(While this is a Carnival of Genealogy post, it can also double as a part of Craig Manson's theme of "Greatest Genealogical Find Ever")
I've found a number of new cousins in the US over the course of my short genealogy career - almost 6 years now. Most of these were also pursuing their family histories, and since we were looking for many of the same surnames on the various genealogy websites, it's not too surprising we got into contact. The most exciting discovery I had, however, happened almost completely by chance and involved a 61 year old letter posted on my simple family history site and Google. I'd like to say it was my expert research skills that located the descendants of my grandmother's sister in the small town of Pedace ( located a little below the ankle of the Italian boot). The reality is someone else (not even related to me) started the sequence of events that lead to what I consider my greatest genealogy discovery.
In early December 2004 I received an email from a man in Canada who said he may be able to help me with the Italian side of my family...if I wanted it. Every other person who contacted me about a common surname was a fellow genealogy fanatic, but this man was different - he just wanted to help and didn't ask for anything in return. He told me he immigrated with his family from Pedace, Italy to Canada about 28 years prior. As we all do sometimes, he was playing around with Google using his town name as a search term and eventually found and clicked on the link to my family history website. As he went through the pages of the site, and came to a letter written to my grandmother (Marietta Rota) by her sister (Raffaella Rota) and nephew in March of 1947, he got excited because he saw a name he recognized.
The name he saw was Luigi Morano and he recognized it because he remembered a man by that name in Pedace who worked for the electric company reading meters. My Canadian friend was convinced the family he knew in Pedace were my relatives and offered to call his Aunt who lived close to one of Luigi's daughters and have her go talk to the family for me and get contact information. This all happened within a two day period and was moving very fast for me. While I also suspected these people were descendants of my grandmother's sister, I asked that a story about Luigi in the letter be passed to my potential cousins to see if they recognized it.
I think the letter on my website was written by Luigi for his mother because the handwriting appears the same throughout. The last paragraph is directly from him to my grandparents. It's a very touching paragraph because Luigi sounds so sad as he's describing the last decade of his life. After giving greetings to his uncle, aunt and cousins, he says "...my beautiful youth has been taken away...[it was wasted as a soldier} from 1938-1946 but I'm happy I'm alive after these eight years but in the last three I spent in prison in Russia and think awhile about how much I have suffered." Apparently Luigi served in the Italian Army on the Russian front during World War II, was captured by the Russians in 1943, and suffered unthinkable conditions for three years. When this fact was mentioned to Luigi's daughter she recognized it and mentioned that when he came home in 1946 he weighed less than 100 pounds and only survived because he had some skills working with metal in a forge. I was convinced.
This began an exchange of letters with my new found cousin Maria and an exchange of many emails with Maria's daughter Gabriella who is fluent in English. To top all of this off, Gabriella got married during the summer of 2006 and she and her new husband spent their honeymoon in the US including a short visit with me and my family. This is truly my greatest genealogy discovery. I now have an avenue to learn more about my grandmother's family that stayed behind in Italy, and also have some very warm and welcoming relatives I could visit if I ever get going and plan a trip.
(By the way - this is my 400th post)
