Meet Cugino Pippo!
Also known as: Ancestry Day
April 7
One of the website’s I came across while planning this trip had a great section on family ancestry. Turns out Sicily has the BEST ancestry records of any country in the world. It claimed that most countries can go back to the mid 1700s – Sicily to the early 1600s and in many cases, earlier than that.
I found this lady named Rosy Bartolotta and she does these ancestry field trips for clients. Basically, she does research on the family using any information you have and then sets up a day taking you through the famiglia town. I was interested and called Dad to tell him about it – and kind of extorted the $400 fee out of him!
I sent Rosy a big old summary of the family history, as I know it. She was interested in the children born in American and asked for all their names and birthdates. Apparently, Italian immigrants used to send this info back home to complete the very thorough history that they keep on everyone. Unfortunately, I never found any evidence that this happened with our family.
Rosy and her husband, Michele (Michael), pick me up bright & early and our first stop is to hit the City Hall and the Department of Birth Records. (Let me pause here to tell you that Rosy is originally from Detroit, an American and has been living in Sicily {outside Palermo} for 38 years. Her husband, Michele, is Sicilian and while he doesn’t speak English, he understands all of it! These two are like the Bickersons – kind of a common theme that I’ve observed in Sicilian relationships. The woman nags and then thehusband snaps back and then he just does what his wife says anyway. It’s their way and it works!)
Senora Ventimiglia at birth records knows we’re coming, as Rosy has both written to her & called her to let her know we are coming. She has already pulled birth certificates for both Antonino & Calogera using the birthdates that I sent. While I already have Antonino’s from my parents trip to Sciacca 20+ years ago, the one for Calogera is new & kind of a gold mine! First piece of news, her father was Accursio Sclafani and her mother was Francesca Sabella. Exciting for Dad to hear – as he now knows we’re related to the Sabella’s – which he’s always heard but never knew any details. Mystery solved there.
Rosy asks to see “the books” so we go to the back. VERY COOL BOOKS! These are OLD – and include details (rich, long, documented details) about the birth of every child. They describe the parents: how old they were at birth, where they lived when the baby was born, their occupations, their parents (baby’s grandparents) and other cool stuff. They write the name of the baby and its birthdate in themargin and fill in the details in the big column. When someone gets married and/or dies, the margin is updated with the spouse & date of marriage info AND date & place of death. I saw these books and both Antonino & Calogera’s margins only showed births – no other details – apparently that’s what you find when people immigrated . . the trail kind of goes cold.
BUT – and this is a big but – these details answered a whole bunch of questions and give us a whole bunch of information that we haven’t had up to this point.
So – here’s what I found out!
Antonino . . born to Vincenzo Graffeo & Accursia Fauci. Vincenzo was 32 years old and Accursia was 30 years old when he was born. Puts them born about 1840 & 1842 respectively. Vincenzo was a fisherman and so was his father. Vincenzo’s father: Calogero Graffeo. Accursia’s father was Antonino Fauci; by the way, he was a fisherman too! We’d have to pull Vincenzo & Accursia’s birth records to find out their mothers – but we’ve got a confirmed generation back! And more details to go on for the next generation back if we want to go there.
Calogera . . born to Accursio Sclafani & Francesca Sabella. Accursio was 48 years old and Francesca was 37 years old when she was born – quite old in those days – and more than guarantees that Calogera had many brothers & sisters. She was probably a “whoops” baby! I’m taking some poetic license here 😊. Puts them born about 1825 & 1836 respectively. Accursio’s father was Calogero and Francesca’s father was Stefano. Again, another generation back confirmed – and we could go another by pulling some birth records to get the mothers.
Get this – all these men were fishermen TOO!!! Confirmed – fishing came down in the blood to my grandfather, Vincent Sr. and Carl & Tony’s dad (Vincent’s brother) Augutus (aka Cuci) from many generations back.
Interesting to see so many Calogero(a) and Accursio(a) names throughout the family tree. And Pippo (see other Sciacca posts for reference) says that Augusto was “Americanized” for Accursio.
But here’s what may be the most interesting find! Vincenzo & Calogera were born & lived on the SAME STREET – and it’s a small street – I’ve been there multiple times! The locals call this section of town the the “Fisherman’s Area” and you can wind down little streets to the wharf in about 5 minutes. Antonino’s family lived in 17 Vicolo San Lorenzo and Calogera’s family lived in 11 Vicolo San Lorenzo. These families knew each other, they fished together, their kids would have played together. Antonino & Calogera KNEW EACH OTHER before they came to America. This is new, NEWS . . we always thought they had met in San Francisco – but it’s clear that’s not the case.
