De Luca Family: Death Records

I have not forgotten about my favorite Italian family. I've just been incredibly busy with graduations and family gatherings, and I got such a great picture of my great-great-grandfather Pemberton that it warranted interrupting the De Luca series...LOL! I've been waiting on a death record to come in for Peter Louis De Luca, Sr., but I still have the genealogy mailbox blues, so I've decided to go ahead without it.

The previous post in this series showed the Peter and Clara De Luca family in the 1930 US Census in Phelps County, Missouri. They were living there with their three youngest children, Anna, Peter Jr., and Lena. We also saw their older daughters, Mary and Rose, living in St. Louis with Mary's husband and young daughter.

This post is primarily about the De Luca family death records I've collected. As one can see, the De Luca family eventually settled in southern California, which is where much of the family remains today. The first one is for Clementina "Clara" Trillo De Luca. I first found her date of death from the California death index at Ancestry.com.

Name:	Clementi M Deluca
Social Security #:	367-26-8931
Sex:	FEMALE
Birth Date:	9 Jan 1886
Birthplace:	Italy
Death Date:	28 Jun 1967
Death Place:	Los Angeles
Mother's Maiden Name:	Trello

This gave me the date and county of death, which I used to order the death certificate. The unusual thing about this entry is that it gives a mother's maiden name but no father's surname.

Name: Clementina DeLuca
Date of death: 28 Jun 1967
Time of death: 5:07 AM
Sex: Female
Race: Cauc
Birthplace: Italy
Date of birth: 9 Jan 1886
Age: 81
Name and birthplace of father: Pietro DeLuca, Italy
Maiden name and birthplace of mother: Matilda Trello, Italy
Citizenship: USA
SSN: 367-26-8931
Occupation: Housewife
Number of years in occupation: 64
Industry: Own Home
Ever in armed forces: no
Marital Status: Widowed
Place of death: Rio Hondo Hospital, 8400 Telegraph Road, Downey, Los Angeles County
Length of stay in county of death: 20 years
Length of stay in California: 20 years
Residence: 5433 S. Rosemead Blvd, Pico Rivera, Los Angeles, California
Informant: Mrs. Elizabeth Menchini
Date of burial: 30 Jun 1967
Place of burial: Holy Cross Cemetery
Funeral home: Pico Rivera Funeral Home
Cause of death: Acute pancreatitis
Other secondary conditions: Cholelithiasis

When I got the death certificate, I realized why Clementina's father's surname was not listed in the index at Ancestry.com. On the actual death certificate, her father is listed as Pietro DeLuca. However, I knew that was her husband and not her father, and I presume that the indexer at Ancestry.com realized this as well. So then I wondered if Matilda Trello was truly her mother's maiden name, or if that was her own name. I had learned from Steve Zulpo that Clementina's full maiden name was actually Clementina Matilda Trillo. I have seen this happen before: the informant gives her own parent's names instead of the parents of the deceased. I believe this is what Elizabeth (De Luca) Menchini did on her mother's death certificate.

So, I ordered the death certificate of her son, Peter Louis De Luca, Jr., my brother-in-law's grandfather. I figured this would help in confirming her own maiden name as Trillo/Trello.

Name of decedent: Peter Louis De Luca
Date of birth: 12/08/1916
Age: 86
Sex: M
Birth State: Missouri
SSN: 497-10-5541
Ever in U.S. Armed Forces: no
Marital Status: Married
Date of death: 8/10/2003
Hour: 2015
Education: HS Graduate
Decedent's Race: White
Was decdent Spanish/Hispanic/Latino: no
Usual occupation: Manufacturer
Kind of business: Defense products
Years in occupation: 35
Decedent's residence: 43500 Old Harbor Drive, Bermuda Dunes, Riverside, California 92201
Years in county: 35
Informant's Name: [removed to protect privacy of living individuals]
Informant's Address: [removed to protect privacy of living individuals]
Name of surviving spouse: [first name removed to protect privacy] Hartman
Name of father: Peter Louis De Luca
Birthplace: Italy
Maiden Name of Mother: Clementina Matilda Trillo
Birthplace: Italy
Disposition Date: 08/18/2003
Place of final disposition: Palm Springs Mausoleum, 59901 East Ramon Road, Cathedral City, CA 92234
Type of disposition: Burial
Name of funeral establishment: Palm Springs Mortuary, Cathedral City
Place of death: Residence, 43500 Old Harbor Drive, Bermuda Dunes, Riverside
Cause of death: End stage Alzheimer's Disease

This stated that Clementina's maiden name was in fact Trillo, and that this was not her mother's maiden name.

