Asturian-American Migration Forum

Hello all my name is Eric Lorenzo. I am 32 years old from Donora Pennsylvania. My father was Manuel "Pete" Lorenzo and my grandmother was Gia (Barbao) Lorenzo. I have been a member of the site for a couple years now but I finally have some time to take geneaology off the back burner and try and make some headway on figuring out my ancestry. My uncle is is Jim Barbao who frequently posts on the site. Going through some of the posts that mention Donora and Anmoore I have found some helpful information. My grandfather died while in the service in June of 1945. My grandmother and father moved shortly after that to Donora. I have went through birth, death, and marriage records on the wvculture.com website that Ron Gonzalez has mentioned frequently, and thanks Ron because this has helped the most in my adventure. But I am unsure about some of the records I am running into. There were four children born between 1908 and 1912. All of them had the father named joe (one joeseph) but the mother's name was spelled different every time. Was this a common mistake made back then? I was talking to my mother and she said she never really met any relatives of my fathers on his fathers side. I know that this is going to be a difficult process to try and figure all this out but I am willing to the neccesary steps to do it. I am aslo going to attach a picture of the newest Austurian in Donora. His name is Alexander Manuel Lorenzo born on April 24th, 2010

Angelic baby,

Congratulations Eric !!!!
... and welcome to Alexander Manuel, the youngest member of the Forum!
Marta

Eric
I remember my family speaking of your father and grandmother many times. When I was a kid, a family that lived close to my cousin Joe (Crabie) Fernandez in Anmoore were Lorenzos. Many years ago we would visit Donora. My grandmother's sister lived there with her son Joe Tamargo. Joe had a son and a daughter. I think they still live in Donora. Emil and Mary Barbo had a daughter Rita, who married my cousin Ben Alvarez. They also had a son Ronnie and we are about the same age. My grandmother's sister's name was Primativa Arrojo Tamargo. I'm happy that I could be of some help to you.

I remember alot of trips down to Bridgeport to see Uncle Emil and Aunt Mary. My dad and Tony would go down to Shinston to get Chorizo from the two women that were hairdressers I believe one their names was Josephine. Then we would go the back way into Bridgeport to visit Aunt MAry and Uncle Emil. We would go sit in the basement while all the guys would sip on some of his homemade wine. Then to the hot dog shop to get a couple dozen chili dogs and the final stop would be a grocery store to get some Tommorows bread. I remember as a kid I couldn't wait till we went during the fall becasue we would goto Shinston on a back road off of Rt. 79 and there would be a ginat wooden Christmas Tree layered with Pumpkins. Right up the hill from them was Monica Skinner we always stopped there also. Those were the days. My dad grew up on 11th Street in Donora, a couple blocks away from the Spanish Club, but back then all the Spaniards lived down in that area. I also remember a couple times we came down there for an Italian Festival in Clarksburg, does that still go on. I remember there being a huge amount of people with whole blocks shut down and a bunch of the older guys sittin at picnic tables drinking homemade wine. Well I am going to be posting alot more but thank you for information, as you knoiw anything helps when your trying to trace back.

The women that made chorizo are no longer with us. I miss both of them.
The pumpkin tree is still there on Saltwell Road, off of 73, the way you came from Anmoore. The man who had the farm no longer sells pumpkins. It was called Charlie Brown Pumpkin Farm.
I knew your Aunt and Uncle and always enjoyed talking to them.

Believe me it was a sad day when I was told that I would not have Josephine's chorizo anymore and sauce and peppers too. Here is a good story for you about them. We are on our way down there to Shinston and we were coming across a little bridge and the weather was really foul, we looked over in the creek and there were two outhouses floating down the creek. Tony or my dad made a joke about they were probably Josephines Smoke Houses and we all laughed. Well when we got there, guess what? Josephine was heart broken that she lost her smoke sheds in the flood about half hour before we got there. It was sad for her but they had to break it to her that we seen them floating down creek.

Well I sold out today also, I joined Ancestry.com but the information I am coming up with is phenomenal. Do you belong to any of these sites? The last name Tamargo came up on my grandmothers side. Inocencio Barbao Tamargo, haven't got a chance to see where this leads because the last name made me think to check back here to tell you. Well I will let you know if you pop up. This is starting to get fun.

[quote="elorenzo"].... But I am unsure about some of the records I am running into. There were four children born between 1908 and 1912. All of them had the father named joe (one joeseph) but the mother's name was spelled different every time. Was this a common mistake made back then? ....[/quote
Welcome, Eric.

What were the spellings of the mother's names?

And, yes, it's incredibly common. I've had to correct a majority of the birth and death records I've asked for. Every state has a process by which family members can correct the information. A lot of the errors probably occur because the registry workers are unfamiliar with Spanish names, but in some cases it's clearly the fault of a family member who was ignorant of their own heritage.

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Bienvenido, Eric.

¿Cuáles son las ortografías de los nombres de la madre?

Y, sí, es increíblemente común. He tenido que corregir la mayoría de los documentos de nacimiento y muerte que he pedido. Cada estado tiene un proceso por el cual los familiares pueden corregir la información. Muchos de los errores probablemente ocurren porque los trabajadores del registro no están familiarizados con los nombres españoles, pero en algunos casos es evidente que la falta era de un familiar ignorante de su propia herencia.