I have been working on cleaning out my “to be processed” folder. This is my bucket for images and digital documents I find online. I recently was looking at the Naturalization paperwork for Alfredo (Fred) Capelli. As I read through the pages, I realized I had missed information about the family by not getting the papers analyzed and filed into their correct place. You can read about the birthplaces of Fred’s children in Part 1.
I also noticed that there was other piece of information in the Naturalization Application that was new information to me. Fred’s birthplace was flashing at me with neon red lights.
I previously had narrowed Fred’s birthplace down to Como, Italy. Both Fred’s death certificate and WWI Draft Registration paperwork listed his birthplace as Italy. It was Fred’s son, Bruno, who gave me the city. It was listed on his birth certificate. The birth certificate was filed in 1926 (Bruno was born in 1909). Bruno obviously needed a birth certificate for a reason. I made the deduction that he must have received the information about the birthplace from his father.
The Naturalization Application lists Fred’s birthplace as Carcente, Italy. A quick Google search reveals that the birth certificate was not wrong. Carcente is a small hill town located in the province of Como above Lake Como.
I have been trying to imagine what life must have been on the side of that hill in the late 1800’s. It is a steep hillside so there could not have been much farming. Fred must have had very little prospects of a good life in Carcente if he felt the need to travel 4200 miles to the coal mines outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am so thankful Alfredo left the beauty of Lake Como so that my family can be here now!
