The first of My Family arrived in 1888 from the mountainous region of Molise, north of Naples - mostly from the cities of Ripalimosani and Busso. Others followed from that region. Some of the earliest arrivals in Evansville were from Sicily. In fact, about 85 % of the Italians who arrived in Evansville before 1920 (City Directory 1901-1918) were from Molise and Sicily. See Other Italians.

In addition to presenting data on our family's ancestors back to the 1700's in Italy and people who lived in Evansville, this web site also contains information on  people who did not live in Evansville, but were somehow related to someone who did. Where possible, we searched for further information on each Italian we encountered in Evansville. Our sources of data were City Directories, Census Records for  Indiana/Kentucky/Tennessee, Ohio, New York,  Assumption Church Birth/ Baptism and Marriage Records, Immigration Records, Naturalization Records, and Cemetery Records.  The City Directories are one of the best sources for locating someone because many immigrants didn't stay in one place long enough to appear in a Census record. The Baptismal records are a good source also because people came from other cities to be the godparents of their relatives' children. Birth, death, and marriage records in other states (actual records not reproduced here) allowed us to trace some of these families to Arizona, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, and other states.

I also developed a substantial amount of immigration Passenger List information as I attempted to track these people; the data is primarily for people from small villages near Campobasso/Molise and Termini Imerese/Sicily. You can search this data at a Rootsweb site. (There is no automatic return to this web site, so you may want to wait and visit that web site after you finished perusing this web site).

In any of these records, we only searched for information that we did not have on an individual. So it is possible that any one record type will not contain information for a specific surname. There is another caution about the data displayed here. We could only identify Italians by their names. That means we may at times have included someone who was not Italian, and vice versa. We made an attempt to search all available records, but there is no doubt that we missed some people. If you know of someone who should be included, you can contact me at heathde@krlynk.com . I will make updates from time to time; this is a work in progress.

If you wish to see the all of the data I have amassed on Italian surnames during research for this web site, see the associated GenCircles database; there is no automatic return to this site from the CenCircle database (return by use of BACK button) , so you may want to delay going to that site until you have finished perusing this site. This data is also also available on Rootsweb WorldConnect), although I prefer the GenCircles web site. There is an automatic return to this site from the Rootsweb site.

Surnames included: (Most of these names appear only in the Census Data)

Abato, Albanese, Ambosio, Amoroso, Anoretia(?), Arrigo

Bagnoli, Bairo, Balsamo, Balzano, Barile, Battaglia, Bechelli, Bellara, Benelli, Bergamini, Berigo, Besuso, Bevilaqua, Binchini, Bisano, Bisesi, Bondi, Bova, Boveri, Brugnone, Bruno, Bucci, Bustema

Caiso, Cammerata, Camposarcuno, Cantrovia, Capene, Capuciello(i), Carlozzi, Carriolo, Caruso, Cassinelli, Catalano, Celvini, Cerasola, Ciampitta, Cianciolo(St Charles),  Ciliberti, Cimini, Cira, Clese, Cocucia(o), Cocuzzi, Colozza, Colagassi, Colucci, Concilio, Consiglio, Copello (Capella), Coraruni, Cornacchione, Corrsi, Corso, Cottile, Culotta

D'Addario, D'Amato, D'Arcangelo, D'Orazio, D' Viddio, Dallegiacoma, Damana, Daprano, Datillo, DeAmicis, DeCola, DiCola, Dellaca, Delacoma, DelGreco, DelGrande, DeLise, Delissi, DeLuca, DeMatteo, DeMauro, Demma, Denovo, Desaro (DiSarro, DeSarro), DeSopo (D'Esopo), DiBlasi, DiCarlo, DiCicco, Dice, DiLorio, DiLauro, DiLiberto, DiMiase, DiMuzio, DiNobile, DiNezza, DiPaolo, DiPetta, DiRienzo, DiSantis, DiSanto, Discenza, DiSensa, DiStefano, DiZinno, Donatelli,

Eifrate, Evola

Faciosano, Farina, Farinacci, Fasciano, Fasone, Fazio, Fede, Ferritto, Florence, Florentino(Fiorentino), Fornaro, Fosco, Francesca, Francescon, Fratianna, Frazelle, Frixione

Galasso, Gallito, Gambolati, Gammiero, Gargotti, Garraino, Gatto, Gazzolo, Gelardi, Gentile, Gentimella, Geraci, Giangiobbe, Giannantonio, Giannini, Ghiochini, Giorgio, Gisolo, Giuffre, Giuliano, Gotta, Grasanta. Guglierinette

Iacobucci, Iafelice, Iafrate, Iammarino, Iaricci, Iula

LaFrata, Lagomarsini, La Mantia, Lamantiello, Lanacorte, Lanese, Lanezza, Lanzarotta, LaRocca, Laurienzo, LaVendetti, Lazzara, Liberato, Liberatore, LoBono, Longano, Longo, Lorenzo, Luccitiello, Lucchesi, Luchese

Maggiore, Mancini, Mandalfino, Manesie, Marcogiuseppe, Marchetti, Marere, Marinelli, Marketto, Marietta, Marino, Marsicano, Mattacia, Martini, Martino, Marubbia, Mascari, Matracia, Mennucci, Mercurio, Miletto, Minadeo, Minielli (Miniello), Miranda, Moni, More, Moro. Musso, Muzzo

Naberto, Nanni, Natale, Nebbia, Notartomaso, Nuccironi

Olivetti (Aliveti), Occhipinti

Pace, Palermo, Pallante, Palmieri, Pantone, Panzica, Paolucci, Papparozzi, Paradigi, Parette, Parissi, Pece (Page), Penna, Petronallo, Petrone, Petti, Piano, Pinto, Pirovino, Pisano, Piscitelli, Pontilla, Puccini, Pusateri

Quancile, Quiquero

Ramaglia, Ranallo, Randazzo, Rappelli, Ratino, Rechio (Reckio), Ricchinti, Rinella, Rini, Riuhiute, Robbiono, Rosso, Rotonataro, Rotero, Ruatto, Rubero, Russo

Sabetta, Saladina, Sansone, S'Antangelo, Santambrogio, Sardino, Sarraino (Serraino), Scaletta, Scacco, Scalicci, Scannone, Scarpacci, Scricco, Sebastiano, Silvorei, Simone, Sociero,  Solimano, St. Charles(Cianciolo), Spragala, Spugnardi, Sunseri

Taciofano, Taddeo, Tagliaferro, Tanno, Terranova, Testa, Teta, Timotto, Tomba, Tonitto, Tonti, Toranelli, Torre, Trattoro, Trivisonno

Urso

Velnot, Venerandi, Verdone, Vitantonio, Vitanza, Vorpi

Zambina, Zangara, Ziccardi

Last Update:  01/17/2012