My Italian ancestors have left some confusing and conflicting information that I have been trying to make sense of. It all started some years back when my mother's cousin asked me if I had any information on Eva DeNicola. Eva is a daughter of Louisa and Arnaldo DeNicola who died at a young age. Eva would have been my grandfather Remo's sister. My grandfather had never mentioned that he had a sister that died as a child' but he was also the youngest and may not have even known. I had asked the reference librarian from Quincy if she could find a birth date and death date for Eva DeNicola since the records online only go up to 1915. She did find Eva was born in 1919 to Arnaldo and Louisa T.; and that Eva's death was recorded in Quincy in 1923.
I did not find much more information on Eva until many months later a match came up on ancestry.com from findagrave. Someone had posted Eva's gravestone from Mt. Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy, MA. I had not found Eva in the Quincy cemetery index, so I was surprised to see her gravestone from Quincy. Another surprise was the engraving on the stone, which stated Eva was also buried with her grandmother, Francesca Pettinelli. The Pettinelli name was one I had heard before in relation to Luisa Terragnoli, but no-one seemed to know the connection.
We knew that Louisa's maiden name was Terragnoli from her children Luigi, Gilda, Amelia, Romulos, Adolph, and Olga's birth records. Also on Arnaldo and Louisa's passenger record from Italy to Boston, they state their friend in the United States is Louisa's brother, Cosmo Terragnoli. If the Francesca that was buried with Eva was Loiusa's mother; I would expect her last name to be Terragnoli, not Pettinelli.
I did another search for Terragnolis in Quincy and found a Damiano Terragnoli who married in Quincy. He lists his parents as Guiseppe Terragnoli and Francesca Lucente. Francesca matches the name on Eva's gravestone, but does not explain where the Pettinelli name came from. Oddly, Damiano uses the Pettinelli name in all future records, rather than Terragnoli. I would guess this makes it more likely that Louisa and Damiano are siblings, as Damiano is linked to both the Terragnoli and Pettinelli name, as is Louisa. I am thinking the most likely scenario is that their mother, Francesca Lucente Terragnoli, remarries a Pettinelli, and Damiano changes his name after his mother remarries.
My next step was to order the death records of Francesca Pettinelli and Louisa DeNicola to see how it lists their maiden names and to confirm Francesca Pettinelli is Louisa's mother. The death records were not exactly as I expected.
Let's start with Louisa's death record first. Louisa's mother is listed as Francesca Lucente. This is the same name listed on Damiano Terragnoli's marriage record; linking them once more - probably as brother and sister. However, Luisa's father is listed as Luigi Pettinelli, not Guiseppe Terragnoli as I had expected. I am guessing that Louisa's father was listed incorrectly by her son A. DeNicola, who probably only knew Luigi Pettinelli as Francesca's husband and mistakenly recorded this name. Finding Louisa's birth record and marriage record to Arnaldo would be helpful to see if Guiseppe Terragnoli or Luigi Pettinelli is listed as her father. Unfortunately, the records available on the L'Aquila state archives and on familysearch only go up to 1865 for Prezza, Italy.
My next step was to look at Francesca Pettinelli's death record to confirm she was Louisa's mother. Indeed, Francesca's father is listed as Nichelle Lucente, matching the maiden name of Louisa's and Damiano's mother as Francesca Lucente. This record also states that Francesca was widowed from Luigi Pettinelli; so Pettinelli is definitely a married name. Finding this marriage record would be helpful to see if maybe Louisa's first marriage to Guiseppe Terragnoli is mentioned; confirming my suspicions that this is her second marriage. I have been unable to find any passenger records or marriage records in the US for Louisa or Luigi. I am not sure if they married in Italy or here in the US. I have written Italy a couple of times for more informtion on this family, but I have not heard back. I guess I will have to next write to the parish priest of Prezza.
My conclusions after obtaining the information from various sources is that Louisa, Damiano and Cosmo are all children of Francesca Lucente and Guiseppe Terragnoli. I suspect that Guisseppe died in Prezza, Italy after 1886, about the year Cosmo was born. Francesca remarries, either in the US or Italy, to Luigi Pettinelli. Damiano was probably young enough that he used the Pettinelli name, maybe he did not even know his father Guiseppe Terragnoli. I have not found much information in the US for either Francesca Pettinelli or the missing brother Cosmo, who was listed on Louisa's passenger record. Maybe Cosmo went back to Italy. I am not sure why I have not found much information on Francesca in the United States. Obtaining some records from Italy would be very helpful in sorting all this out.
death record transcriptions are from Mass Document Retrieval
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