Discovering my Italian genealogy in Sicily

My heritage has fascinated me since I was old enough to remember. As a young girl, I remember unrolling the family tree on my mother’s side of the family and spending hours examining the names. For a school project, I spent time interviewing each of my living grandparents about their lives growing up in America in the 1930s and 40s. I was even lucky enough to take a trip to northern Italy as a teenager, where I met distant cousins on my mother’s side. They invited us to their home for a true, authentic Italian dinner – my first taste of the warmth and welcome of Italian hospitality. I quickly fell in love with learning about my Italian genealogy.

Yet I was still yearning to uncover my father’s side of the family. More than ten years later, I had the opportunity to do just that. I found myself in Terrasini, Sicily, a small, coastal town on the northwestern edge of Sicily, also the hometown of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Francesco and Concetta Pellerito.

I made the journey knowing I’d be the first in our family to have ever voyaged back to Terrasini in over 100 years. I came prepared with a handwritten family tree that went as far back as my great-great grandparents, but no farther. What would I find there? Could I actually spontaneously meet people in a café or on the street who might be distantly related to me?

I had a few ideas on how to start and where to go once I arrived in Sicily. First, I was lucky to have my great-grandfather’s exact birth date, which meant I could try tracking down his birth certificate at a government office. Second, I had already done some online research. I randomly searched my last name on Google Maps, and believe it or not, found out that there’s a shop called “Cartolibreria S.Pellerito” in Terrasini. Third, if there wasn’t a chance of finding any living relatives, at least I might be able to search the graveyard for the headstones of my great-great grandparents or other cousins. That might lead me to connect the dots and possibly be able to expand the family tree with more information.

We started at the Cartolibreria shop, which sold toys, stationary and other goodies. I was so lucky to have Jule’s mom, Maryann, there to help translate between English and Italian. Maryann explained to the store owner what we were doing and asked if she might be able to help us find any living Pellerito’s from my family tree. As it turns out, the store owner is actually a Pellerito herself – but she explained to us that her family is from the neighboring town, Cinisi. No luck there, but nonetheless, it was a very exciting moment. My surname isn’t very common in the States, and looking up at a sign with my last name on it was thrilling.

The owner of the store suggested we find a woman who worked at the local market because she was a Pellerito from Terrasini. Minutes later, we were at the market down the street, and we found her! That’s how small of a town like Terrasini is – everyone knows everyone – a concept that’s unusual to me coming from a city like Los Angeles, where I might know hundreds of people but never cross paths with any of them, even once.

The woman at the market looked over the names in my family tree, but shook her head. She didn’t recognize any of the names, and we even asked what her grandparents’ names were, just to be sure. No luck.

Undeterred, our next stop was the cemetery a couple days later. A man who worked at the office there pointed us in the direction of the gravestones that might have held my great-grandparents’ names. If I had known their exact years of passing, I think it would have narrowed it down even further – that’s how all the stones seemed to be organized.

Vitale, Maniaci, Pellerito… just a few surnames that made my heart skip a beat every time I spotted one, and they were everywhere. You would think I would be sad to be in a cemetery, but it was hard to be. At no point in my life have I seen so many names in one place that I identify with. No cemetery in the US would ever have such a collection of beautiful names like these that all end in vowels, and I was surrounded by them.

Not only that, but nearly almost every stone had a photo of the person it memorialized. How cool is that? When I discovered Pietro Pellerito’s headstone and looked at his photo, the resemblance to my dad was unmistakable!

Did I end up finding my great-grandparents’ graves? Unfortunately, no, but I did find one relative’s headstone there, whose name matched up with my family tree exactly. At the time, I had taken a step back and went to the car to look at the names on the family tree. Suddenly, I connected the dots. I’d taken a photo of a headstone that perfectly matched the name of my great-grandfather’s older sister, Grace. I ran back into the cemetery for a second look, needing a moment to absorb the significance of this discovery.

By that time, we had to hurry over to the government office where I could find my grandfather’s birth certificate before it closed for the afternoon. We learned through asking the locals at the cemetery that the best place to track down Italian birth, marriage and death records is at an office called Ufficiale dell’anagrafe.

We walked in, and no less than five minutes later, the woman there was pulling out a book of handwritten records dating to 1879. She found my grandfather’s name right away, and there it was – another thread of proof! All day, I’d been walking around the same streets, looking at the same buildings and breathing the same ocean air that my ancestors once did, so many years ago.

When my great-great grandparents left Terrasini, they left behind their parents, siblings, and friends. They never had the opportunity to return once they left for America. Can you image how difficult it must have been to say goodbye? How could they ever imagine someone from the Pellerito family would return someday? I wish they were here to show me where they lived and share all their stories.

To be honest, it was really emotional! It’s ironic, actually, that I’m an American and yet I’m constantly yearning to be in Italy. Their decision to immigrate to the US has blessed me in so many ways I’m sure I’m unaware of. Even still, I love Italy so much that I wish I could live there!

What is it about finding our roots that is so enriching? Maybe it’s about establishing an identity and understanding who we are today. By looking at the past and where we come from, we can envision the direction we want our lives to take in the future.

Have you ever visited the town where your ancestors are from? Please leave a comment or reach out through email at jen@jenontherun.com – I’d love to learn from your experiences! Interested in more posts from my Italy trip? Check out this one about our night in Naples.