52 Ancestors Week 18: Where there's a Will

Week 18's theme is "Where There's a Will." This can be a fun theme! Maybe the will you're thinking of is a legal document. (There are certainly some intriguing finds in wills, such as my ancestor who left money to provide for the education of his daughters.) Another way to approach it would be an ancestor who was strong-willed or tenacious. Could there be an ancestor named Will?

In brightest day.....

In brightest day. In blackest night. No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power--Green Lantern's light! 

In DC comics' lore, the Green Lantern Corps uses the color green to symbolize willpower. Other colors symbolize other parts of the emotional spectrum including anger, avarice, fear and hope. Being a Marvel fan, I've always respected DC's characters and the writers' expansion of the mythos. You still can't beat "with great power, there must  also come great responsibility", though. Need to give Stan "The Man" Lee some credit! What does any of this have to do with genealogy? Plenty if you REALLY think about it.

Came to America eleven years before GL debuted.

Our ancestors had to have had a certain amount of willpower to get them from point A to point B. Did they have a Green Lantern ring? No. However, you can't deny that you needed to have some sort of drive to cross vast oceans or move clear across the continent. Take my great-grandparents on my dad's side for example.

Vincenzo Ferraiolo, Maria Tedesco, Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione were all born in southern Italy. They all came to the United States and settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts without knowing the language. Why did they do it? What made them leave Italy?

Well, for starters Vincenzo had family living in Haverhill at the time of his arrival. His aunt and uncle lived there and most likely helped pay the way for their nephew to visit. He ended up going back to Italy to get married and returned a few years later with his wife and family.

You hear this story all over genealogical circles or even in casual conversations all the time. Someone has a friend or family member in another part of the world and they invite them from "the old country" to stay for a while. Sometimes even permanently. Sometimes it was only for a job. In Vincenzo's case, it seemed like he was visiting family and if you're Italian you know that "la famiglia" means everything to us. So, the Ferraiolos' willpower was based solely on familial connections from what I've learned. There could be more to the story. It probably doesn't involve cosmic powered trinkets.

The Carrabs clan!

In Giuseppe and Clementina's case, I'm not 100% sure why they left Italy and what drove them and literally their entire family to settle in Massachusetts. Giuseppe didn't travel alone. He left with his wife and young child. His brothers and sister left for Massachusetts, too, leaving his parents and the rest of his family behind. Clementina's brothers and sisters even came to America! What prompted such a mass exodus? Well, let's take a look.

According to various ship manifests, Giuseppe made several trips with his family from Italy to America. His last one was in 1913. The first world war started on July 28th, 1914. However, there were rumblings of war throughout Europe before the first shot was fired. Did the Carrabs family see the writing on the wall and decided to leave because of trouble in Europe? I'm not sure.

We do know that both he and Vincenzo served the United States during the war.  Did he want to leave and help liberate Italy from a threat? It is something to think about and probably something I should look into.

In any case, plenty of our ancestors have the same story. Willpower drives us to do certain things. Do we take the bus or drive to work? Do we do this or that? The drive is there in all of us. In the end, I definitely have the willpower to seek the answers I am looking for in my research. I've even got a Green Lantern ring. =) So, I got that going for me!!

So much nerd cred this week. See ya next time!