U is for Udine

As far as I knew when I was growing up, my grandfather and his Bertolo family were from the Udine.  That's how they said it, "the Udine."  Udine, is in the Friuli region in the north of Italy. (I started to write Ireland there; clearly my coffee hasn't woken me up yet!)

I also knew they were from a village called Bannia.  Eventually, I started to pursue genealogy and needed a better sense of where they came from.  That was in the early days of the Internet.  Ancestry didn't exist back then.  but I was searching out people named Bertolo from around the world.  The one I found in Sudbury, Ontario was a cousin.  The lovely fellow in the Friuli I couldn't connect to our tree.

It was time to look at a map. 

This is the Friuli.  You see Udine right in the middle.  On a detailed map you'll find Bannia just south-east of the City of Pordenone.  Bannia is a "frazione," remember.  It is a village forming part of a smallish town.  You need a detailed map to see it, and I couldn't find a royalty-free one.

So why is it so far away from Udine?  Well, Italy is divided into regions (e.g. the Friuli) and each region is further divided into provinces.  Back in 1913, when my grandfather came to Canada, Bannia was in the province of Udine.  Wikipedia says that the province of Pordenone was created out of part of the province of Udine in 1968.  Long after my folks left.

It's a bit odd to blog about the province my family isn't from (or isn't from anymore), but that's the sort of thing that happens when you're following and A to Z challenge and have to blog on U. Come back later in the week and see what we can make of X, Y and Z.  I'll give you a hint, Z is delicious.

B is for Bannia

In the fall of 2000, my mom and I spent three weeks in Italy together.  We had a wonderful time.  While we were camped out in Venice, we took a day trip up to Bannia, the village where her father (we called him Babbo) was born.  I am forever grateful to the Giuseppina Facca, who recently passed away, and her daughter Daniela having us picked up at the Pordenone train station and driven around Bannia.  We were able to meet some Bertolo relatives, one of whom bore a strking resemblance to Babbo.

Mom said Babbo had told her that when he was a boy, he used to sit under the fig tree beside the church in Bannia.  He never returned to Italy after emigrating in 1913.  But we went to see if the tree still stood.  We didn't see the tree, our Bertolo cousin told us it stood where the village war memorial is now.  But it was sure worth the trip.

What we did find was a history of the parish, SS. Perpetua e Felicita di Bannia, which had been written by the parish priest, Stefano Battiston.  The book includes an 1895 census of the parish, Statistica della popolazione di bannia al 1 gennajo 1895.  Like many old censuses, it only gives the names of the head of the household, plus the number of males and females living there.  As a parish census, it also shows how many in the household had received the sacraments of Communion, Confirmation and Marriage.  There were 194 families in Bannia in 1895, with a total of 1,374 people.  I won't copy the census without the permission of Don Stefanno, but here's a summary of the family names in Bannia at the time:

(family name:  number of households in Bannia in 1895)

Agnolet:  1
Babuin:  2
Bassetto:  1
Basso:  2
Battel:  6
Battiston:  1
Bertolo:  10
Bertoli:  1
Bertoja:  1
Bisaro:  2
Borean:  3
Bortolussi:  1
Boscariol:  2
Bottega:  1
Bottos:  1
Boz:  1
Buligan:  5
Candido:  4
Calderan:  1
Callegari:  4
Carlis:  1
Ceolin:  1
Cepparo:  1
Ceschin:  1
Chiarot:  1
Cancian:  1
Dal Tio:  2
Da Re:  1
Del Bianco:  1
De Lorenzi:  2
Dolcetti:  1
Dreon:  2
Fabbro:  1
Favret:  2
Facca:  9
Feruglio:  1
Frattolin:  2
Gallio:  1
Gasparotto:  2
Grillo:  5
Innocent:  1
Lovisa:  1
Manzon:  1
Marson:  3
Marta:  1
Morassutti:  2
Mores:  1
Moret:  1
Morettin:  2
Maura:  1
Mio detto Parussolo:  1
Mio detto Tesolin:  3
Muzzin:  14
Modolo:  1
Montegnacco:  1
Pasut:  2
Pavan:  8
Pellarin:  4
Pighin:  1
Pignat:  1
Pezzutti:  1
Praturlon:  1
Puppa:  2
Puppulin:  1
Quarin:  1
Ragogna:  1
Redigonda:  1
Ros:  2
Rosin:  1
Rosset:  1
Rovere:  1
Roversi:  1
Rubli:  1
Rugo:  1
Santin:  1
Santarossa:  1
Sacilotto:  1
Sciardi:  1
Susanna:  4
Toffoli:  1
Tossut:  1
Vaccher:  10
Vida:  1
Villalta:  1
Zanese:  1
Zuccatto:  14
Zuccet:  1

Do you have roots in Bannia?  Please let me know if you'd like me to look up more info on your ancestors from this census.

