The Fonda Blog

Many recent Italian immigrants with the Fonda surname have been included in the American Fonda database… first to differentiate from the original Dutch-American line… then as a separate project to try and establish some descendancy lines.  Although tradition holds that the Dutch line was originally of Italian descent, a direct link between the two lines has yet to be found.

According to available census records, about 100 individuals named Fonda immigrated from Italy to the United States between 1890 and 1930.  Most of them settled in the eastern cities working as entrepeneurs or laborers, although some made it out west as miners or railroad workers.  Those that stayed and made it into the census were productive, working-class families, who integrated quickly into society.  In most cases, the father immigrated first, establishing employment, followed by the rest of the family a year or two later.  10 such immigrant families are listed below, each with five or more people… most with children born in both Italy and the US… as first generation Italian-Americans.

Here is a short explanation of what led to the surge of Italian immigration to America around the turn of the century:

The Great Arrival
Most of this generation of Italian immigrants took their first steps on U.S. soil in a place that has now become a legend—Ellis Island. In the 1880s, they numbered 300,000; in the 1890s, 600,000; in the decade after that, more than two million. By 1920, when immigration began to taper off, more than 4 million Italians had come to the United States, and represented more than 10 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population.
What brought about this dramatic surge in immigration? The causes are complex, and each hopeful individual or family no doubt had a unique story. By the late 19th century, the peninsula of Italy had finally been brought under one flag, but the land and the people were by no means unified. Decades of internal strife had left a legacy of violence, social chaos, and widespread poverty. The peasants in the primarily poor, mostly rural south of Italy and on the island of Sicily had little hope of improving their lot. Diseases and natural disasters swept through the new nation, but its fledgling government was in no condition to bring aid to the people. As transatlantic transportation became more affordable, and as word of American prosperity came via returning immigrants and U.S. recruiters, Italians found it increasingly difficult to resist the call of “L’America”.

This new generation of Italian immigrants was distinctly different in makeup from those that had come before. No longer did the immigrant population consist mostly of Northern Italian artisans and shopkeepers seeking a new market in which to ply their trades. Instead, the vast majority were farmers and laborers looking for a steady source of work—any work. There were a significant number of single men among these immigrants, and many came only to stay a short time. Within five years, between 30 and 50 percent of this generation of immigrants would return home to Italy, where they were known as ritornati.
Those who stayed usually remained in close contact with their family in the old country, and worked hard in order to have money to send back home. In 1896, a government commission on Italian immigration estimated that Italian immigrants sent or took home between $4 million and $30 million each year, and that “the marked increase in the wealth of certain sections of Italy can be traced directly to the money earned in the United States.”

The columns in the table below include first and last names, age, place of birth, immigration year and occupation.  Some of these lines have been linked to individuals living now.  The American Fonda database is periodically uploaded to rootsweb, but the on-line listing strips out anyone born after 1930 for privacy purposes.  You will need to download the main PDF file to view the full listing.  Any help in putting together family lines is much appreciated (e-mail to webmaster@fonda.org).

Disclaimer: Many immigrants modified their names to simplify or anglicize the pronunciation.  It is possible that some of these family names could have originally been something like Lafondiano, LaFonda, LaFontano or Fondacaro in native Italy. There are also some listings that are very difficult to read in the census records which could actually be spelling variations like Fondi, Fanda, Funda, Fondo, etc. All of the records below were indexed by Ancestry.com under the pure spelling of ‘Fonda’ and in fact some that were listed as possible were discarded after looking at the actual census scan images.  Further research on the Italian side would be necessary to nail this down for sure.  The US Census Records in these years did not show the city or region of origin, only the country.  Since recent phone records indicate the pure Fonda surname is concentrated in northeast Italy (around Trieste), and the early 1900’s Italian-American immigrations were more from southern Italy, it would logical to assume that some of these names were altered upon immigration.

