Author: SanCassianoConnections
-
Hunting the Domenici: Reconstructing a Family in Bagni di Lucca – Part 2
Reconstructing the Families and finding Andrea Domenici The work continues. Building trees. Within Benabbio and Limano, repeated appearances of the same individuals made it possible to begin identifying family units. The same couples would appear at regular intervals, registering the births of children every one to three years, and later reappearing in marriage or death…
-
Database and Website Update – April and May 2026
Over the past year, work has been undertaken on a surname-mapping project focused on the Domenici families of Bagni di Lucca. The project has been documented in a three-part blog series, in which the methodology and early findings are outlined. These posts trace the development of the study, from an initial research question to the…
-
Hunting the Domenici: Reconstructing a Family in Bagni di Lucca – Part 1
The Mystery and the Method This project began with a gap in the records. I was searching for the parents of my own ancestor, Maria Domenici, who was born in 1822—unfortunately within the narrow range of years for which records are not yet available online. What is known is that she died in July 1858,…
-
Women on the Move: How Marriage Patterns Shaped Bagni di Lucca
The women who shaped our villages. In 19th-century Tuscany, it was almost always the woman who moved. When she married, she left her birth village behind and started a new life in her husband’s community; sometimes just a few valleys away, sometimes much further. This tradition, known as patrilocal marriage, was common throughout rural Italy, and…
-
When disease came to Bagni di Lucca: The cholera cemetery of Benabbio
If you’re researching your Italian family history, you’ve probably encountered mysterious gaps in records, sudden family relocations, or stories passed down about sickness and loss. The 1855 cholera epidemic that devastated the small village of Benabbio in Bagni di Lucca offers a powerful example of how disease could reshape entire communities—and family trees—in just a…
-
Database & Website Update – August 2025
This update brings a significant expansion of the genealogy database, with nearly 400 new individuals, over hundreds of new source entries and media files, and four new blog posts under “Featured Stories” that have been released every 2-4 weeks since the last update in May 2025. Most additions are tied to an ongoing surname-mapping project…
-
Beginner’s Guide to Researching Your Bagni di Lucca Heritage
This guide offers a friendly introduction for those living abroad who want to start tracing their roots in Bagni di Lucca using online resources. While it’s not exhaustive, it’s designed to help you begin your genealogical journey remotely. I’ll update this guide as new sources and offline records become available. About Bagni di Lucca Before…
-
Echoes of Portage Avenue: A Family History Rediscovered
It started, as many of these stories do, with a list of names: A 1907 passenger manifest [1] from Genoa to Ellis Island, New York. I was in the process of searching for traces of my great-great-grandfather, Luigi Giannini, whose life had been cut short by tuberulosis and whom his descendants knew little about. Alongside him on this passenger list…
-
Through the Gates of Dachau Concentration Camp: The Survival of a young man from Bagni di Lucca.
While tracing young men from Bagni di Lucca through WWI and WWII, I came across a name I didn’t expect: Davide Talenti, born in 1921 in San Cassiano di Controne[1]. In 1944, his name appeared on a list of priests, Communists, politicians, and Jewish civilians imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp. But Davide wasn’t a public…
-
Genealogy Database Update – May 18th, 2025
This update brings a major expansion of the genealogy database, with over 250 new individuals, hundreds of new records and media items, and broader geographic coverage. It includes detailed additions from San Cassiano di Controne and Palleggio, Montefegatesi, and Pieve di Controne, dozens of WWI and WWII profiles, cemetery documentation, and new family connections drawn…