Revised June 2003

"Un altra specialità modicana sono i "nucatoli," biscotti di pasta tenera racchiudente un composto di fichi secchi, frutta candita, miele, mandorle, neci, cannella e conservadi di cedro; la parola ‘nucatola’ dariva dall’arabo naqal=frutta secca."

(See the text for the English translation.)

Barbara N. Pisarro
3 Blind Brook Road
Westport, CT 06880-2909

Copyright 1987, 1996, 2003 Barbara Nucatola Pisarro

This version has been edited for publication on the World Wide Web. The complete version will be available to family members only. For more information, please contact the author.

Although every effort has been made to validate the information included herein, neither accuracy nor completeness can be guaranteed.

Please help me to keep the Nucatola Family Tree up to date. I may be reached by mail at the above address, by telephone at (203) 222-7667, or via the Internet at: http://pisarro.org/sendemail.php?for=barbara.

Introduction

Genealogy has been my hobby for more than two decades. My first collection of information, The Nucatola Family Tree, was written in 1987. At that time I knew that there was still much more research to be done in my quest for the Nucatola family history. In 1994 I contacted the Palermo archives requesting the birth certificate of my great-grandfather, Giovanni Nucatola. They sent two birth certificates, each of a different Giovanni Nucatola. Who was the second Giovanni Nucatola? How did he Þt into the family? These questions led me to revise The Nucatola Family Tree.

Later in 1994 I contacted the Nucatolas in the Palermo telephone directory. One couple, Francesco Nucatola and his wife, Anna Provenzani, pursued the investigation in the Palermo archives. They discovered the proof that all of us Nucatolas in America and Palermo are related. In fact, we are all descendants of the same couple.

In 2003 all of the new information I’ve received from family members and the Internet has prompted me to revise the Nucatola Family Tree once more.

Acknowledgments 2003

I am especially grateful to Theresa Nucatola Ursino, to the late Johanna Nucatola Punzi, to Tom Nucatola, to Francesco Nucatola and Anna Provenzani, and to Nick Pisarro for their help in making the 1996 edition of The Nucatola Family Tree possible.

In 2003 I want to make special mention of Regina McCarthy Stewart and Joan D’Antoni Ferraro for their friendship, their encouragement and their helpfulness. Also, I am grateful for the Internet, which has enabled me to do as much research in the past four years as I did in the previous twenty. In addition, many thanks to the volunteers who put the Ellis Island records on line.

Author’s Notes

The numbers preceding names in the text are generation numbers. All dates are listed as "day–month–year." Throughout the text, women are listed with their birth surnames, except in introductory pages.

Palermo’s Very Colorful History

Twenty thousand years ago, Paleolithic people lived on Mount Pellegrino, on the outskirts of Palermo, Sicily. Their artwork can still be seen on the walls of the caves there. Paleolithic hunters were followed by Neolithic farmers.

When sailors from Phoenicia, now Lebanon, arrived in what is now Palermo in 900 BC, they found inhabitants called Siculi (Sikels), who were a strong, civilized people, probably Iberians who had come from Spain in the Bronze Age. The Phoenicians sailed around Sicily to establish Carthage, which is now Tunis, North Africa.

In 800 BC, Greek settlers arrived. The Greeks and Sikels combined their talents for farming and trade, and welcomed intermarriages. The Greeks made a major impact on the island forever by grafting cuttings from their olive trees onto the trees in Sicily, starting the olive oil industry. The Greeks and Carthaginians sometimes traded peacefully while at other times they were at war with each other. By 250 BC, Carthage was battling with Rome for supremacy. The battles, called the Punic Wars, were won by Rome. The Romans exploited the natural resources of Sicily and made slaves of its inhabitants.

In the 5th century AD, the Roman empire was conquered by Goths (Germanics) and Vandals. They in turn were conquered by Byzantines from Constantinople. In 827 AD, the Saracens (Arabs) arrived. Unlike the destructive Romans, they came to colonize. Under Arab rule, Palermo ßourished, becoming one of the great centers of art, scholarship, and agriculture in Europe. The Arabs introduced cotton, lemons, oranges, date palms, melons, sugarcane, rice, mulberry trees and silkworms, all of which ßourished in the Sicilian soil with Arabic irrigation techniques. The Þrst paper mill in Europe was built in Palermo. Religious and ethnic tolerance was enjoyed there by the Arabs, Greeks, Latins, Jews, Persians, Muslims, Slavs, Lombards and Africans.

In 1069, Roger of Hauteville, a Frenchman from Normandy who was returning from the Crusades, took control of Sicily; Roger allowed the Sicilians to follow their own religions and laws. Roger’s son, Roger II, was crowned King of Sicily in 1130. His court at Palermo was the most brilliant in Europe, and his reign was the Golden Age of Art and Science in Palermo. Roger led the Byzantines, Arabs, and Normans in peaceful coexistence.

When Roger’s grandson, William II, died in 1194, the crown was claimed by Emperor Henry VI of Swabia (now Bavaria, Germany). The courts of Henry’s son, King Frederick II, drawing on Islamic, Jewish, and Christian cultures, were famous in Europe for education and reÞnement.

In 1268, the pope named Charles of Anjou (France) king of Sicily. Charles brought religious persecution and high taxes, making him extremely unpopular.

All the history books speak of Rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers, Easter Monday, 1282. A French ofÞcer insulted a Sicilian bride in church on Easter Sunday by insisting upon searching her for concealed weapons. Beginning at the sound of the vespers bell on Easter Monday, the townsmen executed every Frenchman in Palermo. Every other town in Sicily did the same. After eliminating the French, the Sicilians asked Peter of Aragon, Spain, to be their king, because his wife Constance was a descendant of their beloved ruler, Frederick II. After that, Sicily was ruled by Spain for four centuries. Those four hundred years were the Mediterranean Dark Age, dominated by Inquisition (elimination of non-Catholics by deportation or death), political and religious corruption, and slavery. Because of international marriages in the royal families, Sicily eventually came under the control of Naples, itself controlled by Spain.

Napoleon’s attempt to invade Sicily failed. Then revolution broke out in 1848. Garibaldi led the overthrow of foreign powers, and in 1860, Sicily became part of uniÞed Italy. Sicily’s inhabitants had been invaded by, conquered by, and/or blended with at least fourteen groups of foreign peoples before they could be called Italians!

20,000 BC Paleolithic People

4000 BC Neolithic People

1000 BC Siculi (Sikels)

900 BC Phoenicians

800 BC Greeks

800 BC Carthaginians

300 BC Romans

410 AD Goths

440 AD Vandals

600 AD Byzantines

827 AD Saracens (Arabs)

1069     French (Normans)

1194     Bavarians

1286     French (Angevins)

1292     Spanish

1750     Neapolitans

1860     …Italians!

Modern Palermo contains features of all of its conquerors. It has Greek temples, theaters, and fortresses, Roman bridges and aqueducts, Saracen mosques, houses, and towers, and Norman churches, castles, and palaces. Palermo is the capital and chief seaport of Sicily, at the head of a wide bay, on the edge of a fertile plain, bounded by hills.

In Palermo there was an area near the docks called "Il Borgo," meaning "the borough," or "village." Now it’s called "Il Borgo Vecchio," "The Old Village." This is the part of Palermo in which the name Nucatola was heard circa 1800.

Italian Surnames

After the Crusades, the population in Europe had increased so much that it became necessary to identify people by both a first name and a family name or surname. When surnames Þrst came into use, they usually came from four sources. The Þrst source was lineage. In English we use the name Johnson to mean "son of John". In Italian, "son of John" is expressed as DiGiovanni, "son of Luke" as DeLuca, and so on. The Italian language also has less formal ways of expressing "son of", such as Nicoletti for "Little Nick", or Carlucci for "Little Carlo". Because so many cousins were named for the same grandfathers, these diminutives or nicknames helped to distinguish cousins who had the same first name. Also, within a family, the grandfather would use the formal name, such as Nicola or Carlo, while his grandson would use a diminutive, like Nicoletti or Carlucci.

The second source of surnames was from physical characteristics. The name Bianco, meaning "white," could have been given to a fair skinned man, and Barbarossa to a red bearded one. One of the most descriptive surnames of our extended family is Zampardi, meaning "scratched by an animal’s claw".

The third surname source was location of residence. In ancient times, wooden signs were posted along roadsides, containing carved pictures to help travelers, most of whom could not read, to Þnd their way. Then, for instance, the name Lupo would have been given to someone who dwelled near the sign of the wolf. Others were given the name of their town, city, or country, such as Genovese meaning "from Genoa", or Albanese meaning "from Albania".

The fourth source of surnames was from one’s occupation. For example, people named Ferraro, a name that has many spelling variations, would have had an ancestor who worked with iron, called a smith in English. In our extended family, the name Zanca means basket maker.

What does the name Nucatola mean? In 1996, Francesco Nucatola, wrote that "nucatola" is an ingredient in a type of Sicilian sweet. A search of the Internet in 1999 showed nineteen entries for "nucatoli." The quote on the cover is from Ragusaonline, Ragusa being a city in southeastern Sicily. It says: "Another Modican specialty are ‘nucatoli’, cookies of pastry having a filling of chopped, dried figs, honey, almonds, walnuts, nutmeg, cinnamon, and citron; the word ‘nucatola’ derives from the Arabic ‘naqal’ meaning ‘dried fruit’." There is also a photo of a long, narrow, somewhat s-shaped, filled cookie on the web site. Other pastry shops listed include orange and/or lemon peel, vanilla and sugar among the ingredients of nucatoli.

On June 19, 2003, I located photos of nucatoli on the web site of a pastry shop in Modica called "Antica Dolceria Benajuto". Their list of nucatoli ingredients includes dried figs, almonds, honey, and quince jam. You can see it for yourself at their web site: www.bonajuto.it.

I’m thrilled to find the derivation of the name Nucatola after more than twenty years of searching. It is surprising that while so many kinds of Sicilian pastries are well known in America, this one has never made the transatlantic journey. Pastry is a luxury that develops in good economic times; when the Arabs were in Sicily in the year 1000, the island enjoyed a very healthy economy. Coincidentally, that was the time that surnames began to be used. The Historical Research Center concludes that the Þrst person to receive the surname Nucatola was likely to have been a confectioner.

If we put all of this information together, we might conclude that people of Arabic origin baked cookies similar to those they had made in their homeland, containing dried fruit and nuts. They intermarried with the natives (Sikel-Roman-Greek-Goth-Byzantines) and thus became "Sicilians", and took for themselves the name they gave to the cookie that combined both languages and cultures, "nucatola". As for why the pastry shops that make nucatoli now are not in northwest Sicily, but can be found in the southeast, Palermo and Modica are seaports. Our ancestors were seafarers, easily able to get from Modica to Palermo.

Italian First Names

In naming their children, many Nucatolas of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries followed the Italian patronymic tradition. The Þrst son of a couple was given the name of his father’s father. The second son was named for his mother’s father, and the third son was named for his own father, if that name was different from the boy’s grandfathers’ names. While the same pattern was used for daughters, many girls were given the name Maria in honor of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a first name. They could have been called by their combined names (such as Mariangela, Maria Giuseppa), by their middle name, or by the name Maria. A child born after the Þrst three sons and three daughters could be given a name of the couple’s own preference. An additional tradition was that the baby’s name should have been that of a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Nucatola Ancestry

[Generation 1] Francesco NUCATOLA and Caterina

VETRANO

The earliest Nucatola whose birth has been documented thus far is Francesco Nucatola, who was born circa 1795. His wife was Caterina Vetrano, a surname meaning glass-maker, which was most likely the occupation of her Þrst ancestor who was given the name. Francesco and Caterina Nucatola lived in Il Borgo, Palermo, where their Þve children were born: Anna, Giovanni, Nunzia, Giuseppe, and Anna.

[2] Anna NUCATOLA

Anna Nucatola was born on 26 September 1821. We can speculate Anna did not survive childhood, because the same name was given to another daughter, born thirteen years later.

[2] Giovanni NUCATOLA

Giovanni Nucatola was born on 25 June 1824.

[2] Nunzia NUCATOLA

Nunzia Nucatola was born on 9 October 1826.

[2] Giuseppe NUCATOLA

Giuseppe Nucatola was born on 26 February 1829.