This of course, opens up a lot of new questions. Like why did each of them leave Sicily (even though everyone over here claims that everyone was leaving) there may be more to it – if you want to speculate.
Rosy says it’s very interesting that Antonino would marry Calogera because she already had a child – and that just WASN’T done. There is no record of Calogera ever being married, so was this baby illegitimate? Family lore is that she was married to a man that died and had the baby with him (we know he exists, he was my Dad’s Uncle Red and he came into the country on his mom’s immigration record under the name Ignazio Marino). We did some searching under Marino & Marinello and the names Ignazio & Emilio (the name he used in the States) and could find NO birth record for him in 1898, 1899, 1900 or 1901. (Strangely, his death and naturalization records show different birthdates, both which would make him about 2 or 3 years old at immigration but the immigration record lists him as a 10 month old baby upon entry). Strange indeed. We never did look for him as Ignazio Sclafani, which would have been how he was listed if he was born illegitimately – so that could lead us to a real answer. Matters not – we will probably never have that answer.
What is interesting is a couple of things. Family lore says that Calogera kept a picture of Red’s father on the mantle her whole life & that she called this man the love of her life. Did she leave to get away from scandal? Was this man already married? Also interesting that is Antonino & Calogera knew each other – could their families have arranged this marriage? Antonino was already in the States and maybe Calogera was sent to him. Maybe they met in New York and moved to San Francisco to start anew. Maybe Antonino was just a nice guy and wanted to help out an old friend. Maybe living in the new world would erase any worries about what people thought. Again, matters not – chances are we will never know. But . . it’s interesting to think about.
A couple of years ago, we found out that there’s a lot of scandal in my Mom’s father’s family. It was fun & interesting to learn, but left us with lots of unanswered questions. And while we knew about some of the family scandals in my Dad’s father’s generation, it’s interesting to see that there were probably some doozies in the previous generation as well. Sad to know . . . we’ll never know.
Rosy’s request for the names of brothers & sisters gets Senora Ventimiglia riled up and we’re turned away. Books slammed shut!
We head out on our tour of the city. First up, the “mother church” – a grand place in the center of town that Rosy claims all children would have been baptized at. I took a picture of the altar – quite grand! We swing by Vicolo San Lorenzo, a little tiny street not far from the waterfront. Michele takes my picture in front of the street sign and Rosy & I walk down to check out the addresses. Antonino’s #17 is clearly there and I snapped a couple of pics for you. #11 – Calogera’s place is missing. I see a renovation in motion that looks to be two places brought together and decide that must have been it since the numbers around it work. **Note: On a subsequent visit, I realize #11 has been combined with #13 into a little B&B. There’s a church that’s locked up right by the B&B called “Ex Chiesa San Lorenzo” – the church of San Lorenzo – and I’m sure IT IS where the kids were baptized!
Next stop – the harbor. I need Rosy to be able to communicate with the fisherman and ask them questions for me. They are more than obliging. When they find out that I come from Graffeo & Sclafani roots, they send someone to “get a Sclafani” – he comes back & talks fast Sicilian for about 15 minutes. Turns out there are still lots of Sclafani’s in the fishing industry, but they are out fishing right now. I should come back about 3:30 or 4:00 because I look exactly like someone that’s on this boat that will come in to this spot later today. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it back and missed that opportunity. No matter, this was great fun and I enjoyed getting pictures with the helpful chaps!
Rosy wants to take me to a couple of tourist attractions – the thermal baths, the church of San Calogero (way up on the hill) and this museum that has cool statues (it was closed). I want to go to the cemetery – so we go. **Getting to the cemetery is a story in itself. Suffice to say, we probably stopped and asked directions 8 times. When I asked Michele why he didn’t just put it into the GPS, he said in Sicilian “because my wife will get mad at me” and Rosy translates for me . . Michele smiles & rolls his eyes!
The “clerk” at the cemetery just rolls his eyes & waves his hand when Rosy asks if there are any Graffeo’s or Sclafani’s buried there. It’s as if he’s saying, “Yeah right – where else would they all be?” I ask if I can just wander for a while and Rosy says, “take all the time you need”. I try to go into Amy mode – talking to Calogera / Linda / Nonna and asking for her to guide me in. Then I start talking to the whole family, saying “show me where they are” and I continue to walk up & down rows. I see LOTS of Graffeo’s and even more Sclafani’s – but they are all the wrong time period – too current. Finally, I come to this very large cement slab and realize it’s a crypt. (Rosy’s told me that Sicilian’s don’t like to be buried under the ground which is why all the crypts are above ground – even the single graves look like sarcophagi {Scott – that is one of those weird plurals for words that end in S – gotta use the I that you like so much!!}. This is the burial place for six members of the Fauci Family and I’m sure I’ve found the grave of Antonino’s maternal family. Unfortunately, as I return to the car, I realize that I found Accursio Fauci, the male version of the name, when what I thought I had found was Accursia Fauci, his mother. Darn!
