1910 Census and the Riva Family

Coal miners, colorized postcards, 1910


The "13^th Census of the United States -1910 Population" establishes that Giacomo (36) and Josephine Riva (26) were living at 80 Sixth Avenue in South Wilmington, Illinois, Grundy County, Greenfield Township. Living with them are their three young children: John four, Maggie two, and Eurelia one. Eurelia we know from other documents died not too long after this census was taken and Peter would be born the next year. This document also establishes that by 1910 Giacomo was using the Americanized version of his Italian name---James---and his occupation is listed as coal mining.


Josephine Riva with two children, circa 1905 -08

Another family of Riva's was also living South Wilmington on Sixth Avenue: John 26 a coal miner, Minnie his wife 24 and Maggie two. We strongly believe he is related to our family. He could be a brother or cousin to James. I plan to to research him and a second, older John Riva, because they both show up on the Draft Registration Records for 1918, Putman County, Illinois. The older John I'm hoping is James' father. (We know from oral history that his name is Giovanni, Italian for John.) If it can be established that Giovanni did immigrate, the 1918 draft registration will provide us with the first name and home town of James' grandfather, giving us yet another generation back in time. (If anyone reading this knows anything about these two John's please leave a comment.) J.Riva 2008 ©

South Wilmington is located in Grundy County at the bottom of the map. (Click to enlarge.)

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Our Riva and the Alaria Ancestors

The first Riva in our family to come to America was Giacomo Riva. He immigrated in 1897. The first Alaria in our family to come to America was Pietro Alaria. He came over in 1885 and he was the father to Josephine Alaria who later married Giacomo in August 19, 1905 bonding these two families together forever. This blog site is an attempt to follow their paper trail across time.

The Riva Family, Circa early 1920s
Margaret J, Giacomo (father), John D, and Peter M

Giacomo Riva was born in Pertusio, Italy, March 26, 1873 to parents Giovanni Riva and Margherita Faletto both of Italy. He died in Kent County, MI, in November of 1944.

Riva Siblings:
-John Dominick Riva
Born Sept. 21, 1906 South Wilmington, IL
Married to Margaret Kane
Died July 14, 1989, Kent County, MI
- Margaret J. Riva - Unmarried (known as Maggie)
Born July 7, 1908
Died June 28, 1994
- Aurelia Riva - Died as infant
- Baby - Died as an infant
(also named Aurelia according to oral history)
- Peter Riva
Born June 5, 1911 Standard, IL (Putman County)
Married to Doris Latimer April 15, 1937
Died Dec. 25, 1999 Kent County, MI

Known Siblings to Giacomo Riva:
- Frank Riva
- Mathew Riva
- Dominick Riva
- Joseph Riva
- Margaret Riva - Married Tony Mandoni

Wife to Giacomo Riva: Josephine Alaria



The Alaria Family, circa 1902-04
Standing: John, Joe, Josephine, Rose; Center: Peter and Rome;
Seated: Peter (the father) Frank, Aurelia (the mother)

Pietro Alaria was born Nov. 1859 in San Giogrio Canavese, Italy, and he married Aurelia Masoero in 1884. He died January 11, 1931, in Kent County, MI.

Aurelia Masoero was born in Italy in January 1862 and died in 1928 in Kent County, MI.

Alaria Siblings:
- Josephine Alaria
Born Dec. 1885 France (near the Italian border)
Married Giacomo Riva on Aug. 19, 1905
Died Feb. 2, 1919, Bureau County, IL
- Romellio Alaria
Born June 8, 1899, Lagrange, IL
Died Sept. 10, 1963
Married Margaret Jane Dyer on Dec. 29, 1926
- John Alaria
Born: Feb. 2, 1891, Coal City, IL
Died May 24, 1965, Kent County, MI
Married Elizabeth Gorden, May 9, 1917
- Joseph Alaria
Born:
Died:
Married Mary Ellen Renn (?)
- Rosa Alaria
Born: Feb. 13, 1895, Coal City, IL
Married August Koepnick, married August Koepnick, Jan. 1913
- Peter Alaria
Married Mabel Marie Harkins
- Frank Alaria
Died: 29 Dec, 1926
Married Laila M. Milthaler


Spelling Variations

Spelling on older records for ancestors don't always match. It happened for several reasons. 1) Immigrants often couldn't read or write and they depended on clerks or others to sound names out. 2) If they did know a name was Americanized or spelled wrong by a clerk they would hesitate to challenge authority. 3) Census records are subject to mistakes in the way the information was gathered word-of-mouth from who ever was home at the time the the census taker called, including guesses from neighbors. Below are the spelling variations I've found in our ancestor's records.

