Tracing Your Immigrant Ancestor Essay
This report will be dedicated to the research of my immigrant ancestors Marino and Rosina Casamento. They are Australians of Italian origin.
The task #1: Identify the ancestor you have chosen to study, providing the date and details of migration
According to the article “Italian Fruiterers on High St 1920-’40s”, “Italians are one of the largest ethnic groups in Australia after the Anglo Saxon – Celts. Many of the Italian fruit shops on High St were run by Italians from the Eolian Islands, 7 small volcanic islands off the north east coast of Sicily – Lipari, Salina, Vulcano, Panorea, Stromboli, Filicudi and Alicudi”
Let’s begin the research of Marino and Rosina Casamento’s story with Rosina’s arrival to Australia and her meeting with Marino. The family of Rosina Natoli took origin from Sicily. Bartolo Natoli, Rosina’s brother, was a first member of this family which migrated to Australia in 1925. (Casamento family history)
“Bartolo Natoli came to Australia in 1922 and went on to set up a fruit shop at 263 High Street Northcote in 1925.” (Italian Fruiterers on High St 1920-’40s).
According to the National Archives, Marino’s Casamento arrived on the board of the ‘Palermo’ in Sydney in 1925.
Six years after that, the whole family, including Rosina who was just 19 at that time, migrated to Australia as well. The city they’ve arrived to was Melbourne.
Natoli’s Marino and Rosina married in 1932. In 1935 they started their fruit shop business in Melbourne’s northern suburbs on a thriving High St at no.237. It is also known that this couple had 7 children: 5 boys & 2 girls. (Italian Fruiterers on High St 1920-’40s). It is known that this couple had 7 children: 5 boys & 2 girls.
Marino and Rosina Casamento were naturalized and in 1948, after acceptance of the Nationality and Citizenship Act, they become Australian citizens, like many other people did.
Unfortunately, World War II had a very negative influence on Italians living in Australia. They were perceived by citizens as the people of “enemy origin”. Marino and Rosina Casamento also experienced some negative attitudes, because their application to buy a property was refused and another application they withdrew themselves, because they felt a negative attitude of some neighbors.
But in the post-war time this couple shown some initiative and really helped many migrants of Italian origin to adapt to the new life in Australia. These actions were recognized by Italian Republic and Marino Casamento was given a title a Knight of the Order of Merit.
Marino Casamento died in 1976 and Rosina had lived till 1987.
The task #2: Describe the process by which you obtained this information
At first I would like to note that the information was gathered via the online sources, and there was no interviewing of a live person. It helped me to make this report objective and independent, because the interviewing has some subjective factor in it and the story may be influenced by opinions or perceptions of the certain person.
On the contrary, the various archive and other sources enable researcher to make a legitimate study and to include different facts and points of view.
The research has started with the National Library of Australia and their recommendations on the family history and genealogy websites (http://www.nla.gov.au/family-history/genealogy-selected-websites)
It states that internet may be considered as a good tool in researching the family history. National Library of Australia suggests a links to other informative sites both in Australia and overseas ( http://www.nla.gov.au/family-history/genealogy-selected-websites)
There are many options for further research of the family history, for instance:
State and Territory libraries;
National, State and Territory archives;
Genealogy, family history and historical societies;
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Family History Unit ;
Indexes Io Australian births, marriages and deaths are available at local, state, national and genealogical society libraries;
Immigration data could be found at The National Archives (the data is available for migrants after 1923) ( http://www.nla.gov.au/family-history/genealogy-selected-websites)
After the exploration of National Library of Australia resources, I continued my research with other Australasian resources such as Genealogy online (http://www.coraweb.com.au/), Family search Internet genealogy service (https://www.familysearch.org/), Internet family history association of Australia (http://www.ulladulla.info/history), Genealogy and family heritage (http://www.cyberpursuits.com/gen/), National Archives of Australia (http://www.naa.gov.au/services) and others.
There are also some global resources that were useful for research, for example, http://www.ancestry.com.
The task #3: Consult at least one week of issues of a daily paper in the Australian city around the time at which your ancestor had arrived and uses the evidence available from the newspaper to identify some of the issues you will be exploring in the second part of this project.
I would like to start the daily paper research with The Argus edition (issued in Melbourne during1848 – 1956) dated Fri 21 August 1931. An article on the page 11 clearly describes the attack against Marino Casamento in the doorway of his shop in 1931. (“Two men arrested”, the Argus, Fri 21 August 1931)
The Sydney Morning Herald dated 22 August 1931, for instance, discusses the problems of homeless and unemployed. It also talks about the threat of crisis and the problems with budget balancing.
To sum up, 1931 wasn’t a calm year in Australian history, because the public demonstrations took place in all Australian states. People protested against unemployment and poverty.
In 1931 the public demonstrations took place in all Australian states states protesting against unemployment and poverty. In 1932 the situation with unemployment in Australia became complicated and about 30 per cent of citizens were unemployed.
Another important event that took place then was the ratification of results of the discussions of the Imperial Conference that enabled Australia to act independently.
In regards to the migrants to Australia in general and to Marino and Rosina Casamento specifically, we it could be presumed that the economic situation in country wasn’t stable at that time; the economic environment wasn’t friendly.
Besides it, the situation in Melbourne’s northern suburbs where Casamento family lived and worked wasn’t totally safe and had some criminal elements in it. Migrants had to face a lot of difficulties in order to establish their new lives in Australia.
