Can anyone help me with my family tree, family names of Picco, Scudero, Scuderi, Trebino?

Question

I think they are mostly from California: Pittsburg, Pleasant Hill and Martinez; and Italy.

Answer 1

Hey DMB,

There are Picco and Scuderi GENFORUMS. None for the other two. Try Ellis Island, Family Search too. Read the advice given to other askers also, very valuable advice is given over and over again.

Get records, Birth, death, marriage, obits, cemetary, wills, probate, etc.

Special for you are the Italy sites below. These include locating vital records in Italy, to an Infobel phone book for living relative look ups.

Answer 2

What exactly do you want to know? Italiano, my friend, vastly Italian! All of those names. I second the first answer, check Ellis Island, ellisisland.com. Look at passenger lists, both from Italy and from France, Spain, and England. A lot of people, for monetary reasons, went from one European country to another, to get a cheaper rate to America. With Italian, odds are they came into New York. You don't normally get Italians immigrating directly to California.

Now, of course, this all hinges on what information you currently have, and how far back it goes. Immgration was usually 19th Century, from 1820 to 1900. Italian, try 1850-1900, normally the latter part of the century. If you can't get your tree back that far, you'll not be able to use Ellis Island. However, census records are priceless. I don't know how old you are, so I'm not sure how you're going to be able to track things, but census records are available only to the 1930's. You'll have to back that far on your own. The best ones to use are from 1880-1910. Unfortunately, there are some problems. First, only the 1880 is free. Everything else is charged for, unless you know exactly where you're looking, and that county has a website where someone has already transcribed the census records. For that, go to USGenWeb.com. They'll have a list of states, those states will have lists of counties, and so on. Second, and here's a kick in the crotch for any genealogist, the 1890 census was destroyed by a edict of Congress in 1934 before it was supposedly too damaged to keep. Because the census is only done every ten years, this means that there's a 20-year gap in records, from 1880 to 1900. So, if your ancestors moved during this time, you may have lost them.

When you do your search, keep in mind several things: 1) The spelling may be different. People changed the spellings to fit in, census takers misspelled out of ignorance or laziness, or bad handwriting and a few illiterate people have led to a misinterpretation. This is especially true in German, Russian, and Italian names, where some letters are silent, or vowels are said differently. 2) Depending on the year range, or the location, peole could have changed their name completely, to avoid persecution because "Micks" (Irish) and "Pollocks" (Poles) weren't liked by the "true-blood" English and French settlers. And 3) Always keep in mind that records, especially from immigrants from a country that doesn't speak English, are rare. You just won't find many family Bibles in Italian, Spanish, or Russian. They'll usually be in English, French, or German.

But never fear, for there are always records. Census, land grants, land sales, even court records and prison records can track a family member. Try the message boards. Someone has done research for just about any family. Never give up hope of filling in the branches. Lord, I've been doing it for seven years; there are people who have done it for 20 or 30, and are still not done.

Answer 3

You are in luck. Rootsweb only has death data bases for 3 states on-line, and California is one of them.

Go to
http://vitals.rootsweb.com/ca/death/search.cgi
Set "Death place" to Contra Costa, because Pittsburg is in Contra Costa County. Try each surname in each of three places: Surname, mother's maiden name, father's surname. Note that not all records have all fields filled in.

If, for instance, you see MMN Picco and father's surname Scudero, you'll know that person was the child of a male Scudero and female Picco. (I don't know if there were any; I just used the first two of your surnames as an example.)

If you get a hit like that, repeat with MMN and father's surname filled in but death place = "Any"; you'll find possible siblings who died in other counties.

Play around with it. Father's surname is th efield that is blank the most. You can use surname + MMN to find all the male children of a given couple. (Or, if three brothers married three sisters, all of the first cousins.)