52 Ancestors Week 45: Multiple

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 45:

The theme for Week 45 is “Multiple.” Any twins or triplets in the family? What about someone with multiple names? Or, thinking a bit more creatively, what about a math teacher?

I still say this banner looks like a painting.

    When you work on your family tree chances are you're going to find someone with multiple spouses, twins and multiple siblings. I have them all! My 2nd great-grandmother Gertrude Stevens  had three spouses: Wilfred Felker, Walter Senter and Charles Berry. Her mother Evaline was a twin and sadly her twin brother didn't survive to adulthood. If he did, you can bet I'd be writing about him. Alas poor Edward Fisher. We'll never know if you were the evil twin or not. For more on Gertrude and her story, check out this blog from 2021.

    This week I've decided to take a look at someone who had multiple children and I have quite a few of them. Pun intended. I come from a mixed Italian and French-Canadian family. Large families come with the territory and getting every single one of the children in the same tree (let alone the same room) is a lot like herding cats. With that in mind, let me pick a couple of ancestors at random and let's talk about their many children.

Vincenzo Carrabis, looking like
Alfred Pennyworth.

    Vincenzo Carrabs and Maria Giovanna Capobianco are a couple of ancestors of mine who I don't really discuss that often in the blog.  I'm sure I have mentioned their children on more than one occasion. However, I don't really know as much about them as people as I'd have liked. I know more about my other Italian second great-grandparents and what they were like. Vincenzo and Maria on the other hand are a complete mystery to me. All I have are their pictures and sometimes pictures aren't enough.

    That isn't to say I don't know anything about them. I know they were both born in Gesualdo, Italy and that they got married in October 1880 in the Campanian town of Frigento. A cousin of mine did a lot of work researching the family and they had many children together. Not just the ones who went to America.

    Vincenzo and Maria ended up having nine children together and as far as I can tell only one of them died young. His name was Pasquale Antonio and had a younger brother who shared his name. It's a common practice in Italy to name a child after a sibling who unfortunately died young.

    

    As far as I can tell, Vincenzo and Maria's other children all lived exceptional lives. I only know of the four that ended up in America. My great-grandfather Giuseppe, his brothers Rocco and Pasquale and their sister Rosina sailed across the Atlantic in the early 1900s along with a few other Carrabis cousins who ended up near Worcester, Mass. If you've heard about the story where three brothers go to America, you might think that was a made up story. In my case it's true. Giuseppe went to Haverhill, Mass and the others ended up in Everett and Melrose. Sometimes those farfetched stories are true!

    The other children are a bit of a mystery to me. Angiola was born in 1881 and married a man named Francesco Pascucci and they had three children between 1907 and 1914. Maria Antonia was born in 1883 and passed away in 1904. Michele was born in 1885 and not much is currently out there about him. Raffaele was born in 1899 and he married Eugenia Finamore in 1921. I wish I knew more about what happened to the children who got married. I might have cousins still living in the Gesualdo area! You never know!

Rocco on the far left and Pasquale on the far right.

    I admit it's a dream of mine to come into contact with cousins living in Gesualdo, Frigento and Grottaminarda. I have cousins in San Pietro a Maida. It stands to reason that I have cousins in Gesualdo! Seems logical.

    Anyway, of all the Carrabis kids who lived in America Rocco was the one who had the most children. He and his wife Caterina d'Avino had eleven children between 1913 and 1934. To list them all would probably require a whole new blog and I have a feeling this blog will go on for quite a while

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    To sum up many of Rocco's children had descendants who took DNA tests and I DNA confirmed six of the children on WikiTree. Many of the grandchildren have told me about how Rocco never spoke English and how he always made Italian ices for them. My father confirmed the stories as Rocco and his family would visit his grandfather Giuseppe in Haverhill many times. He was also an accomplished architect and built the houses on Windsor street in Melrose. Those houses still stand today!

    While Rocco and Caterina had their hands full with their children, Giuseppe and his wife Clementina had six children including my grandmother Olympia. I hope someone is making note of all of this. There'll be a quiz later.

    Pasquale and his wife Raffaela had four children and lived in nearby Everett and like Rocco's family they visited Giuseppe in Haverhill on many occasions. It's safe to say that the Carrabs brothers were very close to one another and it makes sense given how they were all strangers in a strange land. 

    Curiously, the odd one out of all the Carrabis siblings is Rosina. To date, I do not have a single picture of her. She lived near Pasquale in Everett and yet I've never seen a picture of her. It's so weird.

    This isn't to say I don't know anything about Rosina. I do. I know she got married twice. She married Antonio Pascucci in 1913 and Vincenzo d'Avino in 1923. Last year, I wrote a blog about how the family sort of lost touch with hers after she passed away in the early 1960s. She had one child with Antonio who died young and two with her second husband. Those two children had pretty big families as far as I can tell. I would love to get in touch with them. Maybe they have a picture of her! Dare to dream, Chris. Dare to dream. Maybe they'll show up as DNA matches on Ancestry! Fingers and toes are crossed.

    As you can see from this week's blog Italian families often have multiple children. Sometimes those kids share the same name. Sometimes people lose touch with one another. It's an unfortunate part of life. It tends to happen when you have large families. Keeping track of everyone is a full-time job and thankfully I have my online trees documenting everyone. I hope that those trees entice people to contact me because I'd love to know more about the Carrabis family. I'd especially would love to talk to descendants of Rosina and descendants of Vincenzo and Maria who are still living in Gesualdo. One way or another, I want to get the band back together! Dare to dream!!

See ya next time!