Family History Play-Chapter 2-Between Two Centuries, Born in Sicily, Lived and Died in Chicago

Her name was Bernadette; I know her last name but "history is personal".  She is not a direct ancestor, but a Great-Aunt.

Here is how the story goes: my Grandfather (Father's Father) was the youngest in a long line of probably adorable Sicilian children near the town of Termini-Immerse; he was born in 1885. Soon after, some of the family decided to make the move to America. Many Sicilian people from this region settled in Chicago; our family may have had friends and relations already here at that time.

Specifically, my toddler Grandfather's already grown and married sister--Bernadette, here--and her husband and maybe some kids? I don't know if his elderly parents made the trip. I don't know if both were alive. But somehow, someone or everyone thought it would be a good idea to take little Salvatore along to America. His parents were old--who was going to care for him? Other siblings? Why leave him in poor Sicily?

They arrived before Ellis Island processed immigrants. They arrived before the 1890 Census (the lost Census: burned in a fire) So it is difficult to track the family until the 1900 Census.

Did the parents come to America? Someone in the family said there is record of an unmarked grave of an elderly "Anna", somewhere in a cemetery in the western suburbs of Chicago. I have heard there was a cholera infestation in Chicago in the 1890's that killed the parents?

How many thousands of immigrants have experienced events like this? Handing off your last, toddler son to his older sister to take and raise in a distant land--a cold land? I have no idea who these extended generations of Sicilian people were; likely I never will.

Dad always assumed his Father was Italian; but when I learned that Sicily is a kind of "pan-Mediterranean/North African" island, I bought Dad an early DNA test several years before he passed away. It turned out that his paternal DNA had many geographic "clusters" on the map of Spain, around Santander. He was shocked and a little affronted to learn of these Spanish ties. Spain controlled Sicily for centuries--with military forces.

So for now, Bernadette is the "dead end" or "wall" that I have hit on this branch of the family. Most we can trace: I have two other mysterious dead ends: both on my Mother's side. Other stories for other nights.