The Lie: Part 4. John Maurice Ragusin’s date and place of birth again.
At my father’s funeral (2008) my aunt (father’s sister) approached me because she was very disappointed because I was claiming that her father, who died when she was two months old, was not born in Rimini, Italy. She said that Aunt Marge was from my grandfather’s first marriage, and she knew things about their father’s ancestry. Regrettably Aunt Marge had already passed away. To demonstrate my solid case, I offered to send my aunt some of my notes (essentially the information that became these posts) explaining what I had found.
My Aunt’s disappointment was based on an either-or position. Either I was wrong, or my aunt had been lied to by her mother (my grandmother) and her siblings (my paternal aunts and uncles). Although difficult for her, my aunt chose to think I was wrong rather than dishonor her mother and siblings. Fortunately, there was a third alternative my aunt had not considered— my grandfather had lied to my grandmother and his children (my aunts and uncles). Since my grandmother could have had no firsthand knowledge of her husband’s place of birth or have any means of corroborating his claims, she could only pass along information she had been given. My grandmother passed along the Rimini, Italy story as fact to her children, because that was what my grandfather had told her. The children from the first marriage were all quite young when their mother died and either heard the Italy story directly from their father or from my grandmother after their father died. This was the state of knowledge in my family for over 80 years.
This series of posts that you are reading now has demonstrated how solid my research had been, but as a genealogist I knew that I was still missing one important type of document. I did not have an official U.S. document or combination of official U.S. documents that pointed back to my grandfather’s date and place of birth as 21 Mar 1883 in Senj, Croatia. I hoped that I only needed to keep looking. As the paraphrased saying goes “things come to those who wait…as long as you work like hell while you’re waiting.”
I was working like hell on my genealogy and then I started to find what I needed. When he immigrated to the U.S. on 21 Oct 1898 my grandfather (as the sailor Giovanni Ragussin) gave his last residence as Segna (variant spelling of Senj with the same sound, think of the word lasagna) in the country of Austria. He also indicated that he was going to Chicago to stay with his uncle, Nicolas Polic at 2911 Canal St. In the 1900 Chicago City Directory John Ragusin was listed as a clerk living and working at 2911 Canal St. I have not yet established a familial relationship between my grandfather and Nicolas Polic. The back of John’s immigration record also provided important biographical information. The form listed him as being from the county of Hungary, province of Croatia, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and that his native tongue was Croatian. Historically Senj was a town in Croatia which was part of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
When his oldest daughter, Margaret Eleanore Ragusin (Aunt Marge), was born in Chicago on 15 Jan 1914, John listed his place of birth as Segna, Croatia, Austria. Later, on his 12 Sep 1918 draft registration, although he was asked “if not a citizen of the U.S., of what nation are you a citizen or subject,” he incorrectly answered Segna, and somebody else added Austria. Thus between 1898 and 1918 my grandfather identified himself as a man from Segna, Croatia who was born in Mar 1883. Because I have gone page by page through the entire microfilmed baptismal registers for both Senj and Crikvenica, I can state that there was only one Ragusin family (that of Nicolas Anton Ragusin and Francesca Michielli) and only one Ragusin child born in Mar 1883—that is the Ivan Raguzin in Senj as mentioned in a previous post of this series. I now had several official U.S. documents that pointed to my grandfather’s birth on 21 Mar 1883 in Senj, Croatia. There could no longer be any doubt about these facts.
Some of you might be wondering why I did not find information from my grandfather’s first marriage before I had to take a circuitous route to finding my grandfather’s date and place of birth. There are two principal reasons—availability of records and laziness. When I typed “Ragusin” into the search feature at ancestry.com (a genealogical records site I use) and allowed for some spelling variations I obtained nearly 500 matches for the immigration records. I had to be this general to allow for variant spellings and misspellings of both the given name and surname and I was not certain of his year of birth to name a few factors. I had to look at every document, some of which were more than one page, for approximate age, where they were coming from, where they were going to and with whom they were travelling. I never made it through the whole list. One week I decided to look at every single entry on the list. The third to last entry on the list of nearly 500 was the immigration record for my grandfather and it corroborated much of what I had already found.
In addition, more and more records are becoming available and being added to genealogical websites every day. Imagine the amount of work to find, microfilm or digitize, and then index all the birth records for a city as large as Chicago. Add to this the fact that there is a birth register and also birth certificates that needed to be microfilmed and indexed. However, when this information became available to me, I found my Aunt Marge’s birth certificate as well as those of her two sisters. Similarly, the records of the World War I draft registration had to be collected, microfilmed, and then indexed. When available I found my grandfather’s registration. This is the last document I have found where my grandfather identifies himself as Croatian. It was also at this stage of my research that I found Maurice Ragusin’s marriage to Margaret Connelly.
Although I would like to find my grandfather in 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses and I would like to find his naturalization paperwork, I have searched for these records unsuccessfully so far. I have very good evidence of John’s address in 1900 but cannot find him at that location in the census. The city of Chicago is much too large to go page by page through a census. In 1910 again I have a very good idea where he was living but cannot find him. Although the Quad City area is far smaller than Chicago, going page by page is still a significant task. His statement on his World War I draft registration indicated he had not been naturalized as of Sep 1918.
I cannot find my grandfather in any census except 1930. In this census my grandfather is listed as an Italian whose father and mother were from Italy and France, respectively. This information matches his 1922 marriage application but contradicts his immigration record. This information is 100% false. In the 1930 census he also claimed to be naturalized. This means he would have been naturalized between 1918 and 1930, but this might be another lie.
I did find my Aunt Marge with her brother (John, Jr.) and sister (Mary) in the 1920 census in Peoria, IL. Whether John, Jr answered for himself, or the school records were used, his father’s place of birth was given as Italy. No information for the parentage of Margaret and Mary was given. My Aunt Marge’s Social Security Application (SSA-5) lists her father as being Italian. This was the state of knowledge in the family in which I grew up. I marked Rimini, Italy as the birthplace of my paternal grandfather in my atlas, but now wish I had not used a pen.
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