Hot Tip Tuesday: Italian Females Retain Their Surname after Marriage in Italy

I've decided to reserve Tuesday of each week for a tip specific to Italian Genealogy. Recognizing that the general theme of the Italian Genealogy Blog is to provide assistance for the focused Italian researcher, these blog entries will be brief and stick to a single topic.

My initial tip in the new series "Hot Tip Tuesday's" is that Italian females retain their birth surname after marriage in Italy.

This tip comes in handy when researching passenger ship manifests for the women in your ancestry who emigrated through Ellis Island or other ports of entry around the world. Often you will find on passenger manifests children with their fathers surname and the mother listed with her birth surname.

Below is an example from 1910 of the manifest for the SS Oceania to Ellis Island. As stated above in my passenger manifest scenario, this example shows a mother, Rosaria Cirrito traveling with her four Corsello children. They are eventually going to their father Giuliano Corsello who is living in Geneva, NY.

This little tidbit of knowledge will benefit you in your research as you pursue the maternal lines in your family's history.

Ciao... Michael