52Ancestors Week 44: Challenging

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 44

The theme for Week 44 is "Challenging." Some ancestors are easy to research. Others, not so much. Who has been challenging to research? Another way you could approach the prompt is an ancestor who challenged something in their life.    

I don't think any mountain is more challenging than Mount Everest.

    It goes without saying that if you work on anything genealogical, you're going to find challenges along the way. Shows like "Who Do You Think You Are?" and "Finding Your Roots" make everything seem easy since the guest of the week is handed everything on a silver platter once genealogists have done the work for them. If only it was that easy! I've learned a long time ago that there are challenges that come with looking up someone. Records may not be available or there's some other issue. When you find a challenge on your genealogical adventure, you must find a way to overcome it.

    Lately, I've been trying to find out more information about my fourth great-grandfather, Francesco Coppola and his unknown wife. It's proven to be a bit more challenging than looking up information on the Gullos for a variety of reasons. The first being that "Coppola" is a common last name in all of Italy. It narrowly beats out "Tedesco" in terms of how common it is. And lucky me I've got both common Italian names in my family tree!! 

    I think we need to talk about how we got to this point in the first place before we can move forward. That way people can get a clearer understanding of what's going on. Plus, it'll help clear my head and possibly even help me gain some perspective.

    I first found out about Francesco when my friend Tricia went through the birth records in San Pietro a Maida from 1809 to 1861. She was helping me locate Coppolas since I knew my 2nd great-grandmother Caterina and her siblings were born there.

    She ended up finding a birth document for a Francesco Coppola who was born November 10th, 1860 to Giovanni Coppola and Angela Suverato. The gears in my head started turning so fast that smoke was coming out of my ears!

    By the late 1850s, it sort of became a custom in Italy to mention the grandfather of the child on birth records. For example, you might see something like "Giovanni Ferraiolo, figlio di Giuseppe" on some records. In this case, it was "Giovanni Coppola figlio di Francesco". And that's how I got the name "Francesco".

    Naturally, I heard the name "Giovanni Coppola" before. He was the man who ran a grocery store on High Street in Haverhill and was instrumental in bringing many people to Haverhill from San Pietro a Maida. Because of Italian naming conventions, I wondered if the Giovanni and Angela who had Francesco could have been Giovanni's parents. I went to Haverhill City Hall, got his death certificate and.....

La famiglia di Coppola

    His parents were indeed Giovanni Coppola and Angela Suverato! I was surprised more than anything. All this time I thought Giovanni was a brother to Caterina and the others. Whoops. I made changes to the tree as quick as possible! I do not like errors on the tree. Call me a perfectionist if you want. I don't care!

    Because of this discovery I was able to DNA confirm my great-aunt Nicolina all the way up to Francesco and his unknown wife.

    Now, you might be wondering "Chris! Aren't you making a wild assumption here? You said it yourself! "Coppola" is a very common last name!" Simmer down, guys. I know it sounds wild. But, here me out. Like the Astorinos and a few other Italian families, there was only one Coppola family in San Pietro a Maida. All of the Coppolas I've encountered seem to all connect to Francesco at the end. This conclusion was made through careful reasoning, DNA evidence and basic information given to me by various sources. There is no way around it. All the Coppolas who were in San Pietro after a certain point in time descended from Francesco and his unknown wife.

Pallarias

    The most recent evidence is the fact that my cousin Caterina told me that our cousin Melina's 2nd great-grandmother Maria Coppola was a double cousin of her grandmother, Caterina. This meant that Maria was Giovanni's sister as evidenced by a ship manifest and that her parents were also Giovanni Coppola and Angela Suverato.

    Whew. I really hope I am right. There is a lot of genealogical gymnastics going on in this week's blog. At least it seems plausible. I could be wrong. But, I doubt it. Not with the mountain of evidence I have. Having Mount Everest in this week's banner takes on a whole new meaning.

  

    There was only one Coppola family in San Pietro like I said and Francesco seemed to have three known children who'd go on to have large families. Their names were Giovanni, Caterina and Paolo and I have DNA matches who descend from all three of them. Who knows if there's more? Well, I'd have to check the records in San Pietro to find out for sure. 

    Okay. The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged. It's now time to see if I can dance. I have all of this evidence pointing to Francesco including stuff I didn't even talk about. How could I possibly get information about him? Well, there are a few ways I could go about cracking the case.

Who are you lady?!

    The first and most obvious way to go about it is to ask the good folks at the San Pietro commune office if they could lend me a hand. That's all well and good. But, they typically handle records from 1861 onwards. I wouldn't be able to ask them directly about my 4th great-grandparents. 

    So, what could I do? Well, I could ask about the following marriages:

1. The marriage of Paolo Coppola and Rosa Suverato.

Paolo's parents would have to be mentioned on the marriage document. The only problem is I have no idea when they were married. It had to have been before 1870 as that was when my 2nd great-grandmother was born.

    I could also ask for Giovanni Coppola's marriage to Angela as well. The thing is that with both of these marriages I might be better off asking the church for information rather than the city hall. I just wish I had an exact date.

    There are a bunch of other questions I could ask and if anyone has any suggestions, please sound off in the comments below. I'd be more than happy to hear what everyone has to say about this challenging situation. The birthdates for Francesco and his children are all hypothetical of course. I just really don't have a lot to go on. However, do know this:

    Three Italian siblings from who knows where came to San Pietro (Likely from a town nearby) and had large families. Those families ensured that the "Coppola" name existed in San Pietro a Maida to this very day. Several of those families had children and grandchildren who went to America. It would be nice if I could connect all of those families together by not just DNA but with names, dates and places. Who knows who this unknown lady and Francesco Coppola are and I intend to find out. The truth is out there. It's just a matter of asking the right questions. I just have to figure out what they are and who to ask. Any help would greatly be appreciated!

See ya next time!