[2] Anna NUCATOLA

Anna Nucatola’s date of birth was 12 January 1834.

There are no records of the male children having any descendants in Palermo; children of the girls would have their fathers’ surnames, which makes their descendants impossible to locate.

[Generation 1] Giovanni NUCATOLA and Anna ROMEO

Giovanni Nucatola was born circa 1797; Francesco and Giovanni were, very probably, brothers. Giovanni’s wife, Anna Romeo, was born circa 1800; as Romeo is a Þrst name in Italy, she was a descendant of a man named Romeo. Each of us Nucatolas is a direct descendant of this couple. All we know of them, other than their names and their city of residence, is that they were the parents of four sons: Stefano, Girolamo, Vincenzo, and Giuseppe Nucatola.

[2] Stefano NUCATOLA

Stefano Nucatola was born circa 1818.

[2] Girolamo NUCATOLA

Girolamo Nucatola was born circa 1819.

[2] Vincenzo NUCATOLA

Vincenzo Nucatola was born on 19 February 1820.

[2] Giuseppe NUCATOLA

Giuseppe Nucatola’s date of birth was 31 August 1823.

Where did the parents of Francesco and Giovanni Nucatola live? According to Giuseppe Nucatola (4 April 1915–10 Mar 1989) they were most likely from Ficarazzi, a town of farmers and seafarers and their families located near Palermo.

From Il Borgo, Palermo, Sicily to Queens, NY, USA

[2] Stefano NUCATOLA and Francesca Paola ZANCA

Stefano Nucatola, the oldest child of Giovanni and Anna, married Francesca Paola Zanca (born circa 1821), an unusual name in a time when middle names other than Maria for girls were rare; the marriage took place circa 1840. The name Zanca means basket-maker. Stefano and Francesca Paola belonged to the parish of Santa Lucia al Borgo. They were the parents of four children: their three daughters were Anna Maria, Rosa, and Anna; their son was Giovanni Nucatola.

Why did Stefano and Francesca Paola choose the names they did for their children? Their Þrst and only son was named for his father’s father. Their Þrst and third daughters were named for their father’s mother. What became of the three daughters? The ones who survived childhood most likely married, and that means that we have many more direct relatives whose surnames are unknown to us.

[3] Anna Maria NUCATOLA

Anna Maria Nucatola was born on 2 March 1842. I speculate that this child did not survive, because the same name, Anna, was given to another daughter five years later.

[3] Rosa NUCATOLA

Rosa Nucatola was born on 29 July 1844.

[3] Anna NUCATOLA

Anna Nucatola was born on 3 July 1847.

[3] Giovanni NUCATOLA and Giovanna ZAMPARDI

Giovanni Nucatola lived from 10 March 1849 to 28 February 1904. All of the Nucatolas who settled in Corona, Queens, New York, are descendants of Giovanni and his wife, Giovanna Zampardi (1856–30 March 1916). Giovanni was baptized at the church of Santa Lucia al Borgo, as were, in all likelihood, his sisters; his parents lived in the area just at the harbor ("molo") called Il Borgo. He worked as a Þreman on the ships that arrived in and departed from Palermo’s docks. A contemporary Þreman extinguishes Þres, but Giovanni was a stoker whose job was to keep the Þre going.

Giovanni and Giovanna were married circa 1876 in Palermo. Giovanna was the daughter of Francesca (birth surname unknown) and Salvatore Zampardi. The name Zampardi derives from a physical characteristic: her Þrst ancestor to be given the name had been scratched by an animal’s claw.

Giovanna and Giovanni had Þve children: Stefano, Francesco, Salvatore, Giovanni, and Francesca. Stefano Nucatola (11 October 1877–24 June 1936), their first born, was named after his paternal grandfather, following the patronymic custom. Their second child was Francesco Nucatola (20 November 1881–20 March 1967). Francesca was the Þrst name of his paternal grandmother, Francesca Paola Zanca, so it is likely that he was named for her. Both Stefano and Francesco also worked on the ships as their father had done, and traveled with them.

The third child of Giovanni and Giovanna was Salvatore Nucatola, who was born in 1892 and died in 1905 as a youth of fifteen. Giovanna Zampardi’s father was named Salvatore Zampardi, which means that her son, Salvatore Nucatola, was named after his maternal grandfather.

Their fourth child was Giovanni Nucatola (1895–24 July 1978); Named for his father, he would later be called John Nucatola in America. Their Þfth and last child was their only daughter, Francesca Nucatola (8 March 1896–11 January 1971), called Frances. Like her brother Frank, she was probably named after her paternal grandmother, Francesca Paola Zanca.

"Picture It, Palermo 1900"

In the Middle Ages, Europeans lived according to the feudal system. In that system, the land was controlled by lords whose workers, called serfs, were actually slaves. Although feudalism ended in Northern Europe hundreds of years earlier, it continued in Italy until 1806. When the peasants were freed, they had no experience in managing themselves. They had never had land of their own, nor tools, nor any formal education. Although the peasants were no longer slaves, the former lords maintained their power as landlords. Up until the middle of the nineteenth century, the landlords of large properties demanded and received the right of la prima notte, meaning that they claimed sexual access to the bride of each tenant on her wedding night.

In 1814, the Congress of Vienna divided Italy into eight different states. Six were ruled by foreign governments, one was ruled by the pope, and the state of Piedmont in the north was independent. Each state had its own dialect and its own customs.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, a movement called "Risorgimento" started in Piedmont. The idea was that Italy should be restored to its ancient glory, which could be accomplished only through political unity, eliminating foreign rulers. The result was a brutal civil war that lasted for twelve years. In 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi liberated all regions south of Rome. At that time, only 2.5% of the population spoke Italian. The remaining 97.5% spoke their region’s dialect only. The men who were eligible to vote were those who could read and write Italian rather than their own dialect. In Sicily such men constituted only 1 % of the population in 1900. Universal male suffrage did not become law until 1912.

Five miles was a distance that someone could easily walk in one day. That is why the majority of marriages took place between couples who lived within five miles of each other. As a result, most Southern Italians had many extended family members within a five mile radius of their home.

The father was the provider within the family. The mother was responsible for bringing up the children, managing the household, and tending the farm animals. Children were expected to obey and respect their parents. Sons would contribute directly to the family’s income by working with their father, starting at the age of five or six. Daughters assisted their mother with household and domestic tasks. Any property owned by the family would only be inherited by the oldest son, because the land parcels were too small to subdivide.

Towns and villages in southern Italy consisted of clusters of cube-like houses. Each town had a piazza or town square, with a church at one end, and a warehouse at the other. Each house had one room. People slept in a loft which was reached by a ladder. The mule or donkey, if there was one, was kept on the floor with the chickens. Most homes had a fireplace; fuel was straw and twigs, which created thick smoke when they were burned. Plumbing, either indoor or outdoor, did not exist. Drinking water was collected from rainfall. Those who had wells could sell their excess water. The water was sold according to grade, the clearest for drinking, and the rest for washing. Impure washing water was responsible for the spread of a contagious, incurable eye disease called trachoma.

People spent as little time as possible indoors. It was highly desirable to get away from the smoke from the fireplace, and from the odors associated with the animals and the flies they attracted. In the evenings after the men returned home from their work, they walked to the piazza. On holidays, groups of young single men would walk to nearby towns to spend a few hours in the town square, where they might buy a lemon drink, or visit friends or relatives. Women walked together in groups to the church.

The majority of the acreage was owned by land barons whose estates varied in size from 3,000 to 18,000 acres. The barons entrusted the running of their property to overseers who were ignorant of farming, knowing nothing about soil conservation or crop rotation. Their main concern was getting the greatest crop yield in the shortest amount of time.

Northern Italy had plenty of rivers and lakes, but in the south there were no natural waterways. Trees were cut down for the new shipbuilding industry. When the snow on the mountains melted, the valuable topsoil was washed away. Large tracts of formerly fertile farmland became useless. Not only that, but after the trees were cut down, the water collected in stagnant puddles, which became breeding grounds for malaria mosquitoes. Italy had the highest malaria rate in Europe; malaria killed at least 20,000 Italians annually. Another health hazard was cholera. The cholera epidemic of 1884-1887 took 55,000 Italian lives.

Even with the high rates of cholera and malaria, the population of Italy increased because of the absence of plague, the lowered rate of infant mortality, the lowered death rate, and the mandatory smallpox inoculations. As for hospitals, they were rare, small, and poorly equipped.

Northern Italy, which was the center of the unification movement, implemented laws that would benefit the areas north of Rome. There were no roads in the south, which kept communication between villages that could not be reached by foot, to a minimum. The southerners, who were previously too poor to pay taxes, suddenly were required to pay them. Peasants owned mules, while aristocrats owned cows. Mules were taxed but cows were not. Italians had the highest taxes in Europe. There was corruption, dishonesty, abuse of power, and terrorism in tax collection. In two years (1866-1868), there were fifteen hundred murders in Palermo.

In order to get the pope to relinquish Rome in 1870, the government instituted anticlerical policies. In Sicily this was regarded as a disregard for the spiritual welfare of the people.

Government officials wanted Italy to become a world power. To achieve that goal, the construction of railroads was started, but only in northern Italy. The government also developed a huge army and navy based on the new, and unpopular, mandatory seven year conscription. To raise funds, church owned properties formerly available for free to peasants to use for grazing, collecting firewood, or for home gardens were confiscated and sold.

In 1877, the government made education of all children between the ages of six and nine mandatory, but thirty years later, in 1907, two thirds of the school-age inhabitants of Italy were illiterate. Why didn’t the Italians send their children to school? There were very few schools, because the local authorities, who saw no point in educating the poor, did not build them. Instead they kept for themselves the money allotted for school construction. When there were classes, they were held in cellars or in vacated peasant hovels. The few schools that there were had no heat in the winter, and were damp and cold. They had no water or toilets, and the building was likely to have been shared with farm animals. Teachers were appointed, not based on their skills or qualifications, but because they were related to the mayor or landlord. School staples such as paper and blackboards were luxury items.

Parents did not consider education a priority. They needed their sons to help with the planting or harvesting, depending on the season. Often parents couldn’t afford appropriate clothing, shoes, pens or paper for their sons. As for their daughters, the universal opinion was that in their adult lives as wives and mothers, females would have no need for formal learning. American immigration statistics for 1901-1912 placed Southern Italians as the second most illiterate of all immigrants, after the Turks.

The poorest of the peasants were the field workers, men and boys as young as six years of age. What was their typical day like? They would wake before sunrise to start the walk of up to five miles, to a farm on which they worked. Depending on the season, they might be harvesting olives or figs, or planting or harvesting vegetables such as corn, eggplant, onions, or potatoes, or grain such as rye or wheat, or beans. Typically they worked ten hours each day.

Higher up in the socioeconomic continuum were the "contadini", farmers who owned a bit of land. In some cases, a peasant farmer cultivated the land for his landlord, and he received a percentage of the crops in return. However, these farmers were expected to show the landlord respect at frequent intervals by offering gifts such as the best of the fruit or eggs.

There were also storekeepers and craftsmen such as masons, blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, and barbers. Trades were passed on within families, so there was little chance of moving up to a better socioeconomic level.

The staple of the Southern Italian diet was bread. White bread was only available in richer wheat producing regions. To make their bread, the peasants used rye, barley, millet, corn, or even beans or chestnuts, depending on whatever crops were available. The bread was very hard and very dry. Other foods were pasta (home made, of course), beans, various vegetables, especially potatoes, and some fruit. A typical breakfast was bread, perhaps with olive oil, and water. Lunch consisted of more bread and water, with the possible addition of an onion. A tax was instituted on the use of grist mills, which was a huge burden on people who needed to grind their grain to make their bread. That was followed by a high tax on salt, an item that the peasants could not do without.

All of the clothing was homemade. Everyone had one woolen set of clothes for winter and one summer set, made of flax. Shoes worn by peasants were generally pieces of oxen leather that were tied on to the feet with rope.

Italy had some export industries: olive oil, grain, wine, and sulfur from Sicilian mines. Sulfur mining enabled Sicily to prosper somewhat. In 1879 a bank branch opened, a railroad was started, schools were built, and illiteracy rates dropped. However, the life of a sulfur miner was even harder than that of a farm laborer. Men and boys worked in the dark all day, going half a mile or more into the mines, filling their backpacks to a weight of seventy-five pounds, and then carrying them to the surface. They would repeat this process fifty times each day. Parents of the young boys employed this way were paid in flour or grain rather than in money.