Pietro
Pietre
Peter

Allaria - Used on a passenger list and Josephine's wedding license
Olerio - Used on the 1900 U.S. Census
Alaria - Currently used spelling of the family name

Faletto
Falletti

Josephine
Josie
Jossie

Aurelia
Orelia
Amelia
Ourellia
Eurelia

Masoero - Family used this spelling in later years
Mosvero - Found on older records

James (English)
Giacomo (Italian)

John (English)
Giovanni (Italian)

Margaret (English)
Margherita (Italian)

Romellio
Romer
Rome


J.Riva © 2008

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A Riva and Alaria Get Married, 1905

Groom: Giacomo Riva
(also known as James Riva)
From: South Wilmington
Grundy County, Illinois

Bride: Josephine Alaria
(also known as Josie)
From: Coal City, Grundy County

Date: August 5, 1905






At the turn of the century Coal City, Illinois, where Josie lived before getting married was an important coal mining region with a growing population. In 1890 the population was 1,672; in 1900 it had grown to 2,607; 1903 it was about 3,000. For a good overview of the area's history see the History and Genealogy of Grundy County.


Below is a copy of the Marriage Certificate for Giacomo Riva and Josie Allaria. Giacomo and Josephine were married by a judge at the county seat court house in Morris, Grundy County, Illinois. At the time of their marriage he was thirty-one years old and she would turn twenty on her next birthday coming up in December.

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NOTE: Spellings for 'Josephine', 'Alaria', 'Aurelia,' and 'Pietre' varies from document to document which I've read was common for immigrants who either didn't know themselves how to write their names or were afraid to correct officials when they spelled something wrong or Americanized their names. Living relatives, however, spell Alaria with one 'L'. The 1900 census records spells the Alaria household name as "Olerio" but all the other information on the form lines up correctly. So that spelling must have been a "sounds like" guest on the part of the census taker.

As a place marker in case you're trying to figure out how or if Giacomo and Josephine fit into your family tree, the couple went on to have five children: John, Maggie, Peter and two infant daughters who died (one at fifteen months and the other at six months of age). John, Maggie and Peter lived most of their adult lives in Kent County, Michigan. John was married to Margaret Kane and they had five children: Marge Ann, James, John R. (known as Jack), Joesph and Nancy. Maggie never married. Peter married Doris Iona Latimer and they had two children: Gerald (Jerry) and Jean.

© J. Riva 2008

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Ancestral Home - Pertusio, Italy

Giacomo Riva is listed on his 1896 army discharge paper as being from the town of Pertusio, Italy. Italy is a Southern European country in the shape of a boot that extends
out into the Mediterranean Sea. It's divided into twenty regions and Pertusio can be found in the Piedmont Region which is located in the north-west part of the country. Piedmont is surrounded on three sides by the Alps Mountains and it borders with France and Switzerland.

The Piedmont Region (illustrated in red to the left) is divided into eight provinces and one of those provinces is called Torino. Its territory is mostly high mountains and its capital city is Turin. It's within the province of Torino that the town of Pertusio can be found.

The first known humans to inhabit Torino were Celtics tribes (200BC) who lived there until they where replaced by expansion from the Roman Empire coming northward. By the first century the area was a Roman settlement. During Renaissance Time the French army under Napoleon occupied the area followed by the Austrians who ruled until 1861. The 18th and 19th centuries in Italy were often unstable and violent.

