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In Search of Family
By Joseph Laiacona
My first visit to Sicily (Feb 13 to Feb 27, 2003) in search of past
and present family has been a resounding success and the vacation of
a lifetime. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that my extended family
--- mostly made of second and third generation cousins --- would receive
me with such kind hospitality and generosity. Strangers, too, went out
of their way to aid me.
Before I go too far in my story let me note the basis facts of my
trip. I flew from Chicago to Rome where I met my friend Donna who had
agreed to accompany me and act as an interpreter, since she speaks Italian
and I don't. After a night's rest in Rome we took the train to Caltagirone,
Sicily, my father's family's ancestral home. We had intended to take
the night train from Rome in order to have a day to sightsee, but a
labor strike by the Italian railway workers meant that the night train
had been cancelled and we had to leave earlier. We therefore had a pleasant
ride down the boot to Italy and a splendid view of the Mediterranean,
mountains, countryside, and cities. By nightfall we arrived at the ferry
crossing to Messina, where our train moved on to the ferry and brought
us to the "island in the sea of light."
An hour later my second cousin Concetta and her daughter Romina met
us in Caltagirone and we rode for an hour through the mountains to the
city of my paternal grandparents' birth.
We remained there from Saturday night until Friday when we went by
car back to Catania and thence by train to Termini-Imerese, arriving
in my mother's ancestral city in the early evening. From then until
Tuesday was spent with newly found relatives and in the cemetery, library,
and archives, until we took the night train to Naples, arriving at 6
am Wednesday morning.
Then we became tourists, visiting the ruins of Pompeii, after which
we visited the National Archeological Museum in Naples. From there we
took the train back to Rome, stayed over, and flew home the next morning.
For our first evening in Caltagirone, Romina and her parents (Salvatore
and Concetta) hosted us with a light dinner and we shared both photos
of our ancestors and birth certificates our mutual predecessors, as
Concetta's grandmother was an elder sister to my grandfather Nicolo.
While in Caltagirone we stayed at a small but very nice hotel called
Il Carneade, which was only a few minute's walk from the municipal plaza
and my cousins' home.
The bells of San Giacomo, patron saint of Caltagirone, woke me the next
morning and shortly thereafter Romina arrived to bring us to the "cimitero."
While there we were unable to find any records or family plots that
were linked to my family, though my family names appeared on tombstones
here and there.
The cemetery record books only went back to 1900 and weren't in the
best of shape. The custodian advised us to come back the next day when
we could do a better search. During our tour of the cemetery, Concetta
remembered the location of Vincenza LaIacona's grave, her grandmother's
cousin, a link to a possible unknown brother to my grandfather.
We returned to Concetta's home for dinner and were visited by Concetta's
brother Vittorio and his wife Grazia, as well has my father's cousin's
wife Angela Formica.
On Monday morning we went to the municipal building with a long list
of questions, only to get a bureaucratic run around. Donna noticed a
counter sign that mentioned emigration and talked with a helpful clerk
who called his supervisor who invited us into his office. After filling
out a proper letter, he promised to send me photocopies of some of what
I wanted. A feeble start but a start, nonetheless.
After another Italian dinner we returned to the cemetery to search for
records of my father's two oldest brothers, Salvatore and Michele, both
of whom my grandmother had said had died as infants in Sicily before
they emigrated. While I sought for a death record (line by line) for
my great-grandfather Michele Formica (who was supposed to have died
around 1916), Donna and Romina searched the records from 1905-1910 looking
for my uncles, Sal and Michele.
After about an hour's search they found the entry of Salvatore's burial,
age 5 months and 10 days, thereby confirming my grandmother's story.
Though we had found the records of the burial, it was marked "bambino"
indicating that the body had been interred in an un-marked common grave,
a usual practice for infants and the final resting place of those removed
from "abandoned" graves.
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Michele
Angela
Gian