Between 1881 and 1896, there was a 32% drop in the international market price of olive oil. Then in 1890, sulfur began to be mined in Texas much more cheaply than in Sicily, which drove Sicily out of competition in the world sulfur market. After that, Southern Italian grapevines were attacked by phylloxera, a type of plant lice. As a result, France drove Italy out of the international wine market. In 1891 a drought caused grain and citrus prices to drop. America and Russia flooded the grain market, so Italy lost another export. In 1892, the drought continued. The result was a severe famine in southern Italy.

What, exactly, does the word "famine" mean? The following was the total annual food purchased by a typical Southern Italian day laborer for a family of seven at the turn of the century:

"fifty bushels of wheat, eight bushels of fava beans,

four gallons of oil, meat served once a year before

Lent, fresh Þsh to be served twice a year, salt Þsh

served once a month, vegetables (onions and

caulißower), a pinch of salt, and a dash of vinegar."

Soups were made from spinach or wild chicory that grew in the fields. Pasta was sometimes added to the soup. Oranges, lemons, figs, apples, and plums grew on Sicilian trees. Noticeably absent are dairy products and wine. Additional foods could have been grown in home gardens, obtained from family owned animals such as chickens and goats, or bartered in exchange for work. Nonetheless, there was little food; in addition, there was a high tariff on wheat, and a movement by the land owners to abolish public education.

All this brought about increased unemployment, or for those who could find jobs, inadequate wages; the minimum wage was .50 lire per day.

Volcanic eruptions of Etna, and of Vesuvius on the mainland, demolished entire surrounding villages. In 1900, an earthquake and tidal wave destroyed much of eastern Sicily and part of Calabria.

In order to try to help themselves, thirty-five hundred Sicilian farmers and miners formed an organization called "La Società di Mutuo Soccorso," The Society for Mutual Aid. The government sent troops to Sicily, where they remained for ten years. Hundreds of Sicilians were killed. Many were arrested and sent to penal islands without due process. Freedom of the press and the right of peaceful assembly were cancelled. Schools were closed, and membership in organizations became illegal. Anyone who would potentially vote against the government’s policies was disenfranchised. To the Sicilians, all this was worse than the foreign rulers they had before "Resurgimento". There was one benefit to the peasants after unification: there was a constitutional right for all citizens to travel.

Life in southern Italy was bleak. Men who were unable to support their families at home began to look for work in other locations. At first they looked for jobs in Northern Africa or in other European countries, but when the fares from Naples to North and South America became lower than the fares to Northern Europe, they began to venture to Argentina and Brazil.

By the end of the 1870s, an annual average of 117,000 Italians had emigrated to other countries. The majority were "birds of passage," men who sought employment elsewhere and who intended to return to their villages rather than to relocate permanently. After a yellow fever epidemic that wiped out 9,000 Italians in Brazil, many of the employment seekers switched their destinations to North America. By 1900, 5.3 million Italians had left their homeland. Four fifths of them were from areas south of Rome. One and a half million Sicilians, then 40% of the population, had emigrated.

The largest group of emigrants was rural. They were tenant farmers, field workers, and shepherds. Then came fishermen, and next, artisans such as masons, carpenters, stonecutters, bakers, blacksmiths, cooks, shoemakers, barbers, and tailors. After them came the miners.

Many of the men returned to their villages after the mandatory military service. Although military conscription was unpopular, their experiences in the army or navy made significant positive changes in the lives of the returning veterans. Many of them had learned to read and write while they were in military service. Also, before the draft, travel any significant distance from home was unheard-of. Because of their military experiences, the men learned to manage themselves during ocean travel, and while in foreign countries.

In the south of Italy in 1900, men continued to leave Italy to find work so that they could send money to their families. Not only did their families rely on the money that they were sent, but their letters, which they learned to write themselves, greatly relieved the mental and emotional stress of their families. The letters described America as a truly amazing place. In America, they said, the bread was made only of wheat, meat was available and affordable, and they could earn 15 lire per day. Those at home who were unemployed or living a life of hard labor relied upon the letters as a source of comfort that gave them hope for their own futures. Extended family members of emigrants began to imagine that they, too, could make a better life for themselves in America. The emigrants who returned to their villages wearing store-bought shoes and clothing were given a hero’s welcome. Upon seeing them, and hearing their stories, their friends and relatives were convinced that they, too, could provide themselves and their families with a better quality of life by working in America.

Most peasants remained in America for four or five years. When they returned to their villages, they had an average of 4,000-6,000 lire with them, and that did not include the amount they had sent home to their families, typically 1,000 lire each year. Many of them bought the very land on which they worked before they left. Now called "americani," they returned to their villages where they would stay for five years on average. There they would buy a new house, now refusing to share living quarters with animals. They expressed their demands for education for their children, for clean drinking water to be made available, and for public lighting in the village.

A few years after his return to Southern Italy, the typical man had more challenges to face. During the five year return to his family, he would probably have fathered two or three more children who needed his support. Many men had aged parents who also needed support. But their money would have dwindled. There was still no money to be earned at home, so at that point, it was time to return to America. Often, men repeated this process several times.

Chain migration refers to that movement in which prospective migrants learn of opportunities, are provided with transportation, and have initial accommodation and employment arranged by means of primary social relationships with previous migrants. Soon the pattern of chain migration was firmly in place in Southern Italy. Often the emigrants would send money for a steamship ticket to one of their compari (male relatives in their village) who had expressed a desire to try his luck in America. Once he arrived in America, that man would do the same thing, thus continuing the chain. A woman who had a male relative in America who might be able to send steamship fare, would be very desirable as a prospective bride.

Many men did not want to return to their villages. Instead the Italian men in America began to send for their families to join them, because conditions at home were so deplorable and any improvement seemed hopeless. In his father’s absence, the oldest son left at home took charge of the family. The women became responsible for any debts that had been incurred by their husbands. Many had to do farm labor, which had previously been considered too hard for women. In preparing to join her husband, a wife left at home, who could not read or write, had to obtain all documents necessary for travel, sell any belongings, and raise enough money for the train fare to Naples if the distance was too great to walk or to go by donkey. Some wives refused to leave home because they knew they would never see their parents again. Many of the emigrant men returned to their villages in order to find a bride to take back to America, preferring one who spoke his own dialect. Most single women, however, had little hope of marriage because a dowry was expected and there was no possibility of affording one.

Eventually the landowners themselves left, because there was no one left to work in their fields. Soon entire families began to leave with the thought of remaining in America permanently.

The steamship companies, which made huge profits from their third class passengers, posted illustrated signs in the famine-stricken towns, spreading the rumor that the streets in America were paved with gold. However, the majority of the emigrants were not lured by steamship company agents. Seeing was believing. They saw their returning relatives, now "americani," wearing store bought clothes and spending money. This was the major influence that convinced families to leave Italy.

When they were ready to emigrate, families packed up their two sets of clothes. Instead of suitcases, they carried their meager possessions in a small sack made of hide. They wore their "Sunday best" to Naples, and they did not change their clothes the entire time they were on the steamship. In order to get to Naples, they walked, rode a donkey, or rode in a cart pulled by a donkey. From Sicily they had to get to the mainland by boat, because Palermo didn’t become a port of departure until after 1900.

In 1904, Giovanni Nucatola and his wife, Giovanna Zampardi, had already moved from Sicily to Genoa. They planned to relocate to America with their three youngest children. Their oldest son, Stefano, had gone ahead of them in 1901. The promise of employment and food, and the encouragement of their son Stefano, were enough to persuade Giovanni and Giovanna to leave Italy.

While they were in Genoa, Giovanni Nucatola became ill. He was so ill, in fact, that he required hospitalization. He entered Genoa’s Pammotone Hospital, where he died on 28 February 1904, at the age of Þfty-four; he was buried in Genoa. There is no indication of the cause of death on his death certiÞcate. His son Stefano, who had gone to New York in 1901 as mentioned earlier, worked as a ship’s carpenter. In that capacity, he returned to Italy on another ship at some point between 1901 and 1904. Whether he arrived before his father died is not known. However, in May of 1904, Stefano left Genoa on the ship Sicilia, heading back to New York. He probably thought it was good luck to be on a ship named for the island of his birth! He arrived with $6.30 in his pocket. On the ship’s manifest, which misspelled his name as "Nucatala", he indicated that he would live with his uncle. His uncle’s name was Giammarco (surname) Francesco Paolo, who lived at 174 Columbis (sic) Street, Brooklyn. How his uncle fits into the family tree is not clear; it seems likely that he was a relative of Stefano’s maternal grandmother, because her name was Francesca Paola.

At the turn of the century, more ships arrived in New York from the port of Naples than from any other port in the world. Stefano’s mother, Giovanna, continued the journey with her three youngest children on the ship Lombardia, which departed from Naples in late October 1904. On the ship’s manifest, she indicated that she and her children were residents of Genova (the Italian spelling). They arrived in New York on 3 November 1904, so it appears that the family spent most of the year 1904 in Genoa. The trip from Genoa to New York was paid for either by the Italian government (according to Charlie Nucatola) or by Stefano (according to Johanna Nucatola Punzi).

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression "in steerage". The word steerage comes from the fact that the lowest level of the ship was closest to its steering mechanism. A third class ticket in the steerage compartment was purchased for about $25. Because of unemployment, it could have taken an Italian family years to save enough for the fare.

Passengers in steerage typically received very little food, and a minuscule amount of space. For their meals, each steerage passenger was given a fork, a spoon, a cup, and a tin dish. The passengers divided themselves into groups of six, and one of the six would receive a two-gallon pan and a one-gallon bucket. In these he carried back the allotted food for his group, which he obtained from twenty-five gallon tanks. The food was served on deck. Breakfast was coffee, sometimes with a hard biscuit. Lunch was generally soup, usually with pasta. Dinner was generally pasta, usually with soup. Those making the trip for the second or third time might have brought along their own cheese or fruit. After eating, the passengers were required to wash their own dishes.

The space consisted of a narrow cot with a burlap-covered, straw-filled mattress. Each one was surrounded by as many other cots as could be squeezed in on the floor, with many more cots stacked up in bunks. There were no sheets or pillows. Each passenger was allotted one blanket. Families were separated, men on one side and women and children on the other. Usually there were at least a thousand steerage passengers on each ship, each having no privacy and all having inadequate ventilation, light, and sanitation. There were no windows, because the steerage area was below the water line. It is easy to see how the conditions in steerage promoted the spread of germs and disease. Steerage was "dismal, damp, dirty."

The steamship companies took some precautions to avoid the spread of illness, because they were financially responsible for returning rejected immigrants to their home countries. Also, they could be fined an additional $100 for each passenger who was found to have a communicable disease. Steamship companies built dockside residential buildings in the cities of departure, in which prospective passengers had to stay for approximately four days before their ships departed. There they were sorted by gender and stacked in bunks, to prepare them for conditions on the steamships. They were treated for lice upon arrival, then quarantined, then treated for lice again. They were required to have an antiseptic bath, to have their baggage fumigated, and to be examined by company doctors.

Under excellent conditions, the voyage across the Atlantic could take as few as nine days; generally the trip took fourteen days or more. The steerage passengers wore the same clothing for the entire trip, day and night. When weather permitted, passengers would remain on deck in order to escape the cramped, foul smelling steerage quarters. Their deck space was in the direct line of the soot from the ship’s smokestacks. On deck, men played card games, while children sang, danced, and played music on instruments they may have brought with them, such as harmonicas or mandolins.

Although some steamships arrived in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans, as well as in Brazil and Argentina, seventy per cent went to New York City. More than half the passengers did not remain in the city, though. From New York City they were able to get railroad tickets to nearly every part of the country.

We’ve heard stories and seen movies about how inspired the immigrants were upon seeing their first sight in New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty. As soon as the ship entered the waters between Brooklyn and Staten Island, the steerage passengers were assembled for inspection by medical personnel who came aboard there. Passengers with obvious illnesses that were non-contagious were taken to the hospital on Ellis Island. Anyone with a contagious illness was taken to an isolation area at nearby Hoffman Island. The ship then proceeded to dock at one of the Hudson River piers in Manhattan. The steamships docked in Manhattan so that first class passengers, who had paid $65 for a ticket, could debark and walk onto American soil immediately. Steerage passengers were ferried by barge across the Hudson River to Ellis Island.

