Help with some geneaology

[RipperNoob]

I'm trying to find all I can about my great grandfather but it seems to be very hard. He was born in 1883 in Italy, came to America around 1893 but returned to Italy sometime between 1893 and 1906, but then came back to America again in 1906 and came back again finally in 1907, and permanently settled here then, dying here in 1956. He never made any visits back to Italy as far as we can assertain. He had a brother who did, who traveled back and forth to Italy during the 1920s to visit his "parents and brother", which suggests my great grandfather had at least one other sibling.

A curious thing is: My great grandfather co-owned a "junk store" with his brother from the time he permanently settled here until sometime before 1930. They seem to have had a major falling out during his period, supposedly because his brother or his brother's children were involved in organized crime. In any case, in every record from 1907 to 1930, both are associated with the Junk Store, as of the 1920 census for example. By 1930, however, my great grandfather is working as a "Plumber's Helper." By 1942 he was unemployed according to his draft record. Of note is that my grandmother has said my grandfather NEVER spoke of his father's occupation--Not a word.

By 1920, he owned one house; By 1930 he owned three, the value of one of those houses was estimated at $15,000 in 1930. He also owned a radio set in 1930 and likely a car. Sometime during this period, he owned the 3 houses, plus a piece of property next door to one of his houses, along with 8 car garages which he rented out. He also rented out the front of one of his houses to a music store for extra income. By the time my grandparents were married in the late 1940s, he still owned all of this.

My questions are: How could an immigrant from Italy, who taught himself English in the newspaper, have come to own all this property between 1907 and 1930? Surely the Junk business wasn't that lucrative! It's possible he came from money, sure, but we don't know how big his junk business was, or the true nature of his falling out with his brother, or if his brother owned the business and he just let my great grandfather co-own it or what. All we have is hearsay.

I'm looking to try to learn about who my great grandfather was and how he came to be so successful, and who his parents might have been--the trail runs cold there.

Also: Does anyone know if Italy in between 1893 and 1907 required a passport to go to another country? My grandpa lived until 1956 and yet as far as I know there are only THREE photographs of him: One which is him with his wife and children from the 1930s and two from 1945. Yet he had three daughters and two sons.

There's probably wedding photos and the like somewhere with him in them and stuff, as he had money and there are quite a bit of pictures from the 1930s and 1940s so the family had cameras and wasn't camera shy, but my family is utterly dysfunctional and the one person who had the treasure trove of family photos (My aunt, who was raised by my great aunt. My great aunt lived with my great grandfather when he was older and thus had most of his posessions and most of the family photographs. She passed them on to my aunt, who threw them out due to a lack of sentimentlity). My aunt is now deceased and her children probably threw out whatever was left.

So, looking for official documents which would have photographs of him would be nice--As I'd love to see what he looked like when he was a younger man.

[mariab]

There are possibilities to research someone's financial records in the UK, esp. if you happen to know which bank your ancestors used.

Also: Does anyone know if Italy in between 1893 and 1907 required a passport to go to another country?
My grandpa lived until 1956 and yet as far as I know there are only THREE photographs of him. {...} So, looking for official documents which would have photographs of him would be nice--As I'd love to see what he looked like when he was a younger man.

I'm a specialist for late 18th century and up to the 1840s, but I can assure you that Italy featured a MONSTROUS bureaucracy. Before Italy's reunification, Italian citizens required a pass (sort of a visum) to travel short distances from one Italian region to the other, as in from Naples to Rome. Sometimes they had to wait for several days until the pass was done, whith consequences for their business affairs. There might have been bribe money involved for those who could afford it to speed up bureaucracy. I've seen lots of these Italian visums at the Archivio di Stato in Naples. They're huge rolled up pieces of thick paper and they DON'T include a physical description.

The introduction of rail travel in Europe from the mid 1830s on, with the unprecedented speed of trains and the abrupt increase of passengers crossing different borders, made enforcement of passport laws harder and apparently led to a relaxation of passport requirements in the late 19th century. But passports were still required to travel around Europe.
(Here it cracks me up that Wikipedia states completely erroneous information. Quote: “In the later part of the nineteenth century and up to World War I, passports were not required, on the whole, for travel within Europe, and crossing a border was straightforward.“ Wikipedia, article Passport. History. LOL.)
I haven't yet sighted passports from the 1880s/1890s, but I've conducted some research in French Police Archives for that period and I've noticed that police files which mention passports don't include physical descriptions. Thus I'm wondering if a passport included a detailed physical description apart from height and hair/eye color. Perhaps someone with more experience could clarify this? Chris Scott, Debra Arif, Rob Clack?
As for photos, photography was still a pricey endeavour in the 1890s, thus I very much doubt that European passports included pictures until much later in the 20th century. As far as I know, British passports started including photos around the 1920s.