Lessons Learned from My 3 Trips to the Old Country

Each time I visit my ancestors' hometowns in Italy, I get a bit more adventurous.

Trip #1

Trip #1 to Grandpa's hometown.

In 2003 my husband and I went on our honeymoon. We planned a trip to quite a few of the most famous sites in Italy, from north (Lake Como) to south (Sorrento). I'd only just begun digging into my family history.

While staying at a cliffside hotel in Sorrento, home of limoncello, we took a day trip to the city of Benevento. Benevento is the province where every one of my ancestors (save one) came from.

We arrived in Benevento without a real plan. But we found out we could take a bus to my grandfather's hometown of Colle Sannita. So we hopped on.

During the ride, we learned the last bus back to the Benevento train station was leaving 45 minutes after our arrival. The bus was filled with college students who were all trying to be helpful. Some suggested we stay in the beautiful hotel in Colle Sannita called Ca' del Ré.

But all our stuff was in the hotel in Sorrento. So we resigned ourselves to a quick walk through town, and we headed back to the bus. We missed that bus because we got trapped in a bank that was in the midst of a power outage. I've written that improbable tale elsewhere.

The bottom line is, I got only a taste of my roots.

Trip #2

Two years later we planned a second trip to Italy. I'd made contact with a cousin in New York whose sisters still lived in Grandpa's hometown of Colle Sannita. We worked out the details so they were expecting my arrival.

Trip #2 to where Grandpa actually lived.

My beautiful cousins made me feel like royalty. One cousin brought me from house to house, meeting dozens of cousins along the way. She translated for me when I couldn't understand or find the words. I kept hearing her say "due anni fa", meaning "two years ago". She told everyone how I'd tried to visit the town two years ago, but didn't know where my cousins lived.

The last person we visited that night was my grandfather's first cousin Libera. She wanted me to visit her daughter and two grandchildren the next day. Each one owned a restaurant in the city of Benevento. We met them and spent another entire day being treated with love and generosity.

That's the dream, right? To go to your ancestor's hometown, meet all the relatives, share stories and feel like you belong to the family. It was heaven.

Trip #3

Trip #3, soaking in Grandpa's hometown

Earlier this month my husband and I took another Italian vacation. This one centered on my ancestors' hometowns in the Benevento province. We spent three nights in the very same Ca' del Ré (House of the King) hotel the students on the bus recommended in 2003. I'd learned on trip #2 that the owner is the relative of my cousin's husband. Small world. Or perhaps small town.

We visited my cousins with the restaurants again and had a lovely time. We visited my cousin's home and talked about their grandparents—my great grandparents. We walked through the heart of town. The very same streets I'd looked at on Google Street View time and time again came to life beneath my feet.

Now, on the third try, I've seen it. I've gotten a glimpse of my life if my grandfathers and half of my great grandparents hadn't come to America.

You know what? I liked what I saw.

I wouldn't have the same career, maintaining corporate websites from home with my high-speed internet connection. But I would be there among ancient Roman relics, homes that dated back hundreds of years, and a breathtaking countryside.

If you can make the journey to any of your ancestors' hometowns in the "old country", be sure to slow down. Walk through the center of town and observe the people. Say hello to them. You may find they're more friendly and courteous to strangers than you're used to at home.

I'm already thinking about what trip #4 might be like. My goal? To stay longer. To live there for two or three months at a time. To become a familiar face in the piazza. To honor my ancestors.

You may also enjoy:

• Taking a Do-It-Yourself Genealogy Vacation, Part 1
• Do-It-Yourself Genealogy Vacation, Part 2
• Finding Relatives in Your Ancestral Hometown's Cemetery

Finding Relatives in Your Ancestral Hometown's Cemetery

The entrance to the cemetery in my grandfather's
Italian hometown.

I've twice visited the cemeteries in my ancestral hometowns in Italy. In 2005 I visited three towns and photographed each grave that had a last name from my family tree.

Over time, I learned the identities of just about every person whose grave I photographed. Some were closely related, like my grandmother's first cousin Vincenzo. Others were more distant relatives, but they have a place in my tree.

I learned exactly who most of them were from other relatives. For instance, my mom's cousin knew grandmother's first cousin Vincenzo. She had photos of him and his family.

Two weeks ago I visited the cemetery in Colle Sannita for the first time, and two other towns for a second time.

You can't go to an Italian cemetery and find graves from the 1700s the way you can in America. Be sure to research the burial customs in the country you'll be visiting. They may condense remains into a single family grave. They will remove those who died a long time ago.

The first thing I noticed on my second trip to one cemetery was this reuse of graves. I remembered there was a Leone family grave on the left wall, so I went straight to it. The names and photos of the husband and wife who were in that grave in 2005 were now placed to the left of the marble slab. A baby who was in his own grave in 2005 was now placed to the right of the marble slab. And in the center of this single grave was a newly deceased Leone relative.