If you are from Sault Ste. Marie, you will recognize many of those surnames, particularly Bertolo, Candido, Caligari, Chiarot, Fabbro, Facca, Marson, Mio, Muzzin and Zuccatto.  One of the research projects I would like to take on is to figure out who was the first man from Bannia to come to Sault Ste. Marie.  In our family, I believe it was Mino Bertolo, brother to my great-grandfather.  I don't know if he was the first from Bannia, but I do know, from looking at Ellis Island records over the years that an awful lot of citizens of Bannia headed to Sault Ste. Marie to join their "brother Mino Bertolo," "uncle Mino Bertolo," or "friend Mino Bertolo."

Do you know who was the first from Bannia in the Sault?

P.S.  In a future post, I'll share more information about the civil records from Bannia (and the rest of Fiume Veneto) that are available on microfilm through the LDS Family History Centres.  They are really tough to read, but thrilling too.  Within minutes of scanning one of the three films I ordered I found Uncle Frank's birth registration and Ernesta Candido's too (her maiden name was Bertolo).  More on that later!

Surname Saturday -- Iop

If there are other genealogy bloggers out there blogging the Iop family name this Saturday, I sure want to meet them.

Iop is a difficult name to research online.  Do a Google search for Iop and you get a lot of computer references, among other things.  The last time I searched for Iop on Ancestry, I got a lot of references to Arthafad Ap Iop, born  in the year 885 (and no, I'm not missing a digit).  But I'm not looking for any Welsh Ap Iop.  My Iop relatives are from the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region in Northern Italy.

My great-grandmother, Maria Iop, was born in 1879 in Pescincanna, a frazione of the Commune de Fiume Veneto, now in the Province of Pordenone.  The village is close to the city of Pordenone.  Her parents were Francesco Iop and Marianna Sutto.

Maria married Giuseppe Bertolo of the nearby frazione of Bannia.  In 1908, Giuseppe left Italy to go to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, where his brother Mino had established himself.  Maria appears to have been pregnant as he left; she had her fifth child, Elena Bertolo in 1909.  One baby had died very young, so Maria Iop was raising four young children without her husband.  Giuseppe later returned to Italy, at least for long enough to father Olivo, who was born in 1912.  In that same year, Giuseppe returned to Canada for good.  Then in April 1913, Maria and her children (Luigi, Francesco, Alessandro, Elena and Olivo) left to join Giuseppe in the Sault.

Maria and her children set sail from Le Havre on the S.S. La Provence on April 12, 1913.  They landed at Ellis Island in New York City on the 19th.  Maria's passport indicates that she was illiterate in Italian.  She was 33 and travelling with five children who ranged in age from nine down to a mere eight months.  Imagine.  At least she had her brother-in-law, Olivo Bertolo, on the voyage with her.

Maria and Giuseppe quickly established themselves in Sault Ste. Marie, where they had several more children:  Mariana, Amelia, Ontaria and Assunta.  Life wasn't all wonderful.  Shortly before Christmas in 1921, Marianna died at the age of seven and a half, of convulsions.  In 1932, Giuseppe died of stomach cancer.

Maria herself lived until 91 years of age.  I wish I remembered more about her, but I was a small child when she died.  And because I didn't speak Italian and she spoke little English, we didn't spend much time together.  I recently looked at the four-generation picture taken with her, Luigi, mom and me when I was a baby.  Boy, they looked proud.  That I remember.

Maria Iop never returned to Italy.  To my knowledge, none of her family came to Canada.  We have a couple of pictures and memorial cards with Iop relatives in them.  But we've had no contact with the Iop family since Maria left in 1913.  From the Italian White Pages online, it looks like there are a few Iops still in the area.  Maybe they're looking for us?

Benvenuti, famiglia Iop!