Saturday, May 22, 2010

Surname Saturday - Nardozza / Nardozzi

A recent wedding on my husband's side of the family has prompted me to share one of his surnames this week. When I first expressed an interest in his family genealogy his sisters told me what they knew and I was given a copy of a privately published genealogy, Fedele - Capadano - Nardozzi, as prepared by Phylis Fedele Fiorica.

My husband's mother was Florence Nardozzi 1919-1968. I learned from both my sister-in-law and Mrs. Fiorica's work that Florence was the daughter of Generino Nardozzi and that after moving to the United States he went by John Nardozzi. It turns out that this information was only partly correct. An uncle mentioned to me that the family name had originally been Nardozza and that the name had been changed "during the war." With that hint things finally started to fall into place and I determined that my husband's immigrant ancestor was Gennaro Nardozza and at some point he did start spelling his name with an i rather than an a. Gennaro had a brother, Antonio Nardozza and his descendants seem to have retained the original spelling however I have found instances of Nardozzi in their line too.

Michele Nardozza and Filomena Capadano lived in Rionero in Vulture, Province of Potenza, Basilicata Region, Italy. The Nardozza surname is quite common there. I have the following six children for them, however they may have had more.
  1. Gennaro "John" Nardozza / Nardozzi. 1880-1968. Immigrated 1904. Lived briefly in Canandaigua and Auburn, New York before settling in Syracuse, New York where he married Angeline Taddeo and raised eight children.
  2. Carmella Nardozza. I know very little about her other than that she married a man with the surname Saldicco and had at least one child.
  3. Antonio "Anthony" Nardozza. 1886-1954. Immigrated 1906. He settled in Rochester, New York and married Theodosia Degosta and they had at least three children. Sometime after 1930 they moved to Los Angeles, California.
  4. Angelina Maria Nardozza. 1890-1936. Immigrated 1906. She married Philip Fedele and they lived in Auburn, Canadaigua and Rochester, New York. I believe they had a total of 15 children.
  5. Madeline "Lena" Nardozza. 1893-1962. Immigrated 1906. She married Antonio "Anthony" Furfaro and lived in Newark and Rochester, New York. They had at least nine children.
  6. Louisa Nardozza. I know very little about her other than she married Carmello Bocchetti and moved to Massachusetts were they had at least five children.
It was through the Nardozza line that I was able to spark a little interest in my children and grandchildren when I discovered that they have a famous cousin, Michael Richards

I would like to thank Steve Danko for the help he has given me on this line.


Links

A blog in Italian about Rionero by Francesco.

Rionero in Vulture at Wikipedia


Commune di Rionero in Vulture an Italian web page with history and photos.

Rionero in Vulture on Flickr


Previous posts

Angelina Taddeo Nardozzi - photo

Fannie Cardella 1914-2008

Florence Nardozzi - photo

Florence Nardozzi Grabowski - photo

John Nardozzi 1933-2010

Mary Nardozzi Mere - photo

Nardozzi Genealogy

True Love - Gennaro & Angelina newspaper clipping

    3 comments:

    Joan said...

    Wow, when you ge started you really sink your teeth into the subject. Very interesting to some one who is stuck with early German and scots Irish names.

    Steve Danko said...

    You are very welcome, Apple, for what little help I was able to provide on this family line.

    Anonymous said...

    My grandfather was Nunzio Fedele.... his dad was Philip