I am trying to find Frances/Francesca Destefano/Di Stefano. She married a Joseph Milazzo in Italy and died in Alabama around 1920. She and her husband went by the surname Miller in the US. The story went that immigration officials couldn't get their name right and wrote Miller instead of Milazzo. She was born approx. 1851.

I have been unable to locate any information about her, her parents, or her marriage to Joe.

Any suggestions?
Christina

So I think I found something but could use a confirmation from the experts.

I have been looking for a Bernice Milazzo born April 1875 to a Joe Milazzo and Frances Di Stefano. The only baptismal record that I find shows a Bernarda Milazzo born to a Josepho Milazzo and a Francisca Lanza from April 1877. Since I was able to trace back the Milazzo lineage, I decided to look for the marriage record of Milazzo-Lanza to see if the parents for the father matched the Joe Milazzo that I have found.

Unfortunately Mother Nature got to these records long before I did because most of the writing has been blurred by water; but I am pretty sure that I can make out his parents as being the parents that I have found for Josepho Milazzo.

My only concerns are that I cannot read what his name is, it certainly is not Josepho or Giuseppe. And can anyone confirm that Xaveria and Francisca are close names for one another?

Would anyone agree that these 2 people are the parents to the Bernice Miller that I am looking for?

Cajetan is the first name of the child in the birth record-like Gaetano in Italian which is Thomas or Guy

I meant in the marriage record.

Hello Maestra -

Do you think it is possible that Cajetun in the same person as Josepho or a brother?

I am totally stuck trying to find out anything about the Di Stefano side so I wondered if she was a 2nd marriage or if the children had it all wrong and the surname for the mom was actually Lanza.

Cajetan is the groom's name. I can't read his parents' names

I could read a Bernadi and Anna Maria, which match up with the Bernardus and Anna Maria Milazzo that I had found previously.

I imported the document into a photo program and adjusted the contrast and brightness and now I can read the father's first name as Bernadi. The mother is an Anna Maria, but I can't make out her last name at all. We are looking for Romano, correct?

Parents of Cajetan are deceased in this record.

Hi -

No in this case the Anna Maria was previously a "Lo Cascio"; the other side of the family was "Romano"

I can't make out Anna Maria's surname at all. I can't even make out a single letter of it, sorry.

That's OK. Do you know if Francisca and Xaveria are related names/nicknames for one another?

Not as far as I know.

Unless from St Francis Xavier and her given name was Xaviera and then she was just called Frances after the saint. I am stretching things on this though, as there is no proof that the two names are related.

I thought that I had read somewhere that Frances was a common nickname from Xaveria but I am not sure. In any case it doesn't explain why on their detah certificates, 2 daughters listed the maternal surname as Destefano/Destfina (the other 3 listed it as unknown) as opposed to Lanza.