Because each ship had at least a thousand steerage passengers, and each barge crossed with only thirty passengers, many families had to spend several days on the docked steamship waiting for their turn to board the barge. The barges themselves contained no food or water. On busy days immigrants could wait on board for hours to debark.

The word "wop", used for decades as a derogatory term for Italians, came into being at Ellis Island. The story behind the word is that when an Italian steamship arrived without its manifest, all the passengers had no papers. The letters "W.O.P.", an abbreviation for "With Out Papers", were written on the lapels of the passengers of such ships, who were, of course, all Italian.

The workers at Ellis Island are often attributed with changing the spellings of the names of the immigrants, and sometimes, with changing the names completely. The Ellis Island workers copied the names of the passengers directly from the ship’s manifests, so the errors were made as the passengers boarded ships in the mother country, rather than when they debarked in New York.

The detention areas at Ellis Island were designed to hold six hundred people. During the early 1900s, however, Ellis Island was handling more than ninety thousand arrivals monthly. Often nine hundred people were crammed into the waiting room. The average amount of time spent on Ellis Island by each immigrant was three to five hours, but about twenty per cent had to spend their first night in America there. Immigrants who arrived at mealtime were fed. For the first ten years of its operation, the menu at Ellis Island was the same for all three meals: rye bread and prunes. In time, there were improvements. A typical Ellis Island daily menu in 1906 consisted of:

"BREAKFAST: coffee with milk and sugar,

bread and butter. Crackers and milk for

women and children.

DINNER: beef stew, boiled potatoes, and rye

bread. Smoked or pickled herring for Hebrews.

Crackers and milk for women and children.

SUPPER: baked beans, stewed prunes and

rye bread, and tea with milk and sugar. Crackers

and milk for women and children."

Giovanna Parmigiani Nucatola was one of the four million Italians who arrived in America between 1880 and 1925. Giovanna planned to be met by her son Stefano in New York, because women and children were not released from Ellis Island without a male relative who could provide for them. She expected that Stefano would then take her and her three youngest children to their new home. That, however, is not what happened.

Before being admitted, each individual had to pass a thorough physical examination, as well as a legal exam. The exams took place on the second floor, a system that was planned deliberately. The inspectors on the first floor would watch the immigrants as they walked up the stairs. Anyone who was not fit enough to climb the stairs was not considered fit enough to get a job, and such people would be rejected immediately, indicated by a chalk mark on their coat. The exams were especially stressful for women, because other than when the ship left home, few of them had ever had a physical examination before, nor had they ever disrobed in the presence of a male doctor.

Every passenger was checked for favus, a contagious, incurable disease of the scalp, and for trachoma, a highly contagious and incurable illness of the eye. The eye exam was done by a doctor who used a shoe button hook, or the back of a hatpin, or his fingers, to push the eyelids back, a very painful process. Passengers were also checked for tuberculosis and leprosy.

The legal exam consisted of answering questions about the information on the ship’s manifest, including one’s name, age, city of residence, occupation, prison record, literacy, the amount of money being carried, the name of the person who paid for the ticket, and the name of the person with whom the immigrant planned to stay. Most of the first-time passengers found the legal exam to be extremely intimidating.

Although Giovanna, John and Frances passed their examinations, fifteen-year-old Salvatore was found to be gravely ill with a lung infection. As was mentioned earlier, potential immigrants with a chance of survival from diseases such as diphtheria or scarlet fever were retained in the hospital on Ellis Island. It was the terminally ill who were refused entry. The steamship companies were required to take those who could not be cured back to their home port. If the returnee were a child, a parent had to be return with the child. Giovanna and her three children were put on the next boat returning to Italy.

Can we even begin to imagine how Giovanna felt? She was a recent widow, a single parent of Þve, three of whom were young children, and one of the three was terminally ill. Did she understand what was told to her about her child’s illness? Would her other children catch it? Perhaps she prayed to Saint Rocco, the patron saint of the diseased, or to Saint Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo.

Giovanna had probably never been ten miles away from her home before they left Sicily, because it was customary never to leave the range of one’s town’s church bells. Yet she went to Genoa with her husband, remaining there for several months after his death, and then she took her children to Napoli (Naples) to board a steamship. Her dream of a better life for her children in America seemed shattered. As they were going back across the ocean to Italy, their vessel passed a ship that was traveling in the opposite direction, from Italy to New York. On the passing ship was Giovanna’s second son, Francesco, a seafarer. The two ships tooted one another in salute, but none of the Nucatolas knew until much later that they each had a family member on the other ship.

Salvatore died shortly after the return to Genoa. Then Stefano sent for his mother and younger siblings again. On 14 June 1906, the ship Florida arrived at Ellis Island from Genoa, carrying Giovanna, Giovanni and Francesca. This time, they were accepted. The family settled in with Stefano at 400 East 4th Street at Avenue D, in Lower Manhattan. They had left a home just off the Mediterranean Sea for one just off the East River.

Their new home was a "multifamily dwelling", also known as a tenement. The word tenement comes from the Latin word tenere, which means to hold; tenements held as many people as possible. They were six or seven stories high, with four apartments on each floor. Each apartment had up to three rooms, but 18% of Italian immigrant families lived in one room. The average space in the restored tenements in the Lower East Side Tenement Museum is 325 square feet. Each apartment housed as many as eleven people, and as few as two. The paying boarders, or the newly arrived relatives from the old country, were given the best space, near the window. There were no bathtubs, but free public bathhouses within walking distance were available to adults. Children could be washed in the sink. Each unit had a stove. The family moving in generally bought the stove that was already there from the family that was moving out.

The New York Tenement House Law of 1901 mandated a toilet and running water for each unit, but before the law was enforced, residents of each floor had to share a water closet. Before that, there were outhouses, next to which the water cisterns were kept. Not surprisingly, tuberculosis, cholera, and typhus were rampant. That year, one in nine children died before the age of five in New York City.

Because the streets were teeming with people, the rooftops of the tenements became the gathering place for their residents. Men would gather there to socialize, children to play, and women to hang their laundry and dry their tomatoes. In the summer, a mattress could be brought up to the roof, and the entire family slept on it there.

The average yearly income for a Southern Italian family in America in 1910 was $688. This was well below the poverty level, which, at the time, was an income of less than $800 per year.

The following is an old Italian story:

"I came to America because I heard the streets were

paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three

things: first, the streets weren’t paved with gold; second,

they weren’t paved at all; and third, I was expected to

pave them."

While most married women remained at home, they earned money by taking in laundry, sewing, or boarders. Instead of laws protecting children from labor, it was expected that children would work. Teenage girls worked in sweatshops, being paid for sewing by the piece. Younger girls often worked at sewing at home after school, while boys sold newspapers or shined shoes. Many businesses ran schools which would then hire the children they taught.

If conditions were so deplorable in New York City in 1910, why didn’t the immigrants go back to Italy? For most of them, there was no one and nothing to return to.

Although most of the emigrants had been field workers at home, they abandoned that livelihood in New York. There were no farms in New York City. If they wanted to continue working as farm laborers, they would have needed enough money to travel to the farmlands, and to buy farming tools once there. A third of all Italians who arrived in New York City went no further. Working conditions were very hard, but there were jobs. Pasta was affordable in New York, as was some meat. In fact, "spaghetti and meat balls", unheard-of in Italy, was universal in Little Italy. There was no space for home gardens in Manhattan, but as soon as they could save enough money, families moved to the more countrified boroughs of Brooklyn or Queens. There they began to grow food in backyard gardens, with many families having extra enough to sell.

The two youngest Nucatola children, John and Frances, went to school on Houston Street, where they would be the Þrst Nucatolas to become literate in English. At the turn of the century, Giovanna Nucatola’s older sons, Stefano and Francesco, were adults ready for marriage.

The Parmigianis

The residents of the city of Parma in north central Italy are called Parmigiani. Parmigiani is also the Italian word for the cheese that we, in America, call Parmesan. Some of Parma’s sons, (the name Parmigiani is plural) at some point in time, relocated to Ancona, a coastal city on the Adriatic Sea, which is in the province of Marche and a great distance from Parma. Sallyann Nucatola Faraci remembers hearing her grandmother, Carrie Parmigiani Nucatola, call herself a "Parmigian’ from Marchegian’ ".

We do not know exactly when our ancestors relocated to Ancona, or who was the first one to do so. We knew that two brothers, Archimede and Angelo Parmigiani, were born in the 1860s. Thanks to the efforts of Regina McCarthy Stewart and her sister Bernadette McCarthy Muldoon during their 2003 trip to Ancona, we are able to go back two generations. We now know that Settimo Parmigiani, who was born circa 1810, lived in Ancona. He and his wife (her name is not known) were the parents of Antonio Parmigiani (1834–18 Dec 1894), a ship builder. Antonio and his wife, Ginevra Trestulli (10 Oct 1840–?) were the parents of two sons, Archimede (1865–5 May 1914) and Angelo (1868–?). We were always told that the brothers were ship builders in Ancona. This makes sense, because sons usually entered the same trade as their father. However, the town records tell us that Archimede and Angelo were shoemakers.

Regina and Bernadette were able to discover that Antonio and Ginevra were also the parents of four daughters, all of whom remained in Italy. The names of Angelo and Ginevra’s children were:Ida (7 June 1863–?), Archimede (1865–5 May 1914), Angelo (1868–?), Leucadia or Leucaglia (1871–?), Edwige (25 Feb 1875–?), and Gilde or Egilde (17 Mar 1878–?).

According to the family legend, Antonio was the first to leave Italy for America. The Ellis Island records, however, tell us otherwise. Actually Archimede came first, probably in 1897, and planned to stay for one year. He would then decide whether to return or to send for his wife and their five children to join him.

Archimede’s wife was Maria Fortunata NICOLETTI (25 June 1869–6 April 1918), daughter of Francesco Nicoletti (ca 1940–?) and Carola SARTINI (ca 1846–ca 1874). The name Nicoletti is a nickname for Nicola, Italian for Nicholas. Maria Fortunata was a talented dressmaker, probably following a long family tradition, because the name Sartini means "dressmakers". Maria Fortunata and her brother, Alfredo, were raised by a step-mother, because their mother, Carola, died after being trampled by a crowd at a church festival when Maria was a young child. Maria was very close to her older brother, Alfredo, and to her younger step-brothers, Archimede and Luigi.

Maria married Archimede Parmigiani at the age of twenty in 1889. Ten years later in 1899, Maria and Archimede were the parents of five children. Their firstborn was Carola, named after Maria’s mother. There was a family legend as to how the other daughters in the family were named. Maria could copy patterns of the fashions of the day. The patterns had the same names as the fashion models. The fashion model/pattern names were said to be the sources of the names of her daughters Elide, Luisa-Tilde Ava Adele (note: the Ellis Island records list her as Luigia, but her birth certificate says otherwise), Malvina and Genevra.

Again, thanks to Regina and Bernadette, it appears that some of the names were those of family members. Elide, called Ida, was named for her father’s sister Ida. Genevra was named for her paternal grandmother. Also, Maria Fortunata’s brother Alfredo had a daughter named Adele.

According to Ellis Island records, the ship Tartar Prince arrived at Ellis Island from Genoa on 9 May 1899. Among the passengers were Maria Fortunata Nicoletti and her five children: Carola, age nine, Elide, age seven, Luigia, age five, Malvina, age three, and Galliano, age one. They joined Archimede on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The family would relocate every two years when the landlord announced an increase in the rent. The "movers" were the children, each carrying a piece of furniture.

Also according to Ellis Island records, Angelo Parmigiani arrived in New York in September 1902. He indicated that he had never been in the country before. He told Ellis Island officials he was joining his brother Archimede, who lived at 76 Mangin Street in Manhattan, which is on the Lower East Side, off Houston Street, now near the F.D.R. Drive, close to the East River.