		10 Italian Immigrant Families named Fonda (with Rootsweb link)
	1	1900 US Federal Census, Baltimore Ward 2, Baltimore City, MD
		Frank	Fonda	41	ITA	1897	Fruit Dealer
		Rosavi	Fonda	37	ITA	1897
		Chili	Fonda	19	ITA	1897	Fruit Dealer
		Chala	Fonda	16	ITA	1897	Fruit Dealer
		Tony	Fonda	3	MD
		Josephina	Fonda	2	MD
	2	1910 US Federal Census, Manhattan Ward 19, New York, New York
		Michael	Fonda	46	ITA	1900	Shoemaker
		Cassel	Fonda	40	ITA	1900
		Tony	Fonda	30	ITA	1904
		Frederick	Fonda	20	ITA	1902	Barber Shop
		Salvador	Fonda	14	ITA	1902	Assistant Shoemaking
		Anne	Fonda	5	NY
		Dominic	Fonda	11mo	NY
	3	1920 US Federal Census, Brooklyn Assembly District 3, Kings Co., NY
		Florencio	Fonda	40	ITA	1912	Shoemaker
		Santilla	Fonda	40	ITA	1912
		Antonio	Fonda	18	ITA	1912	Seaman Merchant Ship
		Florencio	Fonda	14	ITA	1912
		Emma	Fonda	8	ITA	1912
		Carmela	Fonda	6	NY
	4	1920 US Federal Census, Queens Assembly District 1, Queens Co., NY
		Pasquale	Fonda	29	ITA	1907	Cigar Maker Factory
		Rosie	Fonda	28	ITA	1908	Cigar Maker Factory
		Rosalind	Fonda	8	NY
		Jenny	Fonda	6	NY
		Adele	Fonda	3	NY
	5	1920 US Federal Census, Rochester Ward 7, Monroe Co., NY
		Charles	Fonda	39	ITA	1910	Grocery Store Proprietor
		Antoniett	Fonda	31	ITA	Un
		Josephine	Fonda	12	ITA	Un
		Tony	Fonda	10	ITA	Un
		Mike	Fonda	8	NY
		Louis	Fonda	6	NY
		Sam	Fonda	3	NY
		Mary	Fonda	1	NY
	6	1920 US Federal Census, West Springfield, Hampden Co., MA
		Antonio	Fonda	37	ITA	1903	Laborer Railroad Shops
		Ernimia	Fonda	34	ITA	1902	Welder Railroad Shops
		Dannie	Fonda	15	MA		Sales Clerk Grocery Store
		Josephine	Fonda	12	MA
		Rosie	Fonda	11	MA
	7	1930 US Federal Census, Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., NY
		John	Fonda	38	ITA	1906	Finisher Furniture Factory
		Anna M	Fonda	26	ITA	1907
		Louise M	Fonda	7	NY
		Margaret D	Fonda	6	NY
		Jenaro	Fonda	3	NY
		Jilda	Fonda	1	NY
	8	1930 US Federal Census, Ogdensburg, Saint Lawrence Co., NY
		Samuel	Fonda	48	ITA	1902	Track Hitchman Railroad
		Helen	Fonda	24	NY		Housework Private Family
		Francis J	Fonda	6	NY
		Pascal J	Fonda	4	NY
		Theresa H	Fonda	2	NY
	9	1930 US Federal Census, Pittston, Luzerne Co., PA
		Raimondo	Fonda	62	ITA	1903	Merchant Groceries
		Leonarda	Fonda	61	ITA	1907
		Calogero	Fonda	23	PA		Barber Shop
		Salvatore	Fonda	20	PA		Barber Shop
		Angelina	Fonda	17	PA
	10	1930 US Federal Census, Pittston, Luzerne Co., PA
		Angelo	Fonda	26	ITA	1906	Barber Shop
		Hellen	Fonda	23	ITA	1913
		Eleonora	Fonda	6	PA
		Raimondo	Fonda	5	PA
		Gastana	Fonda	3	PA

written by admin \\ tags: America, Census, Immigration, Italy

Genoa, Italy

Extract from “Early American Families“, Rev. W.A. Williams; Philadelphia, PA; 1916:
“The Rensselaer-Bowier Papers say that Douw Fonda was a Frisian, and Tacitus says that the Frisians dwelt along the coast of the North sea. They were converted to Christianity before A.D. 800. The family of Fonda was originally from the Republic of Genoa, Italy. The Marquis de Fonda was one of the leaders of a revolution in Genoa, having for its object the overturning of the aristocratic government, and putting the election of the Doge and Senate, into the hands of the people at large. The Doge (=duke) was the duke, or chief magistrate. Our ancestor was an early republican, and must have lived there, between 1339, when the first Doge was elected, and 1528 when the Dogate ceased. Baron de Fonda was unsuccessful in his attempt, and fled from the country, taking refuge in Amsterdam, Holland, whence his descendant, Jellis Douwese Fonda, emigrated to America in 1642 (1650), and had grants of land from the Dutch government, settling in or near the present city of Albany, N. Y.”

