Genealogy: John's Maternal Grandfather and Paternal Grandmother Relationship

 

Giovanni Impellizzeri and Benedetta Adamo: Cousins!

If you follow my genealogy blog posts, you might recall that last year I discovered that John's maternal and paternal grandmothers were distant cousins. 

Benedetta Adamo Ciacchella (#6) and Maria Milano Impellizzeri (#19), John's grandmothers, at the engagement party of their children, Peter and Virginia, circa 1949.

Photo Key: 1 Salvatore Adragna 2 ? 3 ? 4 ? 5 Vincent Jimmy DePaolo 6 Benedetta Adamo 7 John Impellizzeri 8 Vincenza Jenny Milano Impellizzeri 9 Giuseppe Joseph Impellizzeri 10 Joseph Ponzetti 11 Theresa Ciacchella Ponzetti 12 Virginia Ciacchella Saigh 13 Mary Scavone Ciacchella 14 Frances Impellizzeri Adragna 15 Josephine Impellizzeri Pirrone 16 Tony Impellizzeri  17 Antionette Pirrone Romita 18 Sarah Impellizzeri DePaola 19 Maria Milano Impellizzeri 20 Vita Catanzaro Milano 21 Frank Ponzetti 22 Antonio Milano 23 Tony Impellizzeri (John godfather) 24 Carmella Ciacchella Pace 25 Jennie Mancuso Milano 26 Virginia Impellizzeri Vitale  27 John Milano 28 Marie DePaola Kirby 29 Joe Impellizzeri 30 Martha DePaola McArdle Cobb 31 Joe Ciacchella 32 Sebastian Buster Ciacchella 33 Peter Ciacchella 34 Virginia Impellizzeri 35 Sam Milano 36 Rose Milano Queentry.

As well, in 2022, I discovered that John's maternal great-grandparents were distant cousins. 

Giovanni and Maria (Milano) Impellizzeri, with daughters Josephine and Virginia.

Looking back at my blog posts, I don't think I ever got around to writing specifically about that discovery! I did make a mention on Facebook, and I have referenced this discovery several times in other blog posts (e.g. here). 

In retrospect, I remember that I was saving this finding to discuss in a big blog post about my Impellizzeri discoveries - that still hasn't been written. The challenge has been that it's a huge project to compile my findings in this line (as I've identified many Impellizzeri cousins), and I was a little busy - and without a home - in 2022-2023, LOL. 

The good news is that I've begun working on that project again. Most recently, I've reviewed all of the cousins I have spoken with and placed them into my hand-drawn mega Impellizzeri tree. I hope to publish a blog of this project some time in the Spring. I'm especially motivated, because there are American Impellizzeri cousins coming to visit Italy in May. (Evviva, non vedo l'ora incontrarvi Kelly, Mary, and Wendy!) I would like to have the project finished before they make their journey.

Kelly, Mary, and Wendy - See you in May!

You may ask, why am I not working on it now? Well, a bit of serendipity happened this month, as related to the topic of this post, and I wanted to capture that while it was fresh in my mind. 

For context, I have my own personal family tree at Ancestry.com, which I keep private. There is also a crowd-sourced tree at FamilySearch.org. Since it is crowd-sourced, it is often riddled with errors. Because I have benefited from the tree in the past (at least in terms of hints, as opposed to accuracy of information), and because I utilize family search's digitized records, I try to be a good genealogy citizen and make contributions to this tree when I can. When I find sources (i.e. proof) or discover new people (or existing people I can merge to make deeper connections), I add these to the FamilySearch tree. These activities make that tree stronger (although anyone can go in and change my work - and sometimes this, annoyingly, happens). As well, since my Ancestry tree is private, it helps others who are working on the same lines. Now, I don't always consistently do this - it's a lot of extra work! - but I try.

Recently, FamilySearch sent me an email with my contributions for 2024. So, I went to check that out. 

Apparently, I'm a Tree-Building Titan. I've no idea what that means relative to other contributors, but it sounds impressive! I made 665 contributions, adding 148 people, and 517 sources.

When I was there, I saw that I had notifications. Every few weeks I get a summary of "Changes to People You Follow." These are people of particular interest that I have flagged, and they are often people who've been prone to being changed back to incorrect information. So, I popped in to see what shenanigans were happening lately. 

The notification - not a change, an addition, yay! - was related to one pair of John's 8th great-grandparents (remember, we each have 512 sets or 1024 8th great-grandparents!), Vincenza di Falco and Nunzio Mannino, of Carini, Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Vincenzo and Nunzio are 8th great-grandparents in the line of John's paternal grandmother, Benedetta Adamo. 

Vincenza and Nunzio circled in red in Benedetta Adamo's direct ancestor tree, via her maternal line.

When I was looking at Vincenza's information, I noticed that there was a suggested marriage date for her parents, Domenico di Falco and Angela Cavataio. While I already had this couple in my tree, I did not have their marriage record. Off to confirm if the information was correct...

On 27 January, 1630, in Carini, Domenico di Falco, son of Andrea and Margherita, married Angela Cavataio, daughter of Matteo and Antonella. Domenico and Angela are John's 9th great-grandparents in this line, and Matteo and Antonella / Andrea and Margherita, are his 10th great-grandparents.

If you aren't familiar with electronic family trees, after finding a record and entering the data into the tree, the next step is to attach the record to all of the people named in the record. As I was attaching Matteo Cavataio, I discovered there were two Matteo Cavataio in my tree. Hmmm? Could they be the same person? Time to investigate.

A quick review indicated that it was the same person. Matteo Cavataio, married to an Antonella, from Carini. However, in that part of the tree, they were listed as the parents of Pietro Cavataio and Francesca Cavataio (alias Galluzzo). This couple are John's 9th great-grandparents in his maternal grandfather's line!

Pietro and Francesca, as well, as Matteo and Antonella, circled in red, in Giovanni Impellizzeri's direct ancestor tree, via his maternal line.

So, Benedetta Adamo and Giovanni Impellizzeri have a set of 8th great-grandparents (10 great-grandparents for John) in common, making them 9th cousins.

Benedetta Adamo and Giovanni Impellizzeri, both from Alcamo, 9th cousins via their shared ancestors Matteo and Antonella Cavataio, from Carini. Both of these grandparents have branches that originate back to Carini, and I explored that topic more deeply in this blog. These photos are from immigration documents. We are guessing that Benedetta and Giovanni never met. Giovanni died in 1947, and their children were engaged in 1949.

We know from my previous discovery (grandmothers related), that John's parents, Peter and Virginia, were distant (4th) cousins via their shared ancestors from Alcamo, Damiano Tartamella and Caterina Varvera. They are also distant (10th) cousins via these shared ancestors, Matteo and Antonella Cavataio from Carini!

Virginia Impellizzeri and Peter Ciacchella

I didn't explicitly state this in the blog about the grandmother relationships, but this also means that the descendants of Benedetta Adamo + Giuseppe Ciacchella (Ciacchella cousins) and the descendants of Maria Milano + Giovanni Impellizzeri (Impellizzeri cousins) are not only cousins, but they are double cousins! I think they would be 5th and 11th cousins, and their descendants some type of "removed" relationship. But, my head is spinning now, so I'll just leave you with a couple of photos (circa late 80s). Can you spot us?

John's Impellizzeri 1st cousins (and partners, and some aunts, uncles and cousins, once removed).

John's Ciacchella 1st cousins (and partners).