In New York, Archimede and Maria had seven more children: Francesco (17 Oct 1900–1972, named for maternal his grandfather, Francesco Nicoletti), Genevra (15 Jan 1903–18 Sept 1992, named for her paternal grandmother, Ginevra Trestulli), Antonio (ca 1905–ca 1909, named for his paternal grandfather, Antonio Parmigiani), Maria (9 Oct 1907–Feb 1978, named for her mother), twins Antonietta (31 Jan 1910–ca 1912, named for her recently deceased brother) and Ersilia (31 Jan 1910–6 July 2002), named for Ersilia Brunettini diDomenico, the wife of her uncle Alfredo Nicoletti and godmother of her sister, Louisa), and Anthony (5 Sept 1912–1987, again named for his deceased siblings and paternal grandfather). The four youngest children were born after the two oldest were married and had children of their own.

[4] Stefano "Steve" NUCATOLA and Carolina "Caroline"

"Carrie" PARMIGIANI

One day in January 1907, sixteen-year-old Carolina Parmigiani was playing outside her tenement building. Yes, this has always been very hard for her grandchildren to imagine, but it’s the way she told the story. The Parmigianis lived a few streets away from the Nucatolas, at 215 Lewis Street, which was off East 7th Street just at the East River. Carolina was the oldest of the eight existing children of Archimede Parmigiani and his wife, Maria Fortunata Nicoletti.

That day, Carolina’s mother called her to come into the house. Carolina was told that her father was bringing home a guest for dinner, and that she, Carolina, was going to marry the guest. The guest was Stefano Nucatola, age twenty-nine, who probably worked with Carolina’s father at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was a Catholic requirement that the announcement of impending weddings, called Wedding Banns, had to be posted in the church for three consecutive Sundays. Three weeks later, on […], Carolina Parmigiani and Stefano Nucatola were married at Mary Help of Christians Church, 400 East 12th Street, in New York City. As a witness to the wedding, Stefano’s mother signed her name Giovanna Zampardi, retaining her birth surname. This is still the tradition in Italy, as it is in genealogy.

[4] Francesco NUCATOLA and Elide "Ida" PARMIGIANI

Stefano’s brother Francesco, later called Frank, soon joined his mother and siblings in New York after sailing adventures that included several trips to Asia. On […], he married Carolina’s sister, Elide Parmigiani. Stefano and Carolina (called Steve and Carrie) and Francesco and Elide (called Frank and Ida) were the most prolific of the Nucatolas; each couple gave birth to ten children. Carrie had doubts about her sister’s future, because Frank appeared frail while Steve appeared robust. In reality, Carrie and Steve were married fewer than thirty years. Steve did not live to see any of his thirteen grandchildren. Ida and Frank, on the other hand, enjoyed good health, celebrating more that Þfty anniversaries and the births of many grandchildren.

Ten years after her arrival in America, Giovanna Zampardi Nucatola passed away on 30 March 1916, at the age of Þfty-nine. She was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, Queens, NY, thousands of miles from the Þnal resting place of her husband, Giovanni.

John Nucatola, the fourth child of Giovanni and Giovanna, married Pauline Maccarroni, in 1917. Pauline was a daughter of Carmello Maccarona, who was originally from Randazzo, Sicily, and his wife, Vincenza [birth surname and city of birth unknown]. Although the food for which the Nucatolas are named remained in Sicily, quite the opposite has happened regarding the food for which Pauline’s family was named. The name Maccarroni, with a slight change in spelling, is well known to all pasta-eating people throughout the world today. According to the New York Times Magazine,

"dried pasta, more or less as we know it, was first

developed in Europe by the Sicilians, who were

probably inspired by the crude pasta made by

their Arab occupiers and not by Marco Polo. Yes,

the Chinese had noodles, but Italian records

predating the adventurer’s birth mention

"maccheroni"."

Pauline’s ancestors were most likely makers of macaroni. John and Pauline would eventually have four children.

Frances Nucatola, the only daughter, was also married in 1917, in Corona. Her husband was Felice Onesto, called Phil, a builder. Frances and Phil eventually had three children.

[4] Steve NUCATOLA and Carrie PARMIGIANI (continued)

In 1907 when they were Þrst married, Steve and Carrie lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, on East 7th Street and Lewis Street, perhaps with Carrie’s parents. Carrie described Lewis Street as being after Avenue D, right next to the East River. There is a park in that location currently, but many years ago, while I lived in Manhattan, I located a cornerstone indicating that there had indeed been a Lewis Street. Carrie told me that at the time of her marriage, she "didn’t know the difference between boys and girls." She learned quickly, because her Þrst child, Giovanni, or John, was born later that year […]. John was named for his paternal grandfather.

Their second child was Archimede, called Archie, born […] at the same address, and named for his maternal grandfather. By 1910, the family had moved a few streets away to Rivington Street, which was not an Italian but a Jewish neighborhood. In fact, one of Rivington Street’s residents in 1910 was a fourteen-year-old named Nathan Birnbaum, whom the world would come to know as George Burns. It was there that Steve and Carrie’s third son, Stefano, was born […]. Stefano was named for his father and was called Steffie within the family.

The following year, 1911, Steve and Carrie left Manhattan and moved to the borough of Queens. They settled in the town of Corona, where the dwellings were houses rather than tenements, the neighbors were already friends and relatives, or soon became them, and almost everyone spoke Italian. At that time Steve Nucatola and his brother Frank worked as carpenters. The brothers built a two family house on Hillside Avenue; years later the name Hillside Avenue was changed to Van Doren Street. Frank and Ida lived on one ßoor with their growing family, and Steve and Carrie lived on the other with theirs. Giovanna Nucatola also moved to Corona with John and Frances, as did Maria and Archimede Parmigiani, with Louisa, Molly, Gali, Frank, Jennie, Tony, Mary, Celia, and Antonietta (their youngest child, Tony, was born in 1912 after his brother Anthony had died). In January 1913, according to his certficate of naturalization, Archimede and his family lived at 41 Fairview Ave, Corona, NY.

On 8 December 1911, Carrie and Steve’s Þrst daughter was born. She was named Giovanna, after her father’s mother. She did not live to reach her second birthday. "On Thursday, she caught a cold," Carrie told me, "and a week later (25 October 1913), I buried her." There was little time to mourn, because a month earlier, […], a son, Francesco, had been born. The family would call him Frankie. Frankie was named after his mother’s grandfather, Francesco Nicoletti. Next on 24 September 1914 came a son, Salvatore; that had been the name of Steve Nucatola’s brother.

On […], a second daughter arrived. She was named Giovannina and called, in English, Johanna. Her sister Giovanna had passed away, as had Frank and Ida’s first Giovanna; when her namesakes died, Giovanna Zampardi asked that there be no more girls named after her while she was alive; this namesake was born after her death. On 16 March 1919, came a son, Vittorio, "Victor," named for the victory of WW I. […] brought a second daughter, Marie, named for her maternal grandmother. Their last child was born […]. Out of ideas for boy’s names, Carrie named him Thomas Robert after the doctor who delivered him.

Johanna Nucatola Punzi remembered a time in the 1920s when the family had guests. She was told that the people who came, two men and two women, were her father’s cousins from Brooklyn. She never saw them again, and we now know that shortly after the visit, Francesco Nucatola, the elder "cousin from Brooklyn," returned to Italy.

[5] Giovanni "John P." NUCATOLA and Filomena

Margaret "Phyllis" DeVITO

John P. Nucatola (17 November 1907–8 May 2000) was the first child born to Carrie and Steve. He did not have a middle name at birth, but upon his confirmation, he took the name of his godfather, Felice "Phillip" Onesto, his uncle. In his youth, John was a boy scout who reached the rank of Life Scout, which is next to the highest rank, Eagle Scout. John was graduated from Newtown High school in 1926. While John attended Newtown High, he met Filomena DeVito (24 January 1908–3 January 1979). Phyll was the daughter of Margaretta PIRO and Sebastiano DeVITO. Like John, she was born in Manhattan and then moved with her family to Queens.

Phyll and John were married on 20 April 1930 from the Brooklyn home of Phyll’s sister and brother-in-law, Donata "Nettie" DeVito and Giuseppe "Joseph" STOLFI. They were Queens residents for most of their married life, living first in Little Neck, and then in Bayside. John was a 1930 graduate of Jamaica Teachers College in Queens. He began his career as a physical education teacher in the New York City public school system. Then came World War II. When he was in OfÞcer’s Training School in Miami, Florida, the Army forwarded the wrong records from New York. The records that had arrived were those of John M. Nucatola of Brooklyn. The two John Nucatolas had never met each other.

John’s principal career was basketball. After a ten year professional playing career and twelve years as a coach at Newtown High School, he began officiating. In total, he called more than two thousand games. He officiated collegiate games in the ECAC, Atlantic Coast, Southern, and Big Eight Conferences, as well as many All-Star Games, and college tournaments. In 1959 he became a supervisor of officials and continued in that role until 1977. He conducted more than 1200 basketball clinics. He was the author of the book Officiating Basketball.

The following excerpt is from an NBA press release, dated 9 May 2000:

"John Nucatola (was) one of the original referees in the NBA when it was formed as the Basketball Association of America in 1946. Nucatola, inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame n 1978, was the NBA’s Supervisor of Officials from 1970 to 1977. He officiated in more than 2,000 games during his career at the collegiate, Olympic, and professional levels.

Nucatola was once called basketball’s "greatest official" by Hall of Famer Clair Bee. After a playing and coaching career of 22 years, Nucatola became a referee in the East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC). He later went on to officiate games in the ACC and Ivy League and became one of the founders of the College Basketball Officials Association. He officiated in 18 NCAA and 18 NIT tournaments while conducting over 1,299 clinics worldwide."

With Phyll, who was a homemaker, John traveled to Europe, Asia, and throughout America to teach and promote basketball. It was during a trip to San Francisco that he met Joe Nucatola and his mother, Raffaela.

John Nucatola was inducted into seven Halls of Fame including the New York City Hall of Fame. After his retirement, he enjoyed spectator sports, friends and family. John P. Nucatola died of pneumonia at the age of 92 on 8 May 2000.

[5] Archimede "Archie" NUCATOLA and […]

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Archie, the second child of Carrie and Steve, was in the construction business. […]

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[5] Stephen NUCATOLA and […]

The third child of Carrie and Steve is called Steffie within his family and Steve by others. As the third son, with two older brothers named for their grandfathers, Steve was named for his father. [ ]

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I, Barbara Nucatola, am the second child […]. Nick is the son of […] and Nicolas Pisarro. Nicolas Pisarro was born in San Demetrio Corone, an Arberesh town in Cosenza, Calabria, Italy. Nicolas was the son of Teodoro PISARRA and Maria Vittoria D’AMICO.

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[5] Giovannina NUCATOLA

Giovannina, the fourth child of Caroline and Stefano, was born on 8 December 1911 and died on 25 October 1913. "On a Thursday she caught a cold," my grandmother told me, "and a week later, I buried her." When the baby Giovannina died, her namesake and grandmother, Giovanna Zampardi, asked that no more babies be given her name while she was alive. This request was disregarded, because in fact four more granddaughters would be given her name.

[5] Francesco "Frankie" NUCATOLA and Josephine LAMPO MARCHITTO

Frankie Nucatola, the Þfth child of Caroline and Stefano, was born on 9 September 1913; he and all the children who followed were born in Corona, Queens, NY. He was probably named for his maternal grandfather, Francesco Nicoletti. Frankie was in the construction business. His hobby was raising pigeons, an interest that was part of his life for more than Þfty years. Within the family he had the nickname "Lukie," which referred to an expression he used when he was flying his pigeons, "Lookie, lookie."

Frankie served in the army during World War II, and like his brother Steffie, he saw active duty in Europe. He married the former Josephine Lampo […], who was the daughter of Antoinette TOCCO and Joseph Lampo. There had been a question about her birth surname. Although Josephine told me that her birth surname was Lampo, Johanna Punzi knew Josephine’s relatives who were named Lupo. Perhaps her family members changed their surname. The Social Security Administration’s records have Josephine’s surname as Lampo, so I accept their listing as accurate.

Josephine was born in Manhattan and raised in Corona, Queens. Her first husband was Mr. Marchitto; they were the parents of a son, Anthony, and a daughter (name unknown).

Josephine and Frankie were married on 27 November 1954 in Acapulco, Mexico. Frankie and Josephine were both over forty when they married, and had no children of their own. For most of their married years, they lived in Bay Shore, Long Island, NY. Frank died of emphysema on 28 March 1977, and Josephine in March 1996.