A few minutes later, Michele is calling loudly to me to come to where he’s standing. I thought they were ready to leave, but instead, Rosy says “I think I’ve found the baby’s father”. Now, I should mention that Rosy has been kind of obsessed with “finding that baby” since our search for Uncle Red’s birth certificate has turned up nothing. So, when she finds a grave for Ignazio Marino, born the year after Calogero (1874), she is over the moon. There’s a picture, clear as day, and she asks me if Red looked like him. Well, I’ve maybe seen Red’s picture once or twice and certainly don’t remember what he looks like, so I’ll have to send it to my parents. I don’t have internet and they are asleep, so it will have to wait. Cemetery visit is over!
We’re driving around town and come across the Graffeo Palace but can’t pull over so Michele goes up a couple of blocks & stops traffic while I get out, run back & snap a few shots. After that we decide to get some lunch and they ask me what I like. I say I eat anything and Rosy says she has this restaurant that they love here in Sciacca (actually she had pointed it out earlier when we went to City Hall) but says it’s gotten expensive. I say that I don’t mind, if they want to go there, let’s go. We do and when the menu comes, she says again, how expensive this place has gotten. I decide I’m buying lunch either way. I order a salad and risotto and they order a pasta dish to share. And then she mentions that they know the owner but that she’s sure he’s not here at lunch time. About that time, the owner notices them and comes over to say hello. He greets them & then me- and Rosy tells him I don’t really speak Italian and that I’m looking for my family. He asks the name and she tells him Graffeo & Sclafani. He says he knows a Graffeo and calls him on the phone. They get to talking and it turns out that he just might be related because he knows Vicolo San Lorenzo, his grandfather lived on that street. We ask if he can come over and I’ll buy him lunch – but he’s out of town today and can’t. He asks where I’m staying and says he’ll come by to meet me at 10:30am the next morning. Bingo – we may have a hit!
The restaurant owner mentions that this Graffeo guy really doesn’t speak English, so I’m a little concerned that we won’t get very far, as is Rosy. She says a few times, maybe we should come back tomorrow. I say, I would love that and if I pay for their gas, she’ll come. I ask if 50 Euro will do it – and it works, they come back the next morning. And that’s how we found cousin, Pippo!
The next morning, Guiseppe Graffeo walks into the lobby of the B&B and I get goose bumps. I know he’s family, he reminds me so much of my grandfather and his brother Cuci. He’s got my Dad’s smile & his friendliness and he’s so excited to meet me. He begins talking so fast, with lots of facts, and Rosy is working hard to translate . . even Michele has gotten into the act and is translating some stuff to English for me (seems he can speak English when he wants to!). Pippo’s looking at the family tree we’ve drawn with all the new information we got yesterday and draws his own branch on the picture. He’s pretty sure his grandfather, Accursio, was Antonino’s brother which would put him on the same generational level as my Dad. I never did ask how old he is, but I’d put Pippo at late 60s, early 70s, and my Dad was born to the oldest son of Antonino & Calogera – so very possible they ARE of the same generation.
He asks for my contact info and we take a few pictures. He’s smiling and hugging me and giving me those famous air-kisses and I’m so excited that we may have found a real family connection – one of the main reasons I made this trip.
Within an hour, I have a wonderful email from him – all in Italian – so I plug it into Google Translator only to find that he’s set up this meeting for Monday with the Minister of Culture and they will help me further with the search.
Wonderful, sweet messages continue for the next couple of days and he gets into the Google Translator mode and we’re sending real messages back & forth. One says – “you have the smile, the joy of the GRAFFEO family”. Another sends hugs to all my beautiful family and “hopes I will return one day so he can introduce me to the history, the art, the beauty of our city Sciacca”. A dear man for sure!
Just for the record and according to Pippo . . . Graffeo’s are Greek, originally from Pratanna (province of Trapani), SHORT, very smart, important and ARTISTIC! The ones that went to America did well for themselves and the fisherman that stayed are no longer poor!
Finding Guiseppe (Pippo) Graffeo, PRICELESS!
Meeting Rosy & Michele . . worth every bit of that $400, Dad!!
