TRACING BRANCHES
TWIGLETS
...DOWN ON HIS LUCK
This issue sees tree-tracing diarist Gill Shaw piecing together the closing chapter of Joseph Riboldi junior’s troubled life
The admission paper for Joseph’s entry to the almshouse on Blackwell’s Island in 1875
Well, if I thought the 19th century US censuses for the three Riboldi brothers would fall into line as neatly as they did for their sister Rosanna, I’d another think coming.
A plain surname search returns the usual muddle of misspellings from across the globe, so I narrow it down to the eldest, Joseph – last seen in a surgical hospital ward on the 1855 New York State Census. This results in a surprising number of hits, but a) they’re not censuses, and b) they’re a bit later than I was thinking of.
But hang on a minute, here’s one – the 1870 US Federal Census, New York City ward 19, Joseph ‘Riboldy’, birthplace Ireland.
I click through to the image, and ah, with my 3x great-uncle Joseph’s ill health on the 1855 Census, I’d half expected something like this. Instead of families making a living, households getting by, we’re in another institution of some sort.
Midway down a seemingly never-ending list of men’s names, I can see ‘Riboldy Joseph’, a 55-year-old white male. He’s a gilder, born in Ireland, with both parents of foreign birth. It’s him all right.