[5] Salvatore Gaetano NUCATOLA and […]

Sally, the sixth child of Caroline and Stefano, […]

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[5] Johanna NUCATOLA and Vincent "Jimmie" PUNZI Johanna was the seventh child of Caroline and Stefano. […]

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[5] Victor NUCATOLA

Victor, the eighth child of Caroline and Stefano, was born on 16 March 1919. He was named for the Victory of World War I. He lived only twenty years. He suffered from what was termed a "rheumatic heart", a condition in which the heart is weakened after rheumatic fever, and he passed away on 22 April 1939.

[5][…] and Lawrence BAGATTA

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[5] Thomas Robert NUCATOLA, Sr., and 1) […] 2) […]

The tenth and last child of Stefano and Caroline was Thomas Robert […]

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When her husband suffered a stroke in 1936, Carrie Nucatola found employment as a seamstress to support her large family. She also operated a small dry goods store in her home, in which she sold sewing supplies. Her oldest son, John, was already married. He and his wife, Phyll, took his youngest brother, Tommy, in to live with them. Fifty years later Tommy took in John, a widower who was ready to downsize from his large house.

Caroline lived for many years with her daughter and son-in-law, Johanna and Jimmie, and their children. It was during those years that Janet […] learned her grandmother’s hobbies of knitting and crocheting. Caroline spent her later years in two nursing homes. Throughout that time, knitting and crocheting were her favorite pastimes. She specialized in making baby sets consisting of a sweater, hat and booties, which were bought by the residents and staffs of both nursing homes. On 12 September 1985, with some of her children over seventy, Caroline Parmigiani Nucatola died at the age of ninety-Þve.

Much must be said about Caroline Nucatola. Born in Italy and married at sixteen in New York’s Alphabet City, she gave birth to ten babies beginning in 1907. In addition to rearing her own, she took in one of her youngest siblings after the deaths of her parents. She had none of the conveniences we take for granted, such as a dishwasher, a clothes dryer, a color TV, a VCR, a camera, a computer, disposable diapers, frozen or take-out foods, dinner in a restaurant…the list goes on and on. Her children did not have separate rooms; in fact, the boys all slept in one bed and that’s not easy for seven boys to do! Air conditioning? They often were without hot water. A family vacation? Hardly. She never owned a car or had a driver’s license or a credit card. Airplanes had barely begun to ßy in 1907, the year she was married! To say that she had a hard life is an understatement. The fact that she lived ninety-Þve years being the mother of ten, grandmother of thirteen, great-grandmother of Þfteen at the time of her death, and a widow for nearly Þfty years, is a miracle.

[4] Francesco "Frank" NUCATOLA and Elide "Ida" PARMIGIANI

Francesco "Frank" Nucatola was born in Il Borgo in 1881. He worked as a shipbuilder, and he sailed around the world on the ships on which he worked. He told his family fond stories of his trips to Asia. In 1907, his older brother, Stefano, had married seventeen-year old Carolina Parmigiani. On 30 January 1909, Frank married her seventeen-year-old sister Elide, whose date of birth was 30 December 1891. At that time there were still seven more Parmigiani children at home, and three yet to be born! Within a few years of their marriage, Frank and Ida would move to Corona, Queens, as did the rest of their extended family. Originally they shared a two-family house with Frank’s brother Steve and Ida’s sister Carrie, but eventually they relocated a few miles within Corona, living near St. Leo’s Church.

Ida and Frank had ten children: John, Giovanna, Archimede, Francesco, […],[…], Mary, […],[…], and […]. As you can see, the Þrst seven had the same names as the children of Carrie and Steve. The reason, of course, is that they were named after the same grandparents. Also, because two brothers married two sisters, the cousins bore a very strong resemblance to each other.

[5] Giovanni "John" NUCATOLA and […]

Ida and her sister Caroline began their marriages in the same way: each was married at the age of seventeen in the beginning of the year, and each gave birth to her Þrst child, a son who would be named John, in November of the same year. Ida and Frank’s son, John Nucatola, was born on […] and was named after his father’s father. He and his wife, the former Madeline […], lived in Hempstead, Long Island, N.Y., and had a summer home in Rocky Point, N.Y. John was a building contractor. […]

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John Nucatola […] is fondly remembered for his appetite and his amazing capacity to consume vast amounts of food without gaining weight. John passed away on […].

[5] Giovanna NUCATOLA

Giovanna was born in 1910 and passed away in infancy.

[5] Archimede NUCATOLA, and

[5] Francesco NUCATOLA

Archimede and Francesco, the twin sons of Ida and Frank, were born ca. 1913 and died in infancy.

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[5] Mary NUCATOLA and […]

The third child of Ida and Frank was a daughter, Mary, born on 2 July 1917. Mary was named for her mother’s mother, Maria Fortunata Nicoletti. As a young woman, she discovered the existence of another Mary Nucatola, a distant cousin and a member of the Brooklyn Nucatolas. The two Marys had a meeting in Brooklyn in the early 1940s. Contact was lost when this Mary married.

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[5] […] and Ralph "Skee" FERRARO

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[6] Ralph FERRARO, Jr. and […]

Ralph Ferraro, Jr. worked as an electrician before his death on 10 November 1990.

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Ralph Ferraro, Jr., passed away on 10 November 1990, after a long illness. He is buried at Mt. St. Mary Cemetery, Flushing, NY.

[6] […] and 1) James WROBLEWSKI 2) John CHIARAMONTE

James passed away on 1 June 1980 and is buried in St. John’s Cemetery, Woodhaven, Queens, NY.

After a sudden illness, John passed away on 4 April, 1991. He was buried in Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, Roslyn, NY.

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Ralph "Skee" Ferrara died in Lake Ronkonkoma, NY, on […]. He had been blessed with four children, thirteen grandchildren, and (at that time) eight great grandchildren. His family was his pride and joy.

[5] […] and Robert LIPPERT

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[6] […] and Bruce DANON

Bruce Danon passed away on […] and is buried at Beth Moses Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island, NY.

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Frank Nucatola passed away on[…].

[4] Salvatore NUCATOLA

Salvatore was born in Palermo in 1892. His mother and siblings were denied entry at Ellis Island because he was terminally ill with a lung infection. He died in Palermo in 1904. More about Salvatore is detailed earlier.

[4] Giovanni "John" NUCATOLA and Pauline

MACCARRONI

John was the fourth child of Giovanni Nucatola and Giovanna Zampardi. He was born in Il Borgo, Palermo, on 5 July 1895 and came with his family to the US. in 1906 at eleven years of age. For the Þrst few years after their arrival, they lived in Manhattan. They moved to Corona, Queens, circa 1914. In 1917 or 1918, John married Pauline Maccarroni, daughter of Vincenza (birth surname unknown) and Carmello Maccarrona, who was born in Randazzo, Sicily. They had four children: John, Charles, Robert, and Johanna. Their Þrst three children were born while they were living in Corona, where John worked as a carpenter, as did his older brothers.

[5] John NUCATOLA and […]

Pauline and John’s son, John, was born on […]. As was the custom, he was named after his father’s father, which was his own father’s name, and the name of many of his cousins as well. John served in the army in World War II, as did his brothers. John married the former […]..

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[5] Charles NUCATOLA and […]

The second child of John and Pauline Nucatola was Charles, born in 1920, and named after his mother’s father, Carmello Maccarrona. Charlie was a retired New York City police ofÞcer. They also had a winter home in Green Valley, Arizona, a suburb of Tucson.

Charlie enjoyed golf, tennis, and softball. Charlie passed away in Arizona in March 1995, due to colon cancer.

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[5] […] and Bertha NYKANEN

Bertha passed away in April 1996.

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[4] Frances NUCATOLA and Felice "Phil" ONESTO

Frances Nucatola, youngest child of Giovanni and Giovanna, was born on 8 March 1896 in Il Borgo, Palermo. She arrived in the US in 1906 and lived with her mother and brothers on the Lower East Side of New York City. They moved to Corona, Queens, NY a few years later along with much of their extended family; then her mother passed away in 1916. The following year she married Felice Onesto […] in Corona. They had three children: Concetta, Nicholas, and John Onesto. I would guess that Concetta and Nicholas were the names of Felice’s parents.

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[5] Nicholas ONESTO and […]

Nicholas Onesto was born […].

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Felice loved opera and Frances was active in the community in PTA, scouting, and other activities. Felice passed away on[...], Frances on […], and their son, Nick, in […].

And so, then, Stefano Nucatola and Francesca Paola Zanca had as of this date (May 2002) at least one hundred eighty direct descendants; even more incredible is that they are all descendants of their son Giovanni Nucatola and his wife, Giovanna Zampardi.

From Il Borgo, Palermo, Sicily to San Francisco, California, USA

[2] Girolamo NUCATOLA and Domenica PERINO

The ancestors of the California branch of the Nucatolas were Girolamo Nucatola and his wife, Domenica Perino. Girolamo was the second son of Giovanni Nucatola (b. 1797) and Anna Romeo. Girolamo was born circa 1819, and Domenica, circa 1821; they were married circa 1840; like Stefano and Francesca Paola, Girolamo and Domenica lived in the section of Palermo called Il Borgo. They also belonged to the parish of Santa Lucia al Borgo. They were the parents of six children: Anna, Antonia, Giovanni, Cosmo, Cosmo, and Giuseppe Nucatola (14 March 1862–19 October 1898).

[3] Anna NUCATOLA

Anna, the Þrstborn child of Girolamo and Domenica, was probably named for her paternal grandmother. She was born on 10 November 1842.

[3] Antonia NUCATOLA

Perhaps Antonia was named for her maternal grandmother; we do not know for certain. Her date of birth was 22 August 1846.

[3] Giovanni NUCATOLA and Nina [surname unknown]

Girolamo and Domenica’s third child was Giovanni, who was named for his father’s father. Giovanni was born on 18 October 1848. He and his wife, Nina, were probably married circa 1875; they had no children. This is the other Giovanni Nucatola whose birth certiÞcate I received from the Palermo archives, discussed in the Introduction.

[3] Cosmo NUCATOLA

The name Cosmo must have originated with the Perino side of the family. Cosmo was born on 1 July 1849. It is most probable that he died in infancy, because the next son was given the same name.

[3] Cosmo NUCATOLA

Cosmo Nucatola was born on 18 September 1853. It is likely that Domenica and Girolamo would have repeated the name for this child if his older brother had passed away. For many years we were uncertain as to whether the name of this son was Cosmo or Stefano. Raffaela Mamone Nucatola recalled her husband’s uncle to be Cosmo, with whom her husband lived in New York for a while. Theresa Nucatola Ursino remembers a story from her childhood in which her father liked the name Steve because she thought that was his uncle’s name. As it turns out, Steve was not her father’s uncle but his great uncle, the same man who was, in fact, my great-great-grandfather.

[3] Giuseppe NUCATOLA and Teresa VENTIMIGLIA

The youngest son of Girolamo and Domenica Nucatola was Giuseppe Nucatola, born on 14 March 1862. He lived only thirty-seven years. Giuseppe married Teresa Ventimiglia on 22 March 1887, at the age of twenty-five. They were always thought to have been the parents of two children, but in 1994 we discovered that there were, in fact, three children: Girolamo, born on 24 January 1888 and named for his paternal grandfather, Giovanni, born on 20 June 1890 and named for his paternal uncle (or perhaps for his great-grandfather), and Domenica, born in 1891, and named for her paternal grandmother.

A severe famine, combined with massive unemployment, struck Italy during the 1890’s (see the opening pages for more information). By 1925, four million Italians had immigrated to America permanently. Some came with their entire families; in other cases, a man came ahead to Þnd a home and save enough money to send for his family. Still others crossed the ocean to Þnd employment for a few years and then they return to Italy permanently. Giuseppe was in the third category. He left his family in Palermo for seven years, having emigrated to Pittsburg (the spelling is correct), California, a town on the San Pablo Bay east of Oakland, where he worked as a Þsherman. He probably left Italy after the birth of his daughter, Domenica. Giuseppe died in Palermo on 19 October 1898, at the age of thirty-seven. His widow, Teresa, died soon thereafter, on 19 March, 1901, at the age of thirty-six, leaving their children, Girolamo and Domenica Nucatola, ages thirteen and nine, to be raised by their mother’s father.

