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Genealogy

Family genealogy and photographs that inspired the novel

This is the 1920 census that knocked me for a loop. Recorded on January 20, 1920, lines 83-90 list Akinfa (John) and Mary Zuravleff and their six children (my father, born in 1931, is their eleventh!). They made it out of the mines to Erie; specifically, 102 Parade Street. John and Mary are listed as 32 and 26, finally their right ages, unlike their marriage license or the 1910 census. Under citizenship, the three questions are: year of immigration; naturalized or alien; and if naturalized, year of naturalization? John Zuravleff immigrated in 1905; under naturalized or alien, it says "1st Pa." or "first papers," which means he declared his intent to become a citizen, as of 1915. On the next line, for Mary Zuravleff there is an X under year of immigration; that makes sense, because you can see under "place of birth," she was born in Pennsylvania. But in the column marked "naturalized or alien," which I would have expected to be blank—again, born in Pennsylvania—she is listed as "Al" for Alien.