It's important to our family history to note that Pertusio has two hamlets near by---one called "Case Riva" and the other "Case Faletto." Hamlets, I'm told by people who live in the area, took their names from the people living there. So it's safe to assume that the Riva side of Giacomo's family (his father's ancestors) and the Faletto side (his mother's ancestors) are well entrenched in these hamlets. It was from this area of Italy that twenty-three year old Giacomo Riva set off across France to the port at LeHavre where he got on a steamer ship named the LaBourgne. Seven to eight days later he had crossed the Atlantic Ocean, arriving at Ellis Island, New York City, on January 18, 1897. (See his passenger listing here.)

© J. Riva 2008


Ellis Island

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Coming to America!

My grandfather Giacomo---James in English---Riva left his home in Pertusio, Italy (in the province of Torino) when he was twenty-three years old. He became part of the surge of European immigrants that processed through Ellis Island, forming what historians later dubbed the era of the Great Melting Pot. The passengers' list from the steamer ship the LaBourgne places his arrival in New York City on January 18, 1897. He boarded the ship at LeHavre, France, which was a common departure port for immigrants from the northern mountainous border region of Italy. According to the ship's passenger list his destination was Spring Valley, Illinois.

As a side note, the LaBourgne was built by Chantliers de le Mediterranee in 1886. It was 7,395 tons, 495 feet long and 52 feet wide. Service speed was 17.5 knots. The ship could hold 500 passengers and 200 crew members. It flew a French flag and serviced a line between LeHavre and New York until it sunk following a collision off Newfoundland. 549 lives were lost on July 4, 1898---that was approximately six months after Giacomo Riva hopped on that steamer to come to America.

For more information on this ship, check the New York Times where many LaBourgne articles are archived, and also see this link for a thumbnail on the steamer.



Giacomo came to the United States eleven-and-a-half years after the Statue of Liberty was dedicated. The hundred-and-fifty-one foot copper structure impressed him so much that, according to oral history, he spoke about it often. When I was a teenager in the 1950s my family went to New York City and I'll never forget how disappointed my dad (Peter Riva) was at the sight of raw garbage floating in the statue's harbor and at the tarnished-green color of Miss. Liberty.

"I wish I'd never sent it," he said. "I wish I'd never seen it!" Dad had expected to find the same pristine statue that had greeted the LaBourgne, the welcoming statue that Giacomo Riva loved and respected his entire life as a symbol of freedom.

This would be a good point to mention that Giacomo became a nationalized citizen on October 29, 1898 at the Marshall County Court in Illinois. View the document here. We may never know why exactly he was headed towards Spring Valley, Illinois (Bureau County) but we do know it was a booming coal mining region at the time and it's a good guess that he already had relatives living there who told him a job would be easy to get. Recruiters, back then, used to go to New York to bring back immigrants to work in the state's coal mines which ended up to be his life's work.

© J.E. Riva 2008


Inspection Room, Ellis Island


(Data on Giacomo above found on an Ellis Island passenger list.)

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Italian Army Discharge for Giacomo Riva 1896

Front side (click to enlarge)



Back side (click to enlarge)


Thanks to the posters at Italian Genealogy who translated this document we found out it reveals the following information:

Giacomo Riva was birth date on March 26, 1873

His parents were Giovanni Riva and Margherita Faletto

He was born in Pertusio, Italy, a town in the province of Torino. (Torino is one of eight provinces in the region of Piedmont. Also, in Pertusio there are hamlets called "Case Riva" and "Case Faletto." Hamlets, I'm told, took their names from the people living there.)

Physical description: Height: 5 feet and some inches---there's is a hole in the paper so it's not clear. His hair and eyebrow we listed as chestnut. His eyes were Grey. Forehead: low. Nose: Grecian. Completion: Rosy. Teeth: healthy. He had a distinguishing mark listed as a mole on his chin.

He was assigned to the 4th Alpini Regiment at the Italian colony in Eritrea (Africa)

He was a bread maker

Discharge date: ?/?/1896

NOTE: Giacomo/James Riva carried this document, his nationalization paper (below) and his miner's certification around in a small leather pouch.

© J. E. Riva 2008

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Certificate of Nationalization.............. Giacomo (James) Riva

This certificate was issued from Marshall County, Illinois, USA, on October 29, 1898 for James (English for Giacomo) Riva.

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