[4] Girolamo NUCATOLA and Raffaela MAMONE

In August of 1911, when Girolamo reached the age of twenty-three, he decided to go to America, as his late father had done. He would not be alone because his Uncle Cosmo lived in Brooklyn at that time, as well as his cousin, Salvatore. Once in New York, the spelling of his name was changed to Girolomo. Girolomo worked as a stevedore at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when he arrived. In 1914, Cosmo wanted to return to Palermo, and he wanted Girolomo to return with him. Young Girolomo refused, choosing to remain with his cousin Salvatore for a while. Then in 1914, he moved west to San Francisco, having relatives there on his mother’s side of the family. Salvatore and Girolomo exchanged letters for twelve years, but then Girolomo relocated within San Francisco, and perhaps addresses were lost. In any event, letters between the cousins were not exchanged after that time.

Residing in San Francisco in 1914 were the Mamone family, consisting of Vincenzo Mamone, his wife, Rosalia CECEIA Mamone, and their children: Louise, Raffaela, Vincenzo, Francesco, Anne, Rose, and Anthony. Their first daughter, Louise, had married a man of Austrian ancestry in 1912. Their second daughter, Raffaela (30 October 1897–19 August 1991) was seventeen; her mother, Rosalia, had known Girolomo’s family because she, too, was from Il Borgo. Raffaela was born there; she had been baptized at the same church as the Nucatolas, Santa Lucia al Borgo. I had always wondered why her Baptismal CertiÞcate is headed "Archivio Parrochiale Di Sta. Maria Di Monserrato Alle Croce", when the parish church was called Santa Lucia al Borgo. In 1994 we learned the reason: Santa Lucia al Borgo was bombed and destroyed in World War II, and a new church, Santa Maria Di Monserrato Alle Croce, was built in its place.

Raffaela and Girolomo were married on 16 January 1916; she was eighteen, while he was a week shy of twenty-eight. Later that year, on 4 September 1916, they became parents of twins; the Þrst girl was stillborn, […]. Their second child was Joseph, born on 18 May 1918, and named after his paternal grandfather. Joseph, however, died at less than two years of age. […]

[5] […] and Giacomo URSINO

Giuseppe Ursino and Sebastianna CARAMANGO were immigrants from Sicily who settled in Boston with their seven children. Giacomo was the oldest, born in Augusta, Sicily, on 17 November 1907. He was followed by Nedda, Carmela, Salvatore, Dominic, Francesco, and Mary Ursino. Giacomo, who was called Jack in America, left his family in Boston and moved on to San Francisco. […] Jack, a Þsherman, was lost at sea in 1954.

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[7] Paul URSINO

Paul […] was killed in an automobile accident at the age of nineteen.

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[5] […] and Jerome RERICH

Jerry passed away in 1986; they had no children.

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[4] Giovanni NUCATOLA

A recent discovery was the birth of Giovanni Nucatola, the second child of Teresa and Giuseppe Nucatola, on 20 June 1890. Girolamo never mentioned having had a brother. We can assume that Giovanni died as a very young child.

[4] Domenica NUCATOLA and Francesco SERCONA

Domenica Nucatola, Girolomo’s sister, was born in 1891. She remained in Palermo with her Aunt Nina and Uncle Giovanni Nucatola. She married Francesco Sercona, and they had three children, Anna, Teresa, and Francesco. Cousin Salvatore returned to Palermo. We know this because in later years, Domenica would write to her brother of his visits. She mentioned that he would make purchases for his food store. Theresa’s parents exchanged letters with Domenica, her father’s sister in Palermo, for many years, but she died at the age of Þfty in 1930.

[5] Anna SERCONA and [first name unknown] LANZETTA

Girolomo and Raffaela continued to hear from their niece, Anna Sercona Lanzetta. Anna requested medicines and supplies for her ill son, in 1950. However, at that time, Girolomo himself was very ill, suffering from emphysema, and he died two years later; contacts again were lost.

[5]Teresa SERCONA

[5] Francesco SERCONA

In 1971, Raffaela Nucatola and her son Joe went to Palermo with the hope of finding someone who could help them to locate their lost relatives. Unfortunately, Raffaela went into a diabetic coma and was hospitalized. That put an end to their search.

More than twenty -five years ago, Theresa was chatting with one of her patients and mentioned her brother’s name, Joe Nucatola. The patient, Marge Leith, asked if they had ever met John Nucatola, the basketball ofÞcial from New York, who was a friend of her husband. Theresa responded that her father had distant cousins in New York whom she had never met. The next time John was in San Francisco, the Leiths took John to Joe’s restaurant, so that the two could meet. Joe then took John to meet his mother, Raffaela. John said the photo Raffaela showed him of her late husband, Girolomo, bore a strong resemblance to his father’s brother, his Uncle Frank Nucatola.

Since then, Theresa, her brother, and her son have graciously entertained several of the Nucatolas from Queens. In May, 1993, after more than fourteen years of corresponding, I realized my dream of meeting Theresa and her lovely family in San Francisco. At that meeting, Jim Ursino told me about the Zancas in San Francisco who say they are cousins of the Nucatolas. The charts show that the Zancas intermarried with the Nucatolas more than once.

In 1994, a family trip to Italy revealed many things to the Ursinos. It was then that they discovered that the church, Santa Lucia al Borgo, had been destroyed. Also, it was then that they found eleven Nucatolas in the Palermo telephone directory, mentioned in the Introduction. Without the information that they gathered, I could not have discovered how all the Nucatolas are related.

From Il Borgo, Palermo, Sicily to Brooklyn, NY, USA

[2] Vincenzo NUCATOLA and Maria ZANCA

It is my guess that Maria Zanca was a younger sister of Francesca Paola Zanca, the wife of Stefano, meaning that two sisters married two brothers. In addition to having the same surname, both named their Þrstborn daughters Anna Maria. We know nothing more about Anna Maria or her sister, Giovanna.

[3] Anna Maria NUCATOLA

Anna Maria was born on 15 August 1845.

[3] Giovanna NUCATOLA

Giovanna’s date of birth was 30 January 1848.

[3] Giovanni NUCATOLA and Maria [surname unknown]

Giovanni was born in Il Borgo, Palermo, on 17 July 1848. He and Maria had three children: Vincenzo, Francesco, and Salvatore Nucatola.

[4] Vincenzo NUCATOLA and Francesca PERGOLIZZI

Vincenzo (circa 1886–1944) and his wife, the former Francesca Pergolizzi, arrived in New York in 1923, at the end of the wave of four million immigrants from Italy. The exodus was halted by World War I, and by government restrictions in the 1920’s. Vincenzo and Francesca settled in Brooklyn. With them came their six children: Maria (b.1907), Nella (b.1909), Prudy (b.1911), Jennie (b. 1913) Patricia (b.1914), and John (b.1916). Notice that the Þrst daughter and the only son were named after their father’s parents. The previous year, Vincenzo’s younger brother, Salvatore, had arrived with his wife, Giacoma, and their one year old son, Giovanni (John).

[5] Maria NUCATOLA and ? TEPEDINO

Maria was born in 1907.

[5] Nella Nucatola and ? GRASSI

Nella was born in 1909.

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[5] Pietra "Patty" NUCATOLA and Vincenzo "Enzo" NUCATOLA

Patty (5 June 1914–17 Dec 1987) was born in Palermo, but came to New York as a young child and was raised in Brooklyn. In 1953, she and her cousin Mary Nucatola took a trip to Palermo. It was then that Patty met Vincenzo Nucatola (11 Apr 1920-23 Jun 2000), called Enzo, who was her first cousin. Enzo followed her to Brooklyn, where they were married the following year. Their son Frank was born in 1955.

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[5] John NUCATOLA

John was born in 1916 and died in 1969 at the age of 53. He never married. Illness kept him from military service.

Vincenzo Nucatola, born ca. 1886, died in 1944.

[4] Francesco NUCATOLA and Rosalia [surname unknown]

Francesco Nucatola, born in 1888, did not emigrate to America. His family is detailed in the Palermo section.

[4] Salvatore NUCATOLA and Giacoma PERGOLIZZI

Salvatore Nucatola was born in 1889 (making him twelve years younger than Stefano of Queens, and one year older than Girolomo of California), and his wife, the former Giacoma Pergolizzi, was born in 1900. He was the Þrst member of his family to immigrate to America, having arrived in 1920.

Notice that Giacoma and Francesca had the same birth surname; it appears that just as with other Nucatolas, two brothers married two sisters.

We know that from the 1880s through the 1920s, many Italians made the trip to America more than once. Giuseppe Nucatola deÞnitely did, and Stefano Nucatola may have, too. It is possible that Salvatore may have come to this country twice, once in 1911 and later in 1920. If so, he could have been Girolomo’s cousin Salvatore. If he came twice, he did not share this information with his children. However, we shall soon see that there was another Salvatore, who was more likely to have been Girolamo’s "Cousin Salvatore."

Salvatore worked for an ice company. Their son, Giovanni, named for his paternal grandfather, had been born in Palermo on 4 January 1919, the year before they arrived in New York. In America he was called John M. Nucatola. Salvatore and Giacoma’s daughter, Mary, was born on 5 January 1927 in Brooklyn.

[5] John M. NUCATOLA and […]

As an adult, Salvatore and Giacoma’s son Giovanni was known as John M. Nucatola. For his middle name, he took the name Michael after his godfather at conÞrmation. During World War II, he saw active duty in the Air Force, being stationed in England for two years. It was his records that were switched with those of John P. Nucatola of Queens.

John was a partner in a shoe business. John passed away in August 1985.

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[5] Mary NUCATOLA

John’s sister, Mary, was born on 5 January 1927. Mary was tall and red-haired, resembling her mother’s relatives. Mary was a retired auditor for New York State. She loved travel, having been to Europe, including Palermo, many times. In 1986, Mary entertained several of the Queens Nucatolas, including John and Tommy, at her home in Brooklyn. In 1993 I enjoyed her gracious hospitality myself. Through many phone calls and letters she helped me to gather much information.

Nearly Þfty years ago, Mary Nucatola from Brooklyn met with Mary Nucatola from Queens (who became Mary Decker), through working in a department store in Brooklyn. Mary Decker remembered having met Mary, her brother, and their father at their home in Brooklyn. Many years later, Mary Nucatola of Brooklyn accompanied a friend to Florida, and there through an incredible coincidence, she encountered Mary and Bill Decker, and Johanna and Phil Tamberino!

Mary passed away peacefully, unexpectedly, in her sleep on 28 December 1997.

In 1923, after his wife had passed away, Giovanni Nucatola decided to go to America to be with his sons, Vincenzo and Salvatore. Giovanni and Salvatore were the men Johanna Nucatola Punzi remembers as her father’s cousins who visited her parents in Corona in the 1920’s. Why was there only one visit? Giovanni returned to Palermo in 1930, where he passed away at the age of about 85, in 1933.

Exactly how was Giovanni Nucatola from Brooklyn related to Stefano Nucatola in Corona, Queens? Their grandfathers were brothers.

The Palermo Branch

Here we might beneÞt from a brief review. Giovanni Nucatola (b. 1797) and his wife, Anna Romeo, were the parents of four sons. Their eldest, Stefano, is the forefather of the Corona, Queens, Nucatolas. Their second son, Girolamo, is the forefather of the San Francisco Nucatolas. We know nothing more about their fourth son, Giuseppe, but their third son, Vincenzo, is the forefather of both the Brooklyn Nucatolas, and of those who remained in Palermo.

Vincenzo Nucatola (b. 19 February 1820) and his wife Maria Zanca had two daughters and two sons. Their son Giovanni Nucatola (b. 17 July 1849) and his wife Maria were the parents of three sons. Two of them, Vincenzo and Salvatore, emigrated to Brooklyn, while the middle son, Francesco, remained in Palermo.

Francesco Nucatola (b. 24 February 1852), the second son of Vincenzo and Maria Zanca, also remained in Palermo.

[4] Francesco NUCATOLA and Rosalia [surname unknown]

Francesco Nucatola was born in Palermo in 1888 and died in 1947. His wife, Rosalia, was born in 1882 and died in 1971. They were the parents of Giovanni, Salvatore, Pietro, Antonio, Maria, and Vincenzo. Francesco and Rosalia did not emigrate to America, remaining instead in Palermo.

[5] Giovanni NUCATOLA

Giovanni was born circa 1907 and died before 1996. He was named for his paternal grandfather.

