Tracking down Emanuel Azzaro

My father, David Azzaro, knew virtually nothing about the origins of Emanuel Azzaro, except that he came from Italy. Aunt Madge (David's sister) was slightly more helpful, although her memory wasn't up to much. She had been shown on a map where he came from, which was somewhere around the Ligurian coast, but hadn't a clue where. She had also been told that the name of the place he came from sounded a bit like 'Azzaro'. Note that Madge was born in 1913 and Emanuel died in 1916, so she must have got this information from her father, Andrew, not from Emanuel himself.

I received some independent information from Rita Coe, a descendant of Emanuel's eldest son Antonio. This told me that he came from Sestri Levante. The good bit is that this is on the Ligurian coast, but it can't be said to sound anything like Azzaro. Another problem is that it's possible to find on-line information based on the Italian telephone directory showing the distribution of the name Azzaro on a map. Unfortunatey they are mainly concentrated in the South-eastern corner of Sicily, with hardly any in Sestri Levante. However, in Sestri there is a small pocket of the name 'Azaro'. Maybe we have to accept that this was the correct spelling of his surname. Since he could neither read nor write, it is perfectly likely that he had no control over the spelling.

From the 1891 census and his marriage certificate we learn that he was born around 1840 (based presumably on nothing more than his memory), and that his father's name was also Emanuel. This is a bit limited but I employed a professional researcher (Paola Darcangelo) to try and find him.

Paola began by searching the churches of S. Antonio, S. Maria di Nazareth and S. Bartolomeo in the centre of Sestri Levante, then moved on to San Bernardo delle Cascine, Villa Loto and S. Vittoria di Libiola. Finally she found him in Casarza Ligure, (and I can just believe that 'Casarza' can be said to sound a bit like 'Azzaro'! The second part of the name - Ligure - probably wasn't added until after Italian unification in 1860 when it became necessary to distinguish it from another Casarza elsewhere.)

The end result is that Paola has found the birth of Emmanuelle Azaro on October 5, 1840, the son of Emmanuelle Azaro, at the church of San Michele in Casarza Ligure (which is a village just outside Sestri Levante). The date ties up with his age as given by the 1891 and 1901 censuses, and the name of his father matches that given on his marriage certificate.

A degree of confirmation is also given by the fact that, if this is the correct record of his birth, then his mother's name is Teresa and his paternal grandmother's name is Maria. These were the two names given to his two eldest daughters - which is the 'standard' Italian naming pattern. Italians have told me that this amounts to strong evidence that I am on the right track.

Probably the only chance of getting any confirmation is through DNA evidence (I have my DNA recorded on two sites - Ancestry.com and FamilytreeDNA.com. Neither show any links to anyone else named either Azzaro or Azaro, but then, there probably aren't many DNA samples from anyone in either Italy or South America. There is a very weak link to someone with the surname Stagnaro from Riva Trigosa. According to my analysis, Stagnaro was the name of Emanuel's mother. This is hardly worth anything, but may be better than nothing.

There is the question of whether Azaro can really turn into Azzaro. One answer is that it did so on the baptism certificate of his younger brother Andrea, whose surname was put down as Azzaro. Evidently a new parish priest had arrived in Casarza (as seen by different handwriting on the baptism records) and he clearly never troubled to check the correct spelling. When Emanuele's brother Antonio went to Argentina his name also changed to Azzaro. Since neither of the brothers could read or write this is hardly surprising.