Family Roots, Part 2

In July, I blogged about finding documentation of my kids' great-grandparents' marriage (in 1895) when we were on Salina, Italy.

On Saturday, we enjoyed the next stage of all of the family research: we hosted a Cusolito family reunion. Everyone who attended the party was a descendant (or a spouse) of my husband's grandparents (with 2 exceptions I'll describe later). The total number invited was 111, though roughly 85 attended. Many of us have never met each other or have seen each other so infrequently that we don't remember each others' names. Spending time together under the same tent, looking at photos, sharing stories, and debating who really was "Gram's Favorite" was wonderful, despite the pouring rain.

My daughter w/ Carolyn's Family Tree

My Father-In-Law created a 13 foot family tree that listed every family member from his parents on down. It's quite impressive! What really blew us away, however, was when Carolyn Cusolito Tavares and her husband arrived with the tree she created. This huge tree was made possible when we secured the records from Salina and thereby confirmed that she is related to us. Without making this too complicated by using a bunch of names, her great, great-grandfather was the brother of my Father-in-law's, great-grandfather. Can you imagine? Now that Carolyn combined our family trees, we have names and dates going back to 1811.

None of this would have happened without lots of hard work and research by Carolyn, my Father-In-law, and others. But one detail I also hold onto is that the final puzzle pieces were put together after we visited the family's homeland. Travel opens up whole new worlds no matter where you go, but this particular trip to Salina opened up our family.

One aside, especially for my readers whose families were formed through adoption: The Cusolito family tree includes families created through adoption. Each of these family members are listed among the families created through birth. Our tree is not only a "biological" tree. The way I look at it is this.... if not for the marriage of Lorenzo and Maria Guiseppa back on Salina in 1895, none of these families would exist. Our family grew from the love of those two people and so on down the line. I've talked about it often with my friend Alison (of They're All My Own). She feels the same way- she feels 100 percent a part of her parent's family tree even though they are not related by biology. That said, family tree assignments in schools can be hurtful and each family needs to find their own way when it comes to family trees and adoption. One metaphor you might consider is a family tree created through "grafting." Grafting is a process by which the branch of one fruit tree is attached to the branch of a different variety of fruit. My parents have a Bosc pear tree that grows Asian pears on the one grafted branch. I love this image.

Related Posts:
Family Roots
Adoption Intensity

Family Roots

Malfa, Salina (Sicily)

Seven members of my family crammed into the tiny office at the Municipal building in Malfa, a village on the Island of Salina, off Sicily. The woman at the desk didn't speak English and we don't speak Italian, but that didn't stop us from finding what we were seeking. She opened the giant ledger and flipped through the pages until ...there it was. We looked at each other aghast, smiling. My sister-in-law said, "I have goosebumps!" "Me, too," was my reply.

What had we found? The official record of my husband's great-grandparents' marriage in 1895. My kid's great, great-grandparents! We had planned our trip to that little island having no idea if we were even in the right place. My Father-in-law had pieced together bits of information from his genealogical research with the bits of memories of things his parents had told him when he was young. But we settled on Salina as the place to start looking without any certainty about the location. And there we were, after a five minute interaction with the clerk, with the document in front of us!

This trip was years in the making and had, in fact, been postponed last summer when we realized we needed to plan better for the cost. But it was important to us, so we figured out how to make it work.

My husband's great-grandparents immigrated to the US from the island of Salina, which is now part of Italy. My Father-in-law has always wanted to see where his grandparents were from. My husband, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and I did, too, so we embarked on a three generation vacation to walk in his ancestors' footsteps.

San Lorenzo Church

When we boarded the ferry to Salina, we had no idea what we would discover. We just knew we wanted to see the island (we thought) they had left behind when they came to America. Of course, we'd also spend time together as a family and do some sight-seeing. The fact that we located the marriage documents so easily was amazing. We also visited the church where they were married and secured copies of the church record of their marriage and their proof of baptism. We were amazed by how quick and easy everything was. If not for the pesky language barrier, we would have had the church documents in even less time. Luckily, a kind American college student working in Malfa for the summer helped translate for us.

On the ferry ride to Salina, another passenger had told us the island is "magical." I thought that was a lovely way to describe it. I won't say that finding these documents was magical, but it sure was wonderful. And our desire to trace family roots brought us to a place that is lovely indeed.