Hi Gene, Your story reminds me of an Italian friend of ours. Everyone knows him as Iano (pronounced Yanno), but his given name is really Sebastiano. It's a lot like the Anna/Sebastiana switch. This goes for many ethnic groups. I almost missed my British grandmother on the Ellis Island site, because she is on the ship's manifest as Nellie, but her name is Ellen! Betsey and Eliza can often be nicknames for Elizabeth, as well. Lois -----Original Message----- From: Eugene Breindel [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 10:12 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [CTMID] Many thanks Hello again lists, As many suggested I went back again to the Ellis Island website. I had been there about 6 months ago looking for Guisseppe RANNO. I had found a couple of them back then and one that looked correct for his age but his wife's name didn't match up. My wife and her 1st cousin and the headstone all told me her name was ANNA. While in Middletown this past Easter I went to the Godfrey Genealogy Library and did some research. I couldn't get to the microfilm census as they were both in use. I did find the city directories though and started copying them. Later in the day when a microfilm reader opened up I dug out the 1920 census. Lo and behold the members of the household replied to the census taker that her name was Sebastiana. Her husband and children's names and ages all matched up to my records. I really didn't think my wife and her cousin would accept that they didn't really know their grandmother's correct name. She died when the were about 8 and they called her "! Nunee". This did not surprise me as I have run into that situation before in my family tree. Now after reading your posts that I should go Ellis island, I did. I actually had the correct person 6 months ago. I saved the records and manifests in my Ellis Island personal file and it has given me enough to do for a long time. I just spent another hour there trying to write this e-mail. ;o) My how Genealogical time flies! Thanks again! Gene Breindel [email protected] Interested in Families: Breindel, Walker, Weidenboerner,Stauffer, Cobble, Grammer, Loichinger, Seel, Bopp, Eder, Meisel, Ranno, LaBella, DiBattista, Lucenti, Quadarelia & Romano http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/b/r/e/Eugene-F-Breindel/ Someday YOU'LL be an ancestor too! ==== CTMIDDLE Mailing List ==== You can search the archives for the list at http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl?list=CTMIDDLE ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237