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Hi, my family has been starting genealogy research for about 10 years, but we come up stumped when we get to my father's grandfather. The story goes that he was born to a merchant family based out of Genoa, Italy in 1862. He left Italy in the following 15 to 25 years as he'd been orphaned a few years before with his father lost at sea and his mother dying heartbroken a short time after that. As the story goes he went to live with his aunt and uncle in a contentious house where his uncle was a philanderer and his aunt bickered a lot and he was caught in the middle. He leave Italy soon after that and so I would assume he was young as he signed onto a ship as a cabin boy (supposedly with a captain that knew/worked with his family). Upon reaching New York he jumped ship or just stayed, I don't know. He was horrified to see the image that Italians were being represented as so he changed his name to appear less Italian, so he is known to us only as Adolph Merizan. It was passed on in family tradition that he simply dropped the "O" off his name and if you add it back to both the first and surname it sounds very Italian. However, it would appear that this last name isn't used. So, now I'm stuck trying to figure out what his name really was. The story goes that he came to the US and claimed he'd been born in international waters near Argentina so as to avoid issue with immigration people, I've learned he had at least 1 sister that moved to England and married. And recently I heard his mother may have been French or French/Swiss. My purpose is to seek help in finding ways to search for any background information as I'm still a newbie in understanding how to research family surnames.