A LOOK AT LIFE IN NEW YORK

Gill Shaw is tracking down her Riboldis across the pond

Gill Shaw

What did it feel like to go from a little city like Limerick to the dynamic melting pot of New York in the 1850s? That, I will never know, but I’m hoping the US records can at least tell me what became of the Riboldi children – Joseph, Rosanna, Dominick and Francis – who crossed the Atlantic for a new life.

For whatever reason, my 2x greatgrandfather John Antonio decided to take a different path, so I’m going to park him back in Ireland for now and concentrate on the other four. (Or five, if I count John’s possible estranged wife Johanna, who also rocked up in New York…). In the past, I’ve researched a line of siblings one by one, but given the likelihood of weird spellings, and the fact I know next to nothing about 19th century American records (so go easy on me if I overlook the bloomin’ obvious!), this time I’m going to search for them as a job lot and see where we get to. All I have so far is when they arrived at Castle Garden immigration, and what they said about themselves to the authorities when they did. So, Joseph, a carver gilder, arrived in 1849, aged 27; Dominick, a labourer, in 1850, age 16 (although, baptised in 1832, he was actually 18); and Francis in 1851, age 17 (in reality also 18). Rosanna may have come over with Francis, but as her arrivals record is still eluding me, it’s anyone’s guess. OK, first stop Ancestry, and I search in the US collections for anyone called Riboldi (and all variations) born 1830 +/- 10 years. That should cover it, and ooh, oodles of results. Sadly, they’re not all mine, but I think I can pick out a couple of my clan among a mass of Belgian and German-born Riebolds, French and Dutch Rabolds, and even an obituary of a Cardinal Riboldi in Rome. The one that really leaps out, though, is a census – the 1855 New York State Census for a Dominick Riboldi, born 1833. Oh, that has to be him, doesn’t it!