Bon Bons and Passengers Lists

My husband has a fairly uncommon surname, or so I thought.  In the last 20 years, we have lived in many parts of the country, and have only run across one other Krautheim that was not known family. So, I was perusing Genealogybank.com the other day and I plug in KRAUTHEIM to the appropriate search field, just for kicks, just to see what might pop up. Low and behold there are many Krautheim's that live in the northeast.  Not wanting to wade through them all at that moment, I thought about another surname in my husband's tree that I know next-to-nothing about, and is even more uncommon.  DELLE VENNERI.  You can imagine how many spellings there could be for this surname.

As you may already know, when searching for records in GenealogyBank.com you have to have a pretty good idea of how to spell whatever it is you are searching. GenealogyBank.com is not like Ancestry.com in that it will not offer you suggestions based on the sound of the word you input [soundex]. Here are just a few that I tried - DELLVENNERY, DELVENNERY, DEL VENNERY, DELEVENNERY, DEL VENNERI, DELL VENNERI, DELL VENERI, DELL VENERY, and so on.

Very few records were returned. However, there was one that caught my eye. Right there, on page 3 of the Trenton Evening Times (NJ), 2 Aug 1932. I actually sat straight up in my seat and I'm pretty sure I held my breath while I read the article. It was titled "BOMB IMBEDDED IN BOX OF CANDY".  Wait, what?  It goes on "Dynamite for Jersey Woman in Bon Bons - Daughter's Suspicions Foil Plot".

The gist of the story is that one Mrs. Mary Dell Vennery received a package at her home from the postal delivery man that seemed to be a box of Bon Bons. Mrs. Dell Vennery's daughter, Rose, grew suspicious of the package and opened it herself. There was a bomb of "three balls of dynamite and five small batteries" hidden among the candy. Rose threw the package out the window and a nearby policeman doused the package with a hose. My favorite line is that "Mrs. Vennery ventured a guess the box was sent by an enemy she may have made in the sale of some Paterson property."

Wow, what a find! But, I do not have Mrs. Mary Dell Vennery, nor her daughter Rose, in my family tree.

That same day I was listening to a recording of DearMyrtle's Tracing Immigrant Origins Study Group-Session 1, and she mentioned Stephen P. Morse's One-Step Web Pages.  This site helps find immigration records, as well as other records. (DearMyrtle recommends that we read the "About this Website and how to use it" tab before using the site.  But, you know, I just jumped right in there.)

Some time ago, I had found a passenger list index for Giuseppe Delle Venneri, traveling from Naples, Italy, to New York City, in 1910 when he was 28 years old.  He was apparently traveling with his wife, 21 year old Candida.  This is who I believe to be my husband's great grandfather and great grandmother.  Using Stephen P. Morse's One-Step Web Pages, I found a link to the digitized passenger list.

Passenger Manifest, SS Virginia, Sailing from Naples to New York, 20, Sep 1910,
page 1 (lines 1 & 2) Images from Ancestry.com

Passenger Manifest, SS Virginia sailing from Naples to New York, 20 Sep 1910,
page 2 (lines 1 & 2) Images from Ancestry.com

This is where seeing the actual record instead of just an index is helpful.  The passenger list indicated that this was not his first trip to the U.S. and he had traveled to New York City from Naples in 1899. Off I go to find that record, and according to that passenger list, Giuseppe, age 17, traveled to the U.S. with his older brother Antonio in 1899.

Passenger Manifest, SS Bolivia, sailing from Naples to New York, 11 Nov 1899, (lines 3 & 4)
Images from Ancestry.com 

Now I've got a real online bread trail to follow. Using Ancestry.com I search for Antonio Delle Venneri and find him in the 1910 U.S. Census, married to Innocenzia with daughters named Maria, Isabella, and Rosina.  That is helpful, but then I check the 1920 U.S. Census.  Anthony Del Vennery is married to Mary Del Vennery and they have three daughters, Mary, Isabel, and Rose.  While not a lot of online information (birth, marriage, death) is available for New Jersey, there are many city directories available online for that area.  Using the U.S. City Directories, 1822-1989 record group, I am fairly certain that Mrs. Mary Dell Vennery could be the wife of my husband's great grand uncle Anthony Dell Vennery, and her daughter Rose could be his 1st cousin, twice removed.

As a beginner family historian, I am very excited to continue to find out more information about this part of my husband's family tree and add it to our family forest.

Ciao for now!
Kim