[5] Salvatore NUCATOLA

Salvatore was born circa 1909 and died before 1996.

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[4] Antonio NUCATOLA and [name unknown]

Antonio Nucatola was born circa 1916 and died circa 1993. He was the father of Benedetto Fabio Nucatola.

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[5] Vincenzo "Enzo" NUCATOLA and Patricia "Patty" NUCATOLA

Vincenzo was born in Palermo in 1920. Called Enzo, he arrived in this country in 1954 at age thirty-four, in pursuit of his cousin Patricia Nucatola, whom he had met the previous year when she was visiting Palermo. He and Patricia, who was the youngest of the Þve daughters of Francesca and Vincenzo Nucatola, were married that year. They had one son, […]. Enzo was a retired a mechanic in the tool business; Patty was a homemaker who passed away on [,,,]. In order to avoid duplication, information regarding Frank and his family are detailed in the Brooklyn section.

[3] Francesco NUCATOLA and Concetta SICARI

The last son of Vincenzo (b. 1820) and Maria was Francesco Nucatola (born 24 February 1852). Francesco married Concetta Sicari circa 1882. They had four children: Giuseppe, Salvatore, Antonino, and Anna Nucatola.

[4] Giuseppe NUCATOLA

Giuseppe Nucatola was born circa 1885.

[4] Salvatore NUCATOLA and Melchiorre Eleanora SARDINA

Salvatore was born circa 1880. I believe he was Girolamo’s cousin in Brooklyn in 1910 who returned to Palermo at that time to marry Melchiorre Eleanora Sardina, and then remained in Palermo. They had four children: Giuseppe, Concetta, Maddalena, and Francesco Nucatola.

[5] Giuseppe NUCATOLA and Maria DeLUCA

Giuseppe was born on 4 April 1915. He and his wife, Maria DeLuca, were the parents of eight children: Melchiorre Eleanora, Salvatore, Gioacchino, Concetta, Francesco, Maddalena, Teresa, and Giovanni. Many of the children were named for relatives: Melchiorre Eleanora, for her mother; Salvatore, for his paternal grandfather; Concetta, for her paternal grandmother; Francesco, for his paternal grandfather; Maddalena, for her father’s sister; and Giovanni, possibly for his grandfather’s brother. Giuseppe passed away on […].

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[4]Antonino NUCATOLA

Antonino Nucatola, born circa 1893, was the father of Maria Nucatola. According to Maria, Antonino received a velvet coat from his relatives in America many years ago, which she still owns. Chances of determining which relative sent the coat are small.

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[4] Anna NUCATOLA

Anna Nucatola, fourth child of Francesco and Concetta, was born circa 1895

What About the Rest of the Parmigianis?

The Parmigianis were introduced earlier. While Maria Fortunata Nicoletti and Archimede Parmigiani moved to Manhattan and then to Queens, Antonio and his wife, Amelia Fabretti, lived in Brooklyn. Antonio and Amelia owned and operated a candy store on Van Brunt Street. Amelia and Antonio were the parents of three children, Volturno (called Walter), Edna, and Esmerelda.

[4] Volturno "Walter" PARMIGIANI and Mary TARCETTI

Walter was born ca 1895, whether in Brooklyn or Italy, we do not know. His wife was Mary Tarcetti. Walter and Mary had three children: Walter Angelo, Anthony, and William Parmigiani.

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[6] Santa PARMIGIANI

Santa was born in April 1942, and died of whooping cough in October of the same year.

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What about the descendants of Archimede Parmigiani? The first two children of Maria Fortunata Nicoletti and Archimede Parmigiani married the first two children of Giovanna Zampardi and Giovanni Nucatola. What happened to the other ten Parmigiani children?

[4] Luisa-Tilde Ava Adele Parmigiani and Gaetano

FABRETTI

Louisa was born on 14 November 1893 in Ancona. Her godparents at birth were her mother’s brother, Alfredo Nicoletti, and his wife, Ersilia Brunettini diDomenico. Luisa may have been named for a pattern model of the era. She accompanied her mother and siblings on the transatlantic journey to America in 1998, when she was five years old.

Louisa’s granddaughter, Regina McCarthy Stewart, has Louisa’s Certificate of Employment, a document issued in March 1908, when Louisa was fourteen years of age. At that time, Louisa was 4’10", 107 lbs., and declared qualified for employment in manufacturing or in mercantile. Her family’s address was 227-29 Lewis Street, in Manhattan.

Louisa enjoyed visiting her aunt and uncle, Amelia Fabretti Parmigiani and Angelo Parmigiani, in their home in Brooklyn. Amelia left home when she married, leaving her younger brother, Gaetano, with their father, because their mother had died. After their father remarried, Gaetano, who didn’t get along well with his step-mother, joined the navy on 6 February 1907. He was discharged in Venice on 1 October 1910, after having served "with honor and loyalty during peacetime".

On 16 Sept 1911, when he was twenty-five years old, Gaetano left Italy for America from the port of LeHavre, France. He arrived in New York on 24 Sept 1911. He had traveled 3rd class (i.e., in steerage); the trip took 8 1/2 days. He wouldn’t be alone in New York; in addition to his sister, he would be able to look up Maria Fortunata Nicoletti, the half-sister of his best friend, Archimede Nicoletti.

Louisa Parmigiani, who had a suitor, was visiting her aunt and uncle in October, 1911, a few weeks after Amelia’s brother had arrived. The two met, and soon became a couple, much to the dismay of Louisa’s suitor. They planned to be married in 1914, but because Louisa’s father died in May of that year, they had to wait the obligatory year of mourning before they could marry. On 3 June 1915, Louisa Parmigiani and Gaetano Fabretti were married in St. Leo’s Church, Corona, Queens, NY. They were the parents of two children, Anna Marie and Archimede.

[5] […] and Daniel McCARTHY

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[6] Marilyn McCARTHY

Marilyn was born on Christmas Day, 1956. She had Down Syndrome and lived in a group home for most of her adult life. Marilyn developed ovarian cancer and passed away in 2001.

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[5] Malvina "Molly" PARMIGIANI & Thomas MILANO

Malvina Parmigiani was less than three years old when she, her mother, and her siblings made the voyage from Italy in 1898. She spent her early childhood living with her family on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and her adolescence in Corona, Queens. Named for a fashion model as described earlier, she was called Molly.

She and Tom were married circa 1915. Tom owned a limousine company, while Molly was a seamstress. Molly and Tom were the parents of six children: Frank, Rose, Archimede, John, Thomas, and Thomas’ twin, who died.

[6] Frank MILANO and […]

Frank was born […]. He was a professional wrestler. Married four times, Frank fathered four children. Frank, who was named for his paternal grandfather, passed away[…].

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[…] lived with her son Tom in Huntington for many years. She died circa 1990.

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[5] Gaetano "Galiano" "Paul" PARMIGIANI & Anna MANGANO

According to an official document, the first son of Maria and Archimede Parmigiani was named Gaetano. However, he was always known in the family to be named Galiano, and he was called Gali. We have recently discovered that Gali Americanized his name to Paul outside the family. Born on […], he was less than a year old on his family’s transatlantic voyage.

Gali was sixteen years of age when his father died, and eighteen when he was orphaned completely by the death of his mother. He worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He married Anna Mangano […]. They lived in Flushing, Queens, NY, where they were the parents of two children, […].

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Gali Parmigiani passed away […] at the age of 85.

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[5] Francesco "Frank" PARMIGIANI & Irene [surname unknown]

Frank, who was born 17 October 1900, was the first member of his family to be born in America. He was thirteen when his father died, and fifteen at the death of his mother.

Frank’s wife was Irene [surname unknown], who was born on 6 August 1901. Irene had a son, Scott, from a previous marriage. Frank was a building superintendent. He died of leukemia in 1972; Irene died in December, 1977.

[5] Genevra "Jennie" PARMIGIANI

Genevra translates as Jennifer in English. Genevra Parmigiani, who was born 15 January 1903, was always called Jennie. She was eleven when her father died, and fifteen at the death of her mother. At that time, she went to live with her married sister, Louisa, in Brooklyn. Jennie helped Louisa and her husband with their store in Brooklyn. After her brother-in-law died in 1950, the store was closed. At that time, both Louisa and Jennie were employed as seamstresses. Jennie, who never married, remained with her sister until she passed away on 18 September 1992.

[5] Antonio PARMIGIANI

Antonio, who was named for his paternal grandfather, was born circa 1904 and died in childhood circa 1909.

[5] Maria "Mary" PARMIGIANI & Walter REICHERT

Mary was born in New York City on 9 October 1907. When her mother died in 1918, she was ten years old. At that time, she went to live in an orphanage with her younger sister, Celia. They were there for five years. In 1923, Mary went to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Molly and Tom Milano. Mary married Walter Reichert. They had two children, Walter and Elaine.

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[7] Thomas WASHINGTON

Thomas Washington (1957-1997) worked for the United States Postal Service.

[5] Antonietta PARMIGIANI

Antonietta was born 31 January 1910, along with her twin sister, Celia. Celia has a photo of her mother with the twin babies. Antoinetta was the smaller, more frail baby. She died circa 1912.

[5] Ersilia Theresa "Celia" Parmigiani & Vincenzo "James

Anthony" "Jim" DeLUCA

Ersilia was named for her aunt, Ersilia Brunettini. In America her name was shortened to Celia. Celia’s middle name, Theresa, was the name of her godmother at confirmation.

When her[…]

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[5] Anthony "Tony" PARMIGIANI & […]

Tony, who was born on 5 September 1912, was named for his deceased brother, himself named for his paternal grandfather. Tony was only two years old when his father died; he was six at the death of his mother. At that time, he went to live with his married sister, Lousia. He stayed with her family until he was eleven. Upon visiting the family of his sister, Carrie, he asked to be able to stay with them because they had so many boys with whom he could play. That’s when he joined the family of his sister, Carrie.

Tony married […] They were the parents of two sons, Anthony and Frank. Tony was a carpenter.

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Nucatolas in the 1994 Palermo Directory

Conclusion

In 1800 all of the Nucatolas lived in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Although most of the Nucatolas in Italy still live there, now there are Nucatolas living in other parts of Italy, with one located in Belgium.

All the Nucatolas who arrived in the United States from Italy lived, at least temporarily, in New York. Their descendants now reside in the states of Arizona, California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.

We are all related!

Here’s an interesting note: In America we pronounce the name Nucatola with the accent on the letter "o". In Italy, the accent is on the first "a", so that it is Nu-cá-to-la rather than Nu-ca-tó-la.

I urge any readers who have access to certiÞcates of birth, marriage or death of any Nucatola or Parmigiani, to send me a copy. Please notify me whenever there’s a marriage or birth or any change of family status, or if you should relocate to a different address, or if you know of someone else who has done so. Please write or call, so I can keep the Family Tree up-to-date. Also, I would welcome a photo of each of us.

If you learn anything more, please let me know, and I will pass the information along to the entire family. Also, I’d love to hear from anyone who would be interested in a Nucatola Family Reunion.

Chermayeff, Ivan, Waserman, Fred, and Mary J. Shapiro. Ellis Island. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991. Magnificent photos accompany a very well detailed text.

Edgren, Hjalmar. An Italian and English Dictionary. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1901. Yes, this book is more than one hundred years old!

Mangione, Jerre, and Morreale, Ben. La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992. This is an extremely well researched volume.

Facaros, Dana, and Michael Pauls. Sicily. Connecticut: The Globe Pequot Press, 1994. The history of Palermo and Sicily on pages 4—5 is derived from their very thorough research.

Schwartz, Arthur. "String Fever," The New York Times Magazine. (June 25, 2000), p. 62.

Simeti, Mary Taylor. On Persephone’s Island. New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, Inc., 1986. This is the source of the typical food purchase list.

Smith, Elsdon C. Dictionary of American Family Names. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956. The history of names on page 6 is from this source. Mr. Smith, along with J. N. Hook, are America’s foremost authorities in the Þeld of onomastics, the study of names.

Sturino, Franc. Forging the Chain. Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1990. This book is extremely well researched and presented. It focuses on the Rende area of Cosenza, but much of its contents can be applied to all of Southern Italy.

Tifft, Wilton S. Ellis Island. Chicago: Contemporary Press, 1990. The photos of immigrants are especially poignant.