I also found the following on Peter in the California death index at Ancestry.com:

Name:	Peter L Deluca
Social Security #:	0
Sex:	MALE
Birth Date:	10 Oct 1855
Birthplace:	Other Country
Death Date:	2 Aug 1945
Death Place:	Los Angeles
Mother's Maiden Name:	Yenata
Father's Surname:	Deluca

I'm pretty sure that birth date of 1855 is incorrect. From census records and family sources, it appears that he was born in 1877 or 1878. This gives a maiden name for Peter's mother: YENATA. I've taken a look around Louise Shapcott's Surnames of Atina page and determined that this must be a misspelling of IANNOTA. From Peter's death date and the 1930 US Census record, it looks like the Peter and Clara settled in southern California sometime between 1930 and 1945. From this index entry, it appears that he did not have a social security number, or that it wasn't given on his death record.

When Peter's death record arrives, I will do another post here. I have also sent off for Clementina's social security application. Stay tuned!

Links to other posts in this series:

De Luca Family: Intro
De Luca Family: Immigration Records
De Luca Family: 1910 US Census
De Luca Family: WWI Draft Registration
De Luca Family: 1920 US Census
De Luca Family: 1930 US Census

Who Inspired Me to Begin My Genealogy Research

For the usual Saturday night fun, Randy over at GeneaMusings has suggested we discuss who inspired us to begin our genealogy research. Well, it was definitely my paternal grandmother who inspired me to begin genealogy research when I was about 13 years old around 1994 or so.

I think I had always been a genealogist at heart, writing down the names and birth dates of all my first cousins on my mom's side from the time I learned how to write. I had over 20 first cousins, so I knew I had to get them and their birth dates down on paper, even at six years old. I did this repeatedly until I was about ten years old and had memorized everything. After I had a pretty good handle on them, I moved on to my 11 aunts and uncles and their birth dates. Then I started asking my paternal grandmother tons of questions about her parents and grandparents when I was about 11 years old, so not long after is when she suggested we could really research this at a library (this is just before the Internet became popular).

There was a genealogy library about 20 minutes from us. Over the summer, we found a beginner's workshop they were holding, so we went to that. But before we went, like any good genealogists, we took pedigree charts filled in with the information we already knew about her parents and grandparents and even great-grandparents, as well as my paternal grandfather's parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. We had gone through the boxes my grandmother inherited from both of her parents when they died in the 1980s, and the box that my paternal grandfather had inherited from his mother when she died in 1993. They contained Bible records created by my paternal grandmother's paternal grandmother, as well as a baptism certificate for my paternal grandfather's paternal grandfather, among many items. I had also questioned my maternal grandmother about her parents and those of my maternal grandfather, who passed away when my mom was only 11 years old.

Anyhow, after the beginner's workshop, armed with our pedigree charts, we obtained assistance from one of the librarians on resources in the library. We determined that since my paternal grandmother was born in Oklahoma, and my mother's family were all from Michigan and Canada, it would be easiest to start with my paternal grandfather's side of the family, who was from southwest Louisiana. Since the library was located in southwest Louisiana, most of it's resources were from that area (remember that this is at the very early dawn of Internet research). So I began my library research with my paternal Trahan line.

We had the names as far back as my great-great-great-grandparents on the Trahan side, since we had found my great-great-grandfather's baptismal certificate in those boxes. At the library, there were several volumes of books titled Southwest Louisiana Records from the 1700s to 1909 by Rev. Donald Hebert. The books were abstracts of primarily Catholic church and courthouse records from several parishes and dioceses in southwest Louisiana. We knew from the baptismal record we had found in the boxes that my great-great-grandfather Oscar's parent's were Theoville TRAHAN and Anna WISE. Using Father Hebert's books, we found an abstract of their marriage record, which listed their parents, and we were able to take this back several generations to the 1700s when the first Trahan arrived in Louisiana.

So, in a nutshell, this is how I got started in genealogy.

Wordless Wednesday: Lovell Pemberton the blacksmith

Lovell Pemberton left in front of wagon wheel using hammer. This photo was given to Aunt Eva Rowley by Aunt Myrtie. It was dated 1896 in Anchorville. (MI) Lovell Pemberton sailed the Lakes for 3 years before opening this shop. He was 24 years old when he married Alvina. She was 20 years old. This was given to us (Wm L & Gloria Pemberton) by Adele Gillett 1999.

I received this awesome picture from my mom's second cousin, Tami. She received it from her father, Bill Pemberton, who is Lovell's grandson. The words above are what was written on the back of the picture. The Aunt Eva Rowley mentioned was Lovell's daughter, Eva Edna Pemberton, who married Truman Elosthen Rowley. Aunt Myrtie was Lovell's sister, Myrtle Lavina Pemberton, who married Hayes Wheeler Finkle (her first cousin) twice and then Harry Hendrickson. Ironically, neither Aunt Myrtie nor Aunt Eva ever had children of their own. I did an earlier post about Lovell sailing the Great Lakes, and this picture finally puts the time frame of when he sailed the Great Lakes into better perspective. We now know it was for 3 years sometime before 1896. Since he turned 18 in 1896, he must have sailed the Great Lakes around 1893-1896. This is definitely one of my favorite and most treasured family photos.