Finding Family
At the outset of this trip, I had a vision of connecting with my family’s roots and any remaining distant relatives we might have in Sicily, where both my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother’s parents came from. What I didn’t expect to find was new family members spread across the globe.
We planned almost a full month in Sicily, where we were excited to visit Bivona, just north of Agrigento to see where my paternal grandfather’s mother and family lived until 1920, when the immigrated to the United States. We also made plans to visit Sortino, in the Syracuse region of eastern Sicily where my maternal grandfather, orphaned at age 7 lived before leaving for the promise of a better life in America. He left behind his pregnant wife, who would follow in 1910 with their eldest son, only two years old.
Unfortunately, our time in Sicily was cut short by the untimely passing of my Uncle Rodger, my father’s younger brother and so my parents, brother and I all flew back to the US, leaving Ben and the kids to fend for themselves during a month of rain and hurricane like conditions. When we returned, we only had a few days left in Sicily and so we made the decision to meet distant cousins my mother had connected with through a fortunate series of events starting with an Ancestry.com test and a tenacious set of cousins in Australia. More on them later, but their work, led us to meeting sisters Margaret and Lucy, who took us to the home my great grandfather grew up in (now a garage) and introduced us to their husbands and children. Born and raised in Australia, they had moved back to Sortino in the 80s.
We had a wonderful time meeting relatives who had a deeper insight into why and when the family left Sicily and had memories of and connections to my great grandfather that even my mother was not aware of. We learned that we had a huge set of distant cousins in Australia and hoped that the country would lift its COVID travel restrictions and open up to tourists in time for us to visit during the second part of our trip.
Lucky for us, that did happen and we had a fantastic time over two full days connecting with Belinda, Connie, and Daniela. Connie and Daniela were actually the two who first started the chain of events that led to our meeting. After learning through ancestary.com that they were a match with a woman in CT, they started reaching out on Facebook. I’ll admit that I ignored the initial outreach, it kind of seemed like a scam and so I never responded to Connie’s email. Luckily, my mother and my godmother Roberta did respond and through many back and forth conversations and the sharing of pictures, we confirmed that the cousins in Australia were children and grandchildren of my great grandfather’s sister. A sister that my mother never knew existed. Besides connecting with Connie, Daniela and Belinda, three women who I had a blast being with, I loved seeing our kids all play and have fun together.
Ultimately, the highlight was spending a day at Connie’s parents home eating, drinking, talking, and hearing stories about my great grandfather and the cards, clothes, and gifts he’d send back to them all when they were in Sicily. Whether my grandmother ever knew her father was doing this is a mystery. She lived with him till her early 30s when she married my grandfather, so I have to believe she knew. But somehow, like the Italian language, these stories were not passed down and we knew nothing about his surviving sister in Sicily or her children who moved to Australia.
Sadly, my mom had to head back to the states before we made it to Australia, so we definitely have a plan to return with her.
Once we left Australia, I thought our chance to connect with family – known or unknown – was behind us. However, as we set our sights on Peru, my mother reminded me that my Aunt Carmen was from Peru. She is the mother of my two older cousins Angela and Andrea, who I adore and have looked up to my whole life. Though Carmen and my uncle divorced when they were young, she and my cousins lived close by in our hometown of Newington, CT and I have fond memories of Christmas eves at her home – full of life, laughter, music, and delicious food. It never occurred to me that she had left a whole family behind in Peru. In fact, she had left a daughter there, who she visited every four years or so throughout her life. Luckily, my cousins have stayed connected to their half-sister and let her know that we would be in Lima, Peru and would love to meet her if possible. Carmen’s daughter, Patricia, responded immediately and was so welcoming and excited to meet us as well. We had given her only a couple of days notice and within in a day or two we had plans to meet for breakfast on a Friday and then to spend Sunday afternoon together with her son and daughter, who would be off work and available. Despite her limited English and my limited Spanish (luckily Ben was a good translator for both of us), we were able to converse and share two lovely meals together in her beautiful city. I really hope to return, maybe with my cousins Angela and Andrea, or with my mother and father, to Lima and to reconnect with Patricia and her family.
This year of travel has been a blessing in so many ways. For me, the chance to connect with my roots and meet family around the world has been so rewarding. To know the stories of those who left their homeland for the promise of more somewhere else is one thing, but to also know the stories and meet ancestors of those who stayed behind and continued to make a life for themselves in their birthplace, is incredibly powerful. Both took risks, encountered challenges, and experienced joy and sorrow. What has endured though and what is core to the fabric of my family on both my mother and father’s side is a love for good food (in overwhelming quantities), loud conversations, and family, regardless of how thin the connection may be. Once there is a glimmer of a link, you are welcomed in with open arms. This has been my experience in Sicily, Australia, and in Peru.
I am sure we have more family out there; my dad’s mom’s roots are in England and Scotland and we will be there in July, so maybe there is more family yet to discover on this trip. I hope so. And I hope the invitations we’ve extended to all our newly discovered family are accepted and we get to welcome them in the US and show them the same incredible hospitality and generosity we’ve received.
