Learn about and take inspiration from fascinating research projects from San Cassiano and Bagni di Lucca through real stories taking place locally or internationally.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Following the footsteps of a San Cassiano emigrant: Montreal, Canada (Part 2)
War Troubles In June 1940, Arcangelo’s life took an unexpected turn. At the time, Montreal’s thriving Italian community centred around Casa d’Italia in what is now known as Petite Italie (Little Italy). In the mid-to-late 1930s, Casa d’Italia had become a political hub for right-wing Italian activists, hosting fundraisers, speeches, and social events[1]. Arcangelo and Adele were regular attendees, even participating…
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Following the footsteps of a San Cassiano emigrant: Montreal, Canada (Part 1)
The Origins The story of Bernardi & Nieri began as a one-man venture by Lorenzo Nieri (known as “Laurent” in French-speaking Montreal). The first record of the one-man business appears in Lovell’s Montreal Business Directory in 1925–26 [1]. Lorenzo had emigrated from San Cassiano to Montreal in 1906 [2], likely working for other Italian-led figure-making businesses in the city while laying…
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Solving a San Cassiano family mystery with DNA: Part 2
I’m Getting Overwhelmed—But Then, a Breakthrough! Two years into the project and I felt overwhelmed. I had clear genetic evidence linking Ghilardo Illidi to the Buonamici line, likely a descendant of Leopoldo and Maria Anna Buonamici, who had settled in San Cassiano in the 1860s. Yet, I lacked definitive proof. Given the complex web of…