Origins
The story of the Ciscomani family
Where the name comes from, the region our family left and the journey that brought it to Sonora.
The surname
Herminio was born Erminio Cismaconi. The Zoppola birth registers of 1899 and 1902 write the family name Cismaconi, and his father Giovanni signed it that way, just as the family has always remembered. From Giovanni's first crossing to America in 1907, every record found writes Ciscomani: the same nine letters with the middle syllables ma and co swapped. Both spellings are extremely rare. What the name means is still unknown; no dictionary or surname database explains either form, so everything said about meaning below is a hypothesis.
History of the region
Where the family began: Zoppola
Zoppola is a municipality of about 8,400 people in the province of Pordenone, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, around nine kilometres east of Pordenone city. It is made up of the main town and seven villages: Castions, Cusano, Murlis, Orcenico Inferiore, Orcenico Superiore, Ovoledo and Poincicco. Its patron saint is Saint Martin of Tours, celebrated on 11 November.
Source: Zoppola, Wikipedia (italiano); Zoppola, Wikipedia (English)
A castle and an old name
The name Zoppola first appears in records as 'Zaupola' in 1103, and as 'Zaupola Romana' in 1259. The castle was built around the 11th or 12th century to guard the road from the Tagliamento ford to Pordenone. In 1405 the castle and its jurisdiction passed to the family of Patriarch Antonio Panciera, and the Panciera family still owns it.
Source: Zoppola, Wikipedia (italiano); Castello di Zoppola, Wikipedia (English)
From the province of Udine to Pordenone
Until 1968 Zoppola belonged to the province of Udine, because the province of Pordenone was created only that year. Civil registration came to Friuli twice: under the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy from 1806 to 1815, and under the unified Kingdom of Italy from 1871. Records before 1871 are mostly parish books, which is why older documents may be catalogued under Udine.
Source: Italy, Pordenone, Pordenone, Civil Registration (Tribunale), 1871-1911, FamilySearch; Archivio di Stato di Udine, Portale Antenati; Portale Antenati FAQ (Italian)
Why Friulians left
From the late 19th century to the First World War, Friulians made up about one tenth of Italian emigrants. Early departures were mostly temporary and male, often from mountain and hill villages, in trades such as mosaic work, terrazzo and knife grinding. Wages sent home became the main family income. Before 1914 the main destinations were Argentina and Brazil, followed by Canada, the United States and Europe.
Born Erminio Cismaconi, 1902
1899-1902
On 30 August 1902 Giovanni Cismaconi, a 33-year-old farmer and son of the late Tomaso, went to the town hall of Zoppola to register a son born two days earlier, at eight in the morning, to his wife Luigia Cecco. He named him Erminio. The baby was ill, so the mayor let the father register him without bringing him in, and Giovanni signed the act 'Cismaconi Giovanni'. Three and a half years earlier he had registered his first son the same way: Tomaso Antonio Cismaconi, born on 19 January 1899.
Source: Atto di nascita n. 139, Comune di Zoppola, 1902: Erminio Cismaconi; Atto di nascita n. 12, Comune di Zoppola, 1899: Tomaso Antonio Cismaconi; Family account of the name Erminio Cismaconi
Giovanni goes first: California, 1907-1913
1907-1913
In August 1907 Giovanni sailed from Naples on the Lazio with some twenty men from Zoppola, nearly all bound for Madera, California, and passed through Ellis Island on 1 September, in the busiest year it ever had. On that passenger list, written at the port before sailing, his name is already Ciscomani. The 1910 census finds him in Lemoore, Kings County, working alongside another Friulian. He went home, and in September 1913 crossed again from Naples on the San Guglielmo, now with his son Tommaso, 15, both heading to a friend in Tulare. He told the clerks he had already worked in California from 1908 to 1911.
Source: New York passenger list, S.S. Lazio from Naples (sailed 18 August 1907), arrived Ellis Island 1 September 1907: Giovanni Ciscomani; United States Census 1910, Lemoore, Kings County, California, sheet 13B: Giovanni Ciscomani; New York passenger list, S.S. San Guglielmo from Naples (sailed 30 August 1913), arrived 11 September 1913: Giovanni and Tommaso Ciscomani; Ellis Island: overview and history, Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation
Erminio sails alone, 1920
1920
Tommaso stayed in California and registered for the First World War draft in Fresno County. In January 1920 it was Erminio's turn. At 17, a mechanic, five foot two with chestnut hair, he sailed alone from Genoa on the Taormina with 25 dollars and a ticket paid by his father, who stayed in Zoppola. He reached Ellis Island on 14 February 1920 and went on to join his brother in Nichols, a small chemical-plant town on the railroad near Pittsburg, California. He later worked in San Francisco, and in 1922 he moved to Hermosillo.
