52 Ancestors Week 14: Begins with a Vowel

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 14

The theme for Week 14 is "Begins with a Vowel." Chances are there is someone in your family tree whose name begins with a vowel... or lived in a place that begins with a vowel...  or had an occupation that begins with a vowel....  You get the idea ;-) Have fun with this week's prompt!

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   When you look at the first thirty people in my family tree, you'll find that only a few of my ancestors have names that begin with a vowel. My grandmother Olympia, my great-grandfathers Alfred and Austin and my 2nd great-grandfathers, Antonio, Eugene and Antoine all have names that start with vowels. Six out of thirty ancestors isn't bad, right? Trust me I've got more of them further back in the tree! Hang on a second. Do my eyes deceive me? Do I see "Anthony" written in two different languages on my family tree? Yes, yes I do! Isn't that an interesting coincidence? It's amazing how that worked out. They have the same name and yet they are clearly very two different people from very different backgrounds.

    For starters Antonio was born in the Calabrian town of San Pietro a Maida in the 1870s to laborers Tommaso Tedesco and Angela Gatto. Since they were born in the 1850s like Antoine was, you would think he'd have more in common with them than Antonio. I mean Antonio was a good twenty-five years younger than Antoine was. That's a whole generation!! If there wasn't a language barrier, I wonder what they'd even talk about. Wine, Chris. They'd talk about wine. What else would they talk about? Pre-unification Italy? The establishment of Canada as a country? Both events did occur within their lifetimes!

    When Antonio was born, Antoine was already married to Lucie Cadran and their daughter Lucy Legault was about a year old. In a few short years, the family would end up in a town where the Industrial Revolution was about to transform a town on the banks of the Merrimack river into a shoe producing powerhouse.

    Sadly, Antione didn't live to see many of the changes that took place in Haverhill since he passed away in 1901. In that same year, Antonio's daughter Maria had celebrated her first birthday. While she ulimately ended up in Haverhill, the two Antonys would never meet.

    The more I think about it, it seems interesting how both men had a city vs country vibe going on because Antonio lived in a farming community whereas Antoine came from a town sixy-seven kilmoters outside of Montréal to Haverhill. Since both men come from completely different backgrounds, do you think they have any similarities at all? Yes, they do! And I'm not just talking about their names.

    One similiarity both men have is that they were both very hard working. Even though one man worked in a factory to support his wife and children and the other worked as a farmer, you can't tell me that they didn't value hard work. Skilled labor was in high demand during the time in which they lived and I'm sure they could have ranted for hours about how much money they made and of course their bosses. Who doesn't like ranting about their boss from time to time, right? They probably had a thing or two to say about child labor practices, too.

 Another similarity that both men have is that their home towns were both known for their agritculture. Rigaud, as Antoine's hometown is now called, was well-known for its dairy production. Obviously, they weren't growing olive trees.

    Still, both men were likely no stranger to the hard work farmers had to endure. I bet they'd have a lot to talk about in regards to when to grow crops and everything. Canadian winters can be brutal. Just imagine how it was during their lifetimes! Wow.

Regards from Rigaud!

    Both San Pietro a Maida and Rigaud are fairly close to large bodies of water. So, I imagine both men were quite familiar with fishing even though the climates are incredibly different from one another.

    Another way Antoine and Antonio are similar to each other is that they had many children and they themselves came from two very large families. 

    The church also likely played a huge role in their lives and that faith carried Antoine from his hometown to Haverhill where he would spend the rest of his life. Antonio on the other hand seemed to have spent his days in San Pietro as he passed away in 1969.

    If I looked hard enough, I bet I could find even more similarities between Antonio and Antoine. I still think it's a remarkable coincidence that I have two second great-grandfathers who have the same name but in different languages. I think you could probably chalk this up to how my family tree is set up. One half is all Italian and the other half is mostly French-Canadian. I was bound to have similar names at one point, right? It's still cool to think about and I do wonder what kind of conversation they would have had once the language barrier was lifted.

See ya next time!

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