When West Palm Beach podiatrist Joe Uricchio decided to take his octogenarian mother Angelina for a two-week trip to Italy in the fall of 2008, he had more than a vacation in mind.Beyond treating his mother to popular tourist destinations in Rome and along the Amalfi Coast, Uricchio wanted her to connect with Italy on a deeper, more personal level.
“The real reason I took my mother to Italy was so she could see where she was from,” said Uricchio. “I wanted to do something for her that would really be meaningful. And I wanted to do it while she still could physically made the trip.”
What Uricchio didn’t anticipate was the effect tracing his family roots would have on his own life. Since visiting his family village, Spezzano Albanese, an Albanian-settled town of about 7,000 people in the southern region of Calabria,Uricchio has gotten his Italian citizenship and plans to return to the region in September and scout for real estate. “The history of the region is so exciting to me,” said Uricchio, who like his mother was born in Philadelphia. “Besides great food, beautiful mountains and beaches, there is history from Norman castles, to ancient Greek and Arab ruins. I felt right away that it was a place I wanted to know better.”
Using the Spezzano Albanesewebsite as a starting point, Uricchio was able to track down church and real estate records in advance of the trip. Once in Spezzano, he took his mother to the church of her parent’s wedding, and also the house were his grandmother had lived. They spent time in the main town square and met with locals, including town officians, who had more information for them. “It was very emotional for my mother,” he said. “Everyone we met was amazed that she not only spoke Italian, but was also fluent in the old Albanian language shqip. Everyone was very welcoming to us.”
Uricchio isn’t alone in his quest for family ties. According to American Demographics, some 113 million Americans are intent on tracing their family’s roots. Taking that quest on the road was a natural extension for Uricchio, who spent hours interviewing family members, researching online and gathering documents before, and after, the trip.
There are dozens of websites dedicated to genealogical research. One place to start is FamilySearch,a searchable database of more than 1 billion names that also offers access to the 1880 United States census, 1881 British Isles and Canada censuses and the Social Security Death Index. Another good jumping off point is EllisIsland.org, a free database of 25 million ships' passenger records covering entry through the Port of New York and Ellis Island from 1892-1924. First launched on April 17, 2001, the site has received more than 6 billion hits, further testimony that Americans want to connect with their roots.
For Angelina Uricchio, visiting the village where her parents met, and married, offered insight that helped explain her grandmother’s lifelong pining for home. “We found out she was just 15 when she got married,” said Uricchio. “She had to follow my grandfather to America which she never wanted to do. She always complained about her city view in South Philadelphia, comparing it to the views of mountains and the sea she remembered from her girlhood. My mother and I saw that same view from the house where she lived. Taking my mother to Italy was the best thing I’ve ever done for her.”
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