A Quest Completed!

Don’t we all love a good mystery? I think that’s why I love family history so much! It’s a quest for me, where the journey is as much fun as reaching the goal.

My bisnonno in his Italian Army 
uniform, c. 1897

What was my recent quest? It was finally finding the military records for my great-grandfather (bisnonno) Emanuele Antonio Mazziotti!! If you’ve read my other blogs, you know he is a constant feature, since his early life is a big mystery to me. He was orphaned by his family by being “left on a wheel” in Villa San Giovanni as a day old infant and family lore has him shipped off to Switzerland and raised by nuns until he became a foster child of the Bellantoni family in Scilla, Italy. My daughter found his birth record in 1876 after searching tirelessly page by page through Antenati (the incredible site for the best town birth, death, and marriage records) Villa San Giovanni records. Supposedly Grace Bova (Bellantoni) favored him over her own sons so he left to fight in Africa with the French Foreign Legion. Well, that was the story. What have I learned? I know that he came to America in 1900 according to his ship manifest, but what happened to him between 1876 and 1900 remained a mystery. So off on a quest I went!

Scilla, Italy
October 2023

My Quest
A few weeks ago, I went to Scilla, Italy to search for his past!! It was a surreal experience because I lived for a week with a genetic cousin (we don’t actually know how we are related, but we share 26 cM of DNA!), Carolina, who hosted me and another cousin, Cas, for the week at her home. Googletranslate worked wonderfully for us and Carolina was incredibly valuable to me as I plotted my adventure to search out my family’s history. The trip was absolutely amazing and I have so much to process and share, but here I will just talk about my quest to secure my bisnonno’s military records. (A colleague of mine directed me to military uniforms several years ago, where I learned that his uniform was NOT French foreign legion and it WAS Italian Army.)

Prior to Going

In preparation for this trip, I chose to take a course offered through the Family Tree University called "Find Your Italian Ancestors". It was a good course and I would recommend it, although I do have some serious critiques (such as some of the lessons have not been updated and some references to websites and resources are seriously outdated). The instructor for the course is Melanie D. Holtz, who encourages you to purchase her book The Family Tree Italian Genealogy Guide. I do highly recommend this book if you have Italian family research, I appreciate that it includes both instructions on how to locate records in Italy and also sample template correspondence. I used these sample templates when I wrote to the Archivo di Stato in Reggio Calabria to understand their policies on making appointments and requesting information.

 

Archivo di Stato di Reggio Calabria

Cas and I took the 20-minute train to Reggio Calabria from Scilla and back for less than 6 Euros! The archives was about a 25 minute walk from the train station and surprisingly was tucked up on a hill in a fairly residential area. I was one of 5 researchers in the Reading Room and the only one who didn’t speak fluent Italian. Although the head archivist was not excited to help me and treated me much like I had read about—(in other words, she found my request burdensome)–the younger female workers tried very hard to help me.

I FOUND IT!!

And it is filled with wonderful information that I'm still processing. It is officially called his Fasciolo Matricolare, which are his personal military records. It includes a description of his physical features, like his hair and eye color were described as chestnut and his skin color was tanned and he was 1.645 meters tall (64.8 inches). It was not suprising that his father was listed as "Ignoti" (unknown) but his mother was listed as Grazio Bova ("nutrice"--which is nurse)!!

I’ve been reading a book, Sacrificed for Honor: Italian Infant Abandonment and the Politics of Reproductive Control (1993) by Brown University professor David I. Kertzer. In 1863, the highest rate of abandonment was in southern Italy, specifically in Sicily and Calabria (where my bisnonno was raised). The rates of abandonment were over 5% of newborns and the mortality rate was over 50%! Women from the communities were paid to be wetnurses for the babies and those babies who weren't matched were less likely to survive. I'm really glad that my bisnonno was among the lucky ones to be matched with a wetnurse and to survive!  

This suggests that Grazia (Grace) was his wetnurse and chances are that he was raised in the home along side their other children and he was with them until he served his required military service in the Italian Army. The document provides the accounting of where and when he served and what he did. So, Where did he serve? Africa!!

So, like most family lore…some is true…and some is not! And it was a LOT of fun figuring out which is what!