A mystery in St Roch's

 

Ancestry. St. Rochs Cemetery, New Orleans.

A researcher reached out over Ancestry's Messages, asking about how her 2x-great-grandmother was listed in the tomb of Filippo Ciofalo, Magdalene Huber and Charles Huber in St. Roch's Cemetery of New Orleans. In 2021, I wrote about Magdalene, a daughter of Antoinette Halter, younger sister of my wife's 4th-great-grandfather Francois Halter.

This query prompted some digging through the records, on Ancestry, FamilySearch and Newspapers.com. I wonder if the connection is through Magdalene's Sicilian first husband, Filippo Ciofalo. He was born on Sicily's northern coast, 21 February 1834, at Termini Imerese, part of the metropolitan city of Palermo. It is unclear to me when he immigrated to New Orleans, but may have served in the Civil War as part of a European Brigade in the city.

Ciofalo married Magdalene Vollrath on 18 November 1874. He died without children in 1888, and left his estate to Magdalene.

FamilySearch. New Orleans marriages, 1874.

FamilySearch. New Orleans marriages, 1874.

Ancestry. Louisiana Wills.

Josephine

Giuseppa (Josephine) Carrera (or Curreri) Germana DeBucceres was born in Sicily in 1852. She died in New Orleans in April 1917, and is supposed to be buried in the Ciofalo/Huber crypt at St. Roch's Cemetery. I don't yet understand the connection between Josephine and this family. Was she a cousin of Filippo Ciofalo? Certainly she was a fellow Sicilian immigrant to New Orleans. Was she a friend of Magdalene or did they attend the same church? Was her connection through Charles Huber, Magdalene's second husband?

I'll follow the trail of records on Josephine in the next post.