Proud to be Italian: Bertolino Family History

My Italian heritage has always fascinated me - maybe because I grew up thousands of miles away from my Italian family and only caught biannual glimpses of the traditions that should have been my own...or maybe because I grew up in an area with so few Italians that I, myself, was a mystery to many. Thanks to a couple of strong Italian women in Amarillo who formed the Italian-American Club, I now get a taste of home every month. After being asked to send them my family history, I compiled the information below from my Auntie Ina, who lives in Manchester, NH.

My maternal great-grandparents, Vincent John and Concetta (Gangi) Gianussa, and my paternal great-grandparents, Francis Paul and Ina Frances (Safina) Bertolino, Sr., emigrated here from Palermo, Italy between 1920 and 1923. I was told Ina Frances was really Gasperina Frances, but she changed it to Ina during the processing at Ellis Island because it was too complicated to communicate. Vincent and Concetta were employed as a valet and a teacher for a wealthy family in Sicily. I was told Ina (Safina) was part of the Safina royal family in Sicily which lost most of their wealth when the Girabaldis waged war in the 1860s and 1870s. Francis Paul bought a small fishing vessel in Gloucester, MA then sold that to buy a wharf to process fish. He then moved his family to Salisbury (where I grew up) where he operated a fish wholesale/retail business that remains in the family.

**originally posted December 13, 2007