The Lie: Part 3. Not John Maurice Ragusin’s date and place of birth.
At this time, I still did not have any records from my grandfather’s early years in the U.S., so I took my research in a different direction. I not only wanted to prove my grandfather’s date and place of birth, but I wanted to disprove the information that he had provided on his 1922 marriage record.
There were many LDS microfilms of birth records for Rimini, Italy (my grandfather’s claimed birthplace). Since John had provided very specific information on his marriage application (born 21 Mar 1885 in Rimini, Italy) I went right to that date. There was not a birth of a child named John Ragusin (or the Italian equivalent) on that day in Rimini. I also checked his actual birthdate (21 Mar 1883), but he was not there either. I then went through all the birth records from 1881 to 1885 (thousands of pages) and still could not find him.
I then obtained microfilms with the indices of birth records for the years 1876 to 1915 and could not find a single Ragusin. Similarly, I searched marriage and death records from 1866 (year that Italy was formed) to 1935 and did not find a single Ragusin. Although impossible, there has been a consistent belief within my family that my grandfather changed his Italian name (possibly Ragusini) to Ragusin at Ellis Island. For this reason, I looked especially closely at any name beginning with “Rag,” but there were none named John or Maurice and none with the correct date of birth. Not satisfied, I continued my research by writing letters to six nearby communities asking if they had any record of a Ragusin. All six communities responded negatively.
I had found my grandfather’s birth in Senj, Croatia. The surviving siblings I found in the Senj and Crikvenica birth records matched the siblings I was expecting from immigration records and the postcards. Conversely, I found no corroborating evidence in Rimini, Italy or any of the nearby towns for my grandfather’s birth or the presence of any Ragusin. With this information I could conclude this aspect of my research with the following statement: MY GRANDFATHER, JOHN MAURICE RAGUSIN, WAS BORN IN SENJ, CROATIA NOT IN RIMINI, ITALY AS HE HAD CLAIMED AND, IN ADDITION, I HAD FOUND ALTERNATIVE BIRTHPLACES FOR HIS FATHER (PUNAT, CROATIA NOT RIMINI, ITALY) AND MOTHER (SENJ, CROATIA NOT FRANCE) THAT WERE CONSISTENT WITH ALL OTHER AVAILABLE EVIDENCE.
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