I visited the Colle Sannita cemetery on the day before I was to visit my cousins. I found their father in one grave, their brother somewhere else, and their mother in a third location. My cousins were waiting for the cemetery to say their parents could placed together with their brother. "But the cemetery never called," my cousin told me.

If you have the chance to visit a cemetery where your ancestors lived, you may also find that it has changed over time. Some people will have moved, and others will be gone.

I don't know you now, Angela. But I will find you.
Was Innocenzo your husband?

My task now, having taken so many new photographs of graves, is to try to identify as many people as possible. Thanks to the Antenati website, I have thousands of birth records from my ancestral hometowns on my computer.

The plan is to find birth records for the deceased and learn who their parents were. Finding their parents may be enough to place the person in my family tree.

I took many photos while thinking, "This person is too young. I probably can't find out who their parents were." But, as time goes by, I may someday learn who they were.

I adore my family names. Each and every one is special and beautiful to me. Pausing to look at the photos on their graves, I did feel as if I were paying my respects to a beloved family member.

If you ever have the chance to visit a cemetery containing one or more of your relatives, look around. Especially if the cemetery is in a small town. Find other names you recognize and do a bit of research.

A dedication to my relative, Michelina Leone.

One of my 2005 grave photos was for Michelina Leone. I didn't know who she was. A couple of years later, while corresponding with a distant cousin, I learned how important Michelina was to my family.

When my grandfather's sister Eva died from an accidental poisoning, her cousin Michelina stepped in and raised Eva's young sons. Two weeks ago, in a church my Leone family hometown, I found a plaque dedicating a church pew to Michelina Leone.

Now I knew she was someone important to me.

And that's how I feel about everyone in my ancestral hometown cemeteries. They're all important to me.

AndYou may also enjoy:

• Taking a Do-It-Yourself Genealogy Vacation, Part 1
• Do-It-Yourself Genealogy Vacation, Part 2
• How to Prepare for Your Visit to Your Ancestor's Hometown

Do-It-Yourself Genealogy Vacation, Part 2

Mapping Out Your Genealogy Vacation

My map collection for my
grandfather's hometown.

For days before my recent trip to Italy, I saved locations to my collection of places on Google Maps. Now I can access them from my iPhone, too.

I created a folder for each of my ancestral hometowns I planned to visit. I pinpointed churches, cemeteries, our hotels and a handful of addresses I'd found on my ancestors' vital records. For remote locations, I used the longitude and latitude coordinates.

I planned to locate homes where my grandfathers and great grandparents were born or died. In case I didn't have Wi-Fi (I didn't) and was afraid of blowing through my data (I was), I also had a printout of a map.

On the map are addresses and facts with arrows pointing to the locations. I used one map to ask some locals where a particular street was. They were so kind, one man began asking anyone nearby if they remembered a family named Iammucci. We all had a laugh when they learned my great grandmother died in 1929. Of course they didn't remember her name!

The other map helped me walk around another town and find the places (mostly rubble) where members of my father's family were born.

How Our Rural Ancestors Gave Birth

Some of the facts I'd learned from my ancestors' Italian birth records confused me. Why was my grandfather born at one address in town, and his sister born at another address in town, when his real house was not in the town? They knocked down his house, damaged by an earthquake, in 1964 or so. It stood on the land where some of my cousins live today, well outside of town.

My cousin Maria explained it to me. Back in the day, my Iamarino family owned a little house in town—not much more than one room. They lived out in the countryside, but when my great grandmother was about to give birth, she'd go to the house in town.

It took a mule and a cart to get to town, and town is where the midwife (levatrice) lived. So, to be near the midwife, my great grandmother would have waited at the house in town until she was ready to give birth.

That explains a lot. That's how my countryside-living relatives could bring the newborn baby to the mayor's office without killing the baby!

Walking where my ancestors were born and died.

I will no longer add the address of a baby's birth as the residence of the parents in my family tree. It may very well not be their residence.

When I visited my dad's first cousins on May 13, they pulled out a plot plan—the type you might see for new construction here in America. It showed the locations of many houses that are no longer standing. They surrounded the house where we were gathered.

My great grandparents raised their four children in one house. Straight across the street was the home of my great grandmother Libera's sister. It was also the home of my great grandfather Francesco's brother. You see, Libera's sister had married Francesco's brother.

This cluster of houses was a contrada—a group of homes, often rural, given a nickname instead of a modern-day street address. I had thought a contrada was named for a particular family, but in my family's case, it was simply a nickname.

Please keep this story in mind if your family documents show addresses that don't seem to make sense.

You may also enjoy:

• Taking a Do-It-Yourself Genealogy Vacation, Part 1
• Finding Relatives in Your Ancestral Hometown's Cemetery
• How to Prepare for Your Visit to Your Ancestor's Hometown