Source: New York passenger list, S.S. Taormina from Genoa (January 1920), arrived Ellis Island 14 February 1920: Erminio Ciscomani; World War I Draft Registration Card, Fresno County, California: Tomaso Ciscomani; Juan Antonio Ruibal Corella, Personajes de la Ciudad: nombres de algunas de las calles mas representativas de Hermosillo, entry 'Calle Herminio Ciscomani, Colonia Pitic'
From Cismaconi to Ciscomani, from Erminio to Herminio
The family always remembered that the name changed on the way to America around 1907, and the records agree. Until 1902 the Zoppola registers write Cismaconi; from Giovanni's first crossing in 1907 every passenger list, census and Mexican record writes Ciscomani, the same letters with two syllables swapped. It was not an Ellis Island inspector: those lists were filled in at the Italian port, and historians find that inspectors there did not rename people. The change most likely came with the papers made for emigration, and it stuck. The H came later. The 1920 list still calls him Erminio; in Mexico he became Herminio, the Spanish form of the same Latin name, Herminius.
Source: Atto di nascita n. 139, Comune di Zoppola, 1902: Erminio Cismaconi; New York passenger list, S.S. Lazio from Naples (sailed 18 August 1907), arrived Ellis Island 1 September 1907: Giovanni Ciscomani; Immigrant Name Changes, USCIS History and Genealogy; Joel Weintraub, The Ellis Island Name Change Myth, JewishGen (2015, revised 2017); Family account of the name Erminio Cismaconi; Erminio (nome), Wikipedia in Italian
Mexico, an unusual destination
Mexico was not historically a destination for Friulian emigrants, who went mostly to other Latin American countries such as Argentina. The Italian community in Mexico stayed small: about 2,575 Italian residents were counted in 1900, 2,595 in 1910, 2,292 in 1921 and 4,908 in 1930. A Friulian born around 1903 who settled in Hermosillo was therefore part of a very small stream.
Source: Friulani in Messico, Il Pais, 26 October 2017; Inmigracion italiana en Mexico, Wikipedia (espanol)
Italian colonies in Mexico
Organised Italian settlement in Mexico in the 1880s drew mostly families from northern Italy and the Tyrol, often under government contracts. In 1900 about 1,000 Italian labourers landed at Veracruz to work for a railway company and struck over broken promises. In 1924 Trentino colonists arrived at Veracruz, and another society planned a colony in Navolato, Sinaloa, on the Pacific coast.
Source: Zilli Manica, J. B., 'De los italianos en Mexico', Ulua 24 (2014) 43-62
And Sonora?
The sources reviewed for this site do not document an Italian colony in Sonora or Hermosillo in the early 20th century. Italians who went there are more likely to have arrived as individuals. How Herminio reached Hermosillo is not yet known, and no ship, border or residence record has been found for him.
Source: Zilli Manica, J. B., 'De los italianos en Mexico', Ulua 24 (2014) 43-62; Inmigracion italiana en Mexico, Wikipedia (espanol)
Routes to Mexico
Documented Italian sailings to Mexico ended at the port of Veracruz. One group of 1900 sailed from Naples, and the 1924 colonists sailed from Saint-Nazaire in France. Some emigrants may instead have reached the United States first and crossed the border later, but that is a possibility, not a documented fact. Which route Herminio took is unknown.
Source: Zilli Manica, J. B., 'De los italianos en Mexico', Ulua 24 (2014) 43-62
A wedding in Hermosillo, 1926
1926-1929
On 2 February 1926 Herminio went to the parish priest of Hermosillo, Martín Portela, to open the file the Church required before a wedding. He gave his age as 23, said he came from Udine in Italy and had lived in Hermosillo for three years, and named his parents as Juan Ciscomani and María Luisa Cecco, the Spanish forms of Giovanni Cismaconi and Luigia Cecco. His bride was María Dolores Félix of Villa de Seris, the old village across the river, daughter of Dionisio Félix and Dolores Peraza. Witnesses swore they knew of no impediment. Three years later, on 13 April 1929, his brother Tomás married Catalina Valenzuela before the civil registrar of Hermosillo.
Source: Información matrimonial de Herminio Ciscomani y Dolores Félix, parroquia de Hermosillo, 2 de febrero de 1926; Acta de matrimonio n. 63, Hermosillo, 1929: Tomás Ciscomani y Catalina Valenzuela
Two small graves at Villa de Seris, 1932 and 1934
1932-1934
By 1932 Herminio and Dolores were farming at Siete Cerros, on the coast of Hermosillo. On 26 August their son Mario Silvio, fourteen months old, died of enterocolitis in a house on Calle Hidalgo in the city. Herminio registered the death with Tomás as his witness, obtained the health office's permit, and that same day buried the boy in Villa de Seris, Dolores's village. Less than two years later, on 15 May 1934, their daughter María Armida died of gastroenteritis at eighteen months. Again Herminio went to the registry, and again Tomás signed beside him, this time as the child's uncle. She too was buried at Villa de Seris.
