Tracking down Emanuel Azzaro
The only DNA matches of any strength at all are with known descendants of Emanuel Azzaro, so they don't tell us anything new. However there are a lot of very weak matches with people who had one or more ancestors born in Casarza. The number of such matches with Casarza is striking compared with other surrounding towns and villages. ie (data as of 15/7/2024):
| Town, Village or Area |
Number of DNA matches on Ancestry.com
|
| Casarza, Liguria or Casarza Ligure |
41
|
| Sestri Levante |
3
|
| Riva Trigoso (which is included within Sestri Levante) |
2
|
| Moneglia |
1
|
| Levanto |
-
|
| Castiglione Chiavarese |
1
|
| Varese Ligure |
1
|
| Lavagna |
1
|
| Chiavari |
1
|
| The whole province of La Spezia |
3
|
So clearly there is something special about Casarza, even if all the links are very weak. Note that Casarza was a very small village - its population was never more than 2,000 during the 19th Century. So its likely that almost everyone was related to almost everyone else to some degree. So my theory is that, if I'm correct in tracing Emanuel back to Casarza, then he would have been weakly related to many others. Evidently the same couldn't be said of Sestri Levante or any of the other villages.