I made a big breakthrough today; one I’ve been working on for several years. Several years ago, I found a photo of my great-grandfather Petrini posing with two children.
My mother knew these children from growing up; they were 10-15 years older than her and she remembered them as ‘cousins’ but couldn’t really help me out with the relationship. She thought they may have been a niece and nephew, and indeed, that is how they are identified on the 1930 census. She didn’t know what had happened to the parents or why they were living with her grandfather. One interesting thing is that the boy also is living with my great-grandfather in the 1920 census, but the girl is not.
For years I’ve tried to figure out the relationship. I wondered if the parents had died, or simply ‘abandoned’ the children because they could not raise them for whatever reason. Because they are listed as a niece and nephew and have a different surname than my great-grandfather, Gallacci, I made the assumption that they were the children of a sister who had married a Gallacci and died after her children were born. I tried searching for Petrini-Gallacci marriages with no luck. I tried searching for Gallacci deaths with very little luck, and nothing took me any closer to finding who these children were.
Then I expanded my reasoning, thinking that perhaps these children were his niece and nephew by marriage, the children of a sister to his wife, whose maiden name was Orsi. So I searched for Orsi-Gallacci marriages….and still no luck. This is where I sat for several years, until early last year when I found an obituary for the boy, Vincent B. Gallacci. About the same time, my mother mentioned that his sister, Emma Gallacci, had married a Dewey Short. This gave me some new leads and I was ablate locate a death certificate for Emma Short on the Missouri State Archives website. From this documents, I saw that the father was Peter Gallacci, and the mother was Flora Orsi! This was a bit of a breakthrough, as it corroborated my theory that these were the children of my great-grandmother’s sister! However, it certainly did not PROVE this relationship. I needed something more to prove they were sisters.
Again, my research stalled out. I searched everywhere for a Peter Gallacci with no luck. (I still haven’t found him, so if you are hiding him somewhere, please tell him to come out!) I also searched the Missouri Archives for a death record for Peter Gallacci, Flora Gallacci, or ANY Gallacci and found only one, a Fara Gallacci who died as an infant, and the parents didn’t match up. The handwriting on the certificate is difficult to read, but the names of her parents appear to be Tarquinie Gallacci and Fravonela Orroca.
Then I expanded my reasoning, thinking that perhaps these children were his niece and nephew by marriage, the children of a sister to his wife, whose maiden name was Orsi. So I searched for Orsi-Gallacci marriages….and still no luck. This is where I sat for several years, until early last year when I found an obituary for the boy, Vincent B. Gallacci. About the same time, my mother mentioned that his sister, Emma Gallacci, had married a Dewey Short. This gave me some new leads and I was ablate locate a death certificate for Emma Short on the Missouri State Archives website. From this documents, I saw that the father was Peter Gallacci, and the mother was Flora Orsi! This was a bit of a breakthrough, as it corroborated my theory that these were the children of my great-grandmother’s sister! However, it certainly did not PROVE this relationship. I needed something more to prove they were sisters.
Again, my research stalled out. I searched everywhere for a Peter Gallacci with no luck. (I still haven’t found him, so if you are hiding him somewhere, please tell him to come out!) I also searched the Missouri Archives for a death record for Peter Gallacci, Flora Gallacci, or ANY Gallacci and found only one, a Fara Gallacci who died as an infant, and the parents didn’t match up. The handwriting on the certificate is difficult to read, but the names of her parents appear to be Tarquinie Gallacci and Fravonela Orroca.
So again, I was at a standstill…..until today! I am in the midst of inventorying my document to add to my source tracker and I am starting with my Petrini branch. As I took a look at the census info for my great-grandfather, I decided to take another look at the Gallacci children. I again searched for Gallacci in the Missouri State Archive death records and again found only Fara. But I decided the spelling may be wrong so tried every possible misspelling of Gallacci I could think of, with no luck. I tried just using ‘Peter’ in St. Louis City, but that was overwhelming. So I took a look at Emma’s death certificate again, and decided to try ‘Flora’ in St. Louis City. BINGO! Though her surname is misspelled — Gallacer — the parents match up. My great-grandmother’s parents were Innocenzo Orsi and Maria di Menco. I’d say this is a match.
Flora was my great-grandmother’s sister, and the mother of Vincent, Emma, and Fara Gallacci. Mystery solved