Source: Acta de defunción n. 30, Villa de Seris (Hermosillo), 1932: Mario Silvio Ciscomani; Acta de defunción n. 279, Hermosillo, 1934: María Armida Ciscomani
El Fundador, the first deep well, 1945
1944-1945
In 1945 six farmers of the Costa, five Italians and a Mexican, decided to look for deep water together: Alfonso P. García, Carlos Baranzini, Valentín Cecco, Carlos Forni and the brothers Herminio and Tomás Ciscomani. A raffle chose the field for the first well, and it fell to Herminio's land near Siete Cerros: if it found water he would pay the costs and keep the well, and if not they would share them. The Banco del Pacífico lent them 150,000 pesos. At 105 metres the well struck water, lifted by a Pomona turbine pump and a Fairbanks Morse diesel engine, and the field took the name El Fundador. Four years later the Costa had 70 wells, and in the 1950s 480 deep wells watered 96,000 hectares. The sources differ on details: a 1945 newspaper item names Herminio, Tomás, Valentín Cecco and Alberto Giotonini as the partners, and a 2001 study dates the well to 1944 and credits the Ciscomani family. Valentín Cecco shares the surname of the brothers' mother; whether he was a relative is not yet known.
Source: El color de las amapas: Historia de la explotacion del agua subterranea en la Costa de Hermosillo; El Imparcial (Hermosillo), 24 March 1945, 'Proyectan perforar una serie de pozos en Siete Cerros'; Miguel Ángel Vázquez Ruiz and María del Carmen Hernández Moreno, "Región y grupos económicos en Sonora: breve itinerario de su integración (1910-1950)", Frontera Norte 13 (26), 2001
Giovanni and Luigia in Hermosillo, 1951
1951
Giovanni, who stayed in Zoppola when his sons left and paid Erminio's passage in 1920, did not end his days in Italy. At some point he and Luigia followed their sons to Sonora. He died at home in Hermosillo on the afternoon of 15 January 1951, aged 82, of old age. The death entry, which the index spells Juan Ciscomaui, records him as a farmer of Italian nationality: unlike his sons, he never became Mexican. Luigia, written there as María Luisa Cecco de Ciscomani, survived him. When the couple crossed is not yet known.
Source: Acta de defunción n. 32, Hermosillo, 1951: Juan Ciscomani (Giovanni Cismaconi); New York passenger list, S.S. Taormina from Genoa (January 1920), arrived Ellis Island 14 February 1920: Erminio Ciscomani
April 1973
1973
On 27 April 1973 Herminio's son Jorge, 43, a farmer like his father, died in a road accident on the international highway near Benjamín Hill, together with his wife Evangelina Valencia and three of their children: Mario Herminio, 19, who carried his grandfather's name, María del Rosario Evangelina, 13, and Carmen Dolores, 11. The family was buried in Hermosillo. Six days later Herminio himself died.
Source: Actas de defunción n. 558-561, Hermosillo, 30 de abril de 1973: Jorge Ciscomani Félix and three of his children; Defunciones, Benjamín Hill, Sonora, 28 de abril de 1973: Jorge Ciscomani Félix, Evangelina Valencia and three of their children
The brothers' last years, 1973 and 1978
1973-1978
Herminio died in Hermosillo at seven in the evening on 3 May 1973, six days after that loss, of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. He was 70. His death entry calls him a farmer, as the 1932 entry had, and gives his nationality as Mexican. Dolores survived him. Tomás lived five years longer: he died in Hermosillo on 8 February 1978, aged 79, also recorded as a farmer of Mexican nationality, and Catalina survived him; one of their sons registered the death. Both brothers were buried in Hermosillo, nearly ten thousand kilometres from Zoppola, where their father had signed their birth acts as Cismaconi.
Source: Acta de defunción n. 579, Hermosillo, 1973: Herminio Ciscomani Cecco; Acta de defunción n. 230, Hermosillo, 1978: Tomás Ciscomani Cecco; Atto di nascita n. 139, Comune di Zoppola, 1902: Erminio Cismaconi; Atto di nascita n. 12, Comune di Zoppola, 1899: Tomaso Antonio Cismaconi
Where to look for the records
Acts from 1 September 1871 onward, including a birth around 1903, are requested from the Comune di Zoppola registry office. Parish books from before 1871 are handled by the diocesan archive in Pordenone. Antenati offers free images for Zoppola only for the Napoleonic years 1806 to 1811. Military draft lists for the class of 1903 are kept at the State Archive of Pordenone.
Source: Archivio Diocesano, informazioni per richieste di certificati storici, Diocesi di Concordia-Pordenone; Antenati registry search, locality Zoppola; Archivio di Stato di Pordenone, Portale Antenati
These notes come from public research and may include unconfirmed traditions. Facts on person pages show their own sources.