Our first Italian ancestors who came to America found jobs in the coal mines.  Giusto, Cherubino, Mariano and Antonio all worked in the coal mines near Connellsville, Dubois and Clymer, PA.  Other Italian immigrants found work in the coal mines of West Virginia and others in the copper mines in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

Today in the upper peninsula of Michigan we find many families named SGRECCIA.   We will save their story for another day.  Today we will talk about Marianna Sgriccia (30) and her three sons – Carlo (13), Luigi (10) and Domenico (7).  They arrived in the US on May 2, 1909.  But the story begins earlier.

Enrico Ciamarra was born 15 May 1865 in Spoleto, Italy.  North of Spoleto the village of Preci is only 25 miles and Norcia is 25 miles to the east.  Both of these villages had Sgriccia families living in or nearby in the late 1800s.  In about 1884 Enrico married Marianna Sgriccia (B-1879).  Her father was Venanzio Sgriccia, he lived in Spoleto.  The couple had three sons:  Carlo in 1886, Luigi in 1889 and Domenico in 1902.

In late December 1902 Enrico traveled to the United States and then to the coal mines in Marion County West Virginia about 100 miles south of Pittsburgh.  We do not know why Enrico went to Marion County, but we can assume he knew others who had traveled from Italy to West Virginia before him.

By 1909 he had saved enough money for his wife and three boys to travel to America.  They sailed from Naples on April 19, 1909 on the S.S. Hamburg arriving at Ellis Island on May 2^nd.  They were detained on Ellis Island for one day until arrangements could be made with an Italian assistance group at a New York city church to pick them up and care for them until they could travel.  At some point Enrico retrieved his family and they all traveled to West Virginia.

A year later their first daughter – Julia – was born.  The family lived near Morgantown, West Virginia until 1915 when they moved about 50 miles east to Masontown WV.  Here three more children were born: Angelina (1916) and the twins:  Riziero and Nazzareno (1918).

We lose track of the family from 1920 to 1930.  It would appear that all but Domenico have moved back to Italy.  Domenico had married; had a daughter and moved to Baltimore.  He left the mines and is now a tailor.

The family is partially reunited when Rizerio and Nazzareno move back to the USA in 1935 and 36.   Angelina moves back the USA in 1937.  Each of them marries and has 3 or 4 children.

Today the Ciamarra family has spread throughout Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware.  As far as we can determine no one in the family has taken an ancestry.com DNA test.  If they do, I think there is a high probability of a connection between our families.  The DNA tests at ancestry.com have proven connections between our Sgriccia family and other families living in the U.S. whose family roots are in Italy – the Foresi family and the Amici family.  We shall tell those stories in time.