“There is a perhaps less credible tradition also, that the Fondas were Huguenots. and fled from France to Holland after the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s night, Aug. 25, 1572. There is another tradition that they fled from Spain on account of persecution or followed the Duke of Alva to Holland. It is also said that they belonged to the royal house of Spain, fled to Italy, because of religious persecution, and came later to Holland. Possibly they fled from Italy to France, and from France to Holland. The form of the family name is Latin and therefore similar in French, Italian, and Spanish, indicating the Latin origin of the family, probably In Italy. The Fondas were Dutch Reformed Protestants when they emigrated to America, and must have been among the first converts of the Reformation. Their descendants are widely scattered throughout the Union, though many are still living near the old home in Eastern N.Y.”

“The family name is taken from a deep valley in the Apennines, about 12 mi. from the city of Genoa, called Fonda, a name which means bottom, deep, foundation, etc. It is said that, in the early part of the last century, the estate was still in the possession of a branch of the family, the Count de Fonda, and there are many of the name, in the various parts of the Genoese territories.” Some of the family may have known Columbus in Genoa.”

Note: the above is disputed in “Old Dutch Families: Fonda Family” (De Halve Maen Quarterly, 1945):
“The Fondas were important in up-state New York during the Colonial period and in the early development of the State. Presumably the family is of Frisian origin and one genealogist has outlined European background for the Fondas giving them a really illustrious descent. However, these stories apparently come from tradition rather than substance.”

Trieste, Italy

Today, most native Fonda families live in Trieste, Italy and nearby Piran, Slovenia.  There is a wonderful website by Robert Fonda regarding Slovenian Fonda Genealogy which provides a rich family history within that area.  This tends to support the above statement about the Genoa connection being less credible.

quoting Robert Fonda:
“Although there is no written evidence to prove that surname FONDA really came into existence in Piran, there is some statistic research which more than obviously shows that. Here I will mention three: the first was done by means of a telephone book and internet (Labo.net) for the year 2002; the second was done by the historian Darja Mihelič, Ph.D. in the book “Piran, mesto in ljudje pred sto leti” (Piran, the town and the people a hundred years ago) and deals with the years between 1889 and 1892; the third one represents the number of families FONDA in the area of Italy in 1945.”

“The research of the FONDA families today shows that it is quite centrally dispersed from the area of Piran (according to the migration of population in Piran after WW2) with the emphasized direction to the Italian speaking territory the “Italian line” – Piran belonged to Italy till WW2, most of the time to the Venetian republic. It is interesting that some other old Piran surnames of the Roman origin show the same way of dispersion. As the surname FONDA is only one branch that developed from the family tree of FUNDANI’s, I was interested to to know which surname nowadays would correspond to the main branch of the genealogy.”

“By means of the the same help I found an even more frequent surname FONDI which shows exactly the same dispersion as expected. With this one namely the Rome and its vicinity is emphasized as the main centre (the town FONDI is only a hundred kilometres to the south). This surname has two somewhat smaller and less important centres with denser population in the vicinity of Florence and Milan. Beside these two surnames I also found another: FONDACARO, which probably belongs to the same family tree, the dispersion of which in the area of Italy today is different. I broadened this statistical research based on the FONDA families in phone books to the whole of Europe. The results showed the existence of the “French-Spanish line” which frequently appears in the eastern Pyrenne (Pyrennees Orientales), the “American line” in the USA and the “Slovene line” with two centres, the first in Lokev (the Slovenian Karst), and the second in Latkova vas (the Savinja valley) and its surroundings. Later on I will focus on the branch from Lokev in detail as it is the one my family derives from.”

“The historian Darja Mihelič researched the weddings in Piran from 1 January 1889 till 31 December 1892 and within this period gathered enough data according to which one can make a valid statistical pattern. The results showed that surname FONDA was statistically most frequently mentioned in the wedding certificates (2,7% ).This surname was also most frequent in connection with the house numbers – it appears in 25 addresses (the processed data was one third of all the houses in Piran). Following the data from 1945 there lived in Piran as many as 67 FONDA families which means that it was the second just after the surname Ruzzier (70 families). In this time it was estimated that in Trieste there lived 40 and in other parts of Italy another 60 to 70 FONDA families. After the cancellation of the “Zone B” in 1954, most of the Piran families emigrated to Trieste. There are now more than 20% of all FONDA families living in Trieste.”

written by admin \\ tags: America, Arts, Fonda Family, Government, History, Holland, Italy, New York, References, Surnames