52 Ancestors Week 38: On the Map

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 38's theme is "On the Map." Location is key for our research. What is a discovery you've made using a map? Any ancestors found a town? What about a family who lived in a town with a strange or funny name?

Wow. You can really tell the difference between Campania and Calabria on this banner!

I really liked maps when I was a kid. Just out of sheer boredom I would draw maps of the United States. Most of the time they were never to scale. Nevada would be gigantic and the New England states would be a little off in terms of size. Keep in mind I was like eight years old and did not have a steady hand. I've talked about this in a blog I wrote last year. I've even created maps of alien worlds for my webcomic. Sufficed it to say, I really enjoyed cartography and I still do! Then came the Internet!

Every once in a while I'll check out Google Earth and see what I could find half way around the world. Far away places always fascinated me. It wasn't because I wanted to get away or anything. No, it was more curiosity. When I started doing genealogy again, I put my love of maps to good use by finding and locating the towns where my Italian ancestors were born. These would be the towns of San Pietro a Maida for my grandfather and his parents and Gesualdo for my great-grandparents, Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione.

Gesualdo and surrounding communities.

A year ago I wrote a blog about how to use Google Earth to walk around your ancestral town from the comfort of your own home. Passports aren't required. Check the blog out here! This year, I decided to do things a little differently!

We're going to be taking a closer look at the surrounding towns because nine times out of ten, you will have connections to the surrounding communities, especially if your family came from Italy.

During your research, you might find an atto di matrimonio or marriage act which may or may not say if someone is from another town. Usually the bride is married in her hometown and the groom's family is within walking distance of her town. This is known in genealogy circles as "courting distance" and it can be applied to just about any situation. Not just Italy. For example, if you have an ancestor who was born in say Boston in the 1600s, he or she may have issues courting someone in New York City. It's a lot easier to do it nowadays, sure. But, in the 1600s, you are going to be riding that horse a LONG time! She'd better be worth it.

Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione

Back to Gesualdo. When I found Giuseppe and Clementina's atto di matrimonio, it stated that the groom's father, Vincenzo Carrabs, was from "this commune" meaning Gesualdo. His mother, Maria Giovanna Capobianco, was stated to be from nearby Frigento. If you look at the map, you'll see that it's a town a little over four kilometres away from Gesualdo. That's well within courting distance!

Using this information, you can then look up Maria's family in Frigento and for the most part her tree is firmly in that town except for a couple people who came from nearby Rocca San Felice.

For Clementina things get a little interesting. She was born in Gesualdo. Her father, Felice Forgione, was also born there. However, her mother, Maria Luigia Penta, has ties to another town not too far from Gesualdo. That town is called Grottaminarda and it's a little over ten kilometres away. This isn't too bad, right? The courting distances all make sense. The happy couples meet, fall in love and have large (Really large.) families.

It's not uncommon for people from various nearby towns to marry one another. From the Grottaminarda Pentas I then found ties to nearby Mirabella Eclano. The same situation is likely to occur elsewhere in the world. This is just one example. That isn't to say endogamus relationships won't occur. They might. You never know unless you do the research. Based on one marriage document, though, you could hold the key to finding connections to not just one Italian town. It's just easier for me to say "I have ancestors from Gesualdo" and that's true since Giuseppe and Clementina were born there.

San Pietro a Maida and surrounding towns.

From Campania we head down south to Calabria. I will be the first to admit that I am not sure if I have connections to the towns surrounding San Pietro a Maida. I might! I'm just not sure. My great-grandparents, Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco were born in San Pietro and so were their parents. Vincenzo's tree seems to be in San Pietro for centuries and so does Maria's. However, there's still a lot more that needs to be discovered.

Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco

DNA matches for my great-aunt point to people who have families in the surrounding communities of Maida and Jacurso. That's a bit of a smoking gun isn't it? Sadly, my tree for her isn't complete and I don't know for sure if I have connections to those towns. I might. It's definitely possible when you consider my grandma Ollie's tree!

My 2x great-grandmother, Domenica Gullo, is currently a brick wall and for all I know she could have ties to the town of Curinga. That's another town near San Pietro. Anything is possible and what I need to do is find a smoking gun that says this person is from Maida or some other nearby town. To do that, I would need an atto di matrimonio or some other document. Perhaps I will find it some day!

For now, I'll still say that I have family from San Pietro and Gesualdo because that's true. Everyone came together to those towns and I would honestly love to visit them. Just remember that there's always more than meets the eye when it comes to family being from one town. Chances are very good that you'll have surrounding communities in your tree as well as long as they are within courting distance.

Look at a map and put the town your ancestors are from in the center. Then look at the surrounding towns. You might find a connection or two in those places. So, always keep that in mind when you're doing research! The family may not all come from San Pietro or Gesualdo as you thought. Family could be everywhere!

See ya next time!

Images of Google Earth are property of Google Earth.