Paul Nauta, noto studioso americano, oriundo di Alia, è stato di recente nel nostro paese per effettuare una ricerca genealogica sui suoi antenati. È rimasto affascinato da Alia e dagli aliesi e, al suo rientro negli U.S.A., ha scritto la lettera che, in sintesi, pubblichiamo di seguito nella traduzione di Vincent Dispenza e della quale alleghiamo anche la stesura originale in Inglese.


Ho dormito bene questa notte. In realtà avremmo potuto usare un altro paio di occhi negli Archivi della Chiesa di Alia. [..J. Alia ti toglie il respiro. E' tranquilla e bellissima. È ricca di verde con le sue ondulate colline e le campagne sono ricche di vigneti e alberi di olivi. I fabbricati e le case sono costruiti tutti assieme e in colline scoscese. Le strade sono strette e tortuose e tornano senza una logica tra le case e gli esercizi pubblici. Ti dà un grande senso di ritornare nel tempo. E' vero sorprendente camminare per le strade e vedere i cognomi ed i tuoi nomi scolpiti su pietra (come: Vicolo Miceli, Via Miceli). Gli alberi di limone e gli aranci erano in stagione... Il loro brillante colore giallo e arancione contrastava con le foglie di colore verde scuro.

Sono stato svegliato dall'odore di pane fresco nel villaggio e dal grido dei venditori ambulanti nella strada di sotto che vendevano frutta fresca, pane e formaggi.

Pasta e pizza erano il cibo di ogni giorno. Ho trovato le seguenti famiglie fin dal 1700 o 1600: Sedita, Panepinto, Chimento, Mascarella, Miceli, Alessandra, Lotuso, Guccione, Todaro, Biondolillo, Sagona, Taravella e Vicari. I D'Ippolito sembra che siano venuti ad Alia dal vicino paese di Valledolmo circa la metà del 1700. Non ho avuto tempo di visitare Valledolmo per fare altre ricerche. I Pizzillo sembra che appartengano ai primi nativi di Alia (circa i primi anni del 1600). Ma ho trovato difficoltà a continuare le ricerche dopo il 1700. Ho dovuto continuare, per mancanza di tempo, con altri nomi che erano facili da identificare. Quando vai indietro, prima del 1750, il nome Miceli era Di Miceli. Il “di” significa nobiltà. Il mio amico Giovanni ha detto che egli può trovare le origini della loro nobiltà, ma richiede un pò di tempo.

Noi siamo anche direttamente parenti con i Guccione della famosa famiglia del Palazzo Guccione. Non ho avuto modo di conoscere i Guccione, durante la mia visita, ma ho un email e numeri di telefono [...] Quando completo il mio albero genealogico, gli manderò una copia per vedere come siamo parenti con il gruppo dei Guccione del Palazzo.

La gente di Alia è molto ospitale. Il Consigliere Comunale (anche lui un parente) è venuto a prendermi all'aeroporto di Palermo, circa un'ora e 50 minuti da Alia. Un poliziotto locale, Zimbardo, ci portò indietro all'aeroporto il venerdì. E' stato al suo posto che siamo stati ospitati (abbiamo affittato una stanza con la sua propria entrata e le basilari comodità). La stanza era molto spaziosa, ma fredda. I pavimenti sono di marmo e le mura ricoperte con intonaco ... Il riscaldamento era con radiatore montato sul muro che veniva aperto soltanto per pochi minuti la mattina per eliminare il freddo mattutino e nel pomeriggio per riscaldare la stanza prima di andare a letto. L'energia elettrica è molto costosa e gli Italiani sembra che cercano di usarla meno possibile. La stanza non ha una cucina, TV o telefono.

È stata una grande opportunità essere fuori contatto con il resto del mondo per una settimana e essere immersi nella cultura locale. La notizia della nostra visita circolò presto nel piccolo paese. Molti ci hanno visto il primo giorno nell'ufficio comunale. Noi abbiamo cercato nei registri di nascita, matrimoni e morte dal 1800. ( Il resto del tempo l' abbiamo passato nella Chiesa Parrocchiale, perché la nostra Chiesa ha tutti i libri del Comune dopo il 1820 in un microfilm ). lo posso fare ricerche di questi anni in Salt Lake City.

La gente locale che ci osservava nell'Ufficio Comunale, con i nostri guanti sfogliando i libri, cominciarono a spargere notizie che noi eravamo agenti speciali governativi in ispezione dei libri del Comune (perché in questi uffici è dove sono conservate informazioni sulla identità dei cittadini della comunità). In seguito essi sparsero la voce che noi eravamo i due uomini che il prete locale aveva preso a cuore e aveva permesso di rimanere tutto il giorno negli Archivi parrocchiali (questo è stata una voce molto vera). Quando noi passavamo per le strade, tutti ci guardavano con grande interesse e curiosità. Gli anziani (i vecchi) sulle strade si fermavano guardandoci e commentando mentre noi passavamo. Noi cortesemente li salutavamo e se noi avessimo avuto tempo, ci saremmo fermati per intrattenerci con loro. Tutti erano molto sorpresi che noi eravamo in paese per fare ricerche dei miei antenati. Questa è stata anche una sorpresa per me.

Come gli Americani, essi sono interessati nella loro genealogia, ma nessuno di loro ha documenti della storia della loro famiglia e hanno problemi a ricordare più di due generazioni. In conseguenza , non potrei confermare come noi potremmo essere parenti.

Padre Di Sclafani, il parroco della Chiesa, è stato un prezioso ospite e un perfetto gentiluomo. Non avrei potuto fare progressi nelle mie ricerche senza il suo aiuto per farmi lavorarre da mattina a sera [..]. Ho fatto colazione ogni giorno al Palazzo Guccione. (la famiglia Ortolano ha insistito che noi facessimo colazione con loro. Il Palazzo è accanto alla chiesa. Ho incontarto dei Sagona che sono diretti nostriparenti. E' stato curioso e interessante, mentre parlavo con la signora Ortolano, ho trovato le origini di molte nostre tradizioni. Il Pupu con l'ovu e la torta a caffè ha origini da Alia.

Ho incontrato il Sindaco di Alia. Egli mi ha invitato nel suo ufficio e abbiamo parlato per due ore di cose e affari e possibili progetti che si potrebbero realizzare nel futuro.

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Versione originale Inglese

I got a good night's sleep. We could have really used another set or two of eyes in the church archives at Alia. [ ... ]. Alia is breath takingly and serenely beautiful. It is richly green with it's rolling hills, pastures, grape vineyards and olive tree farms. All of the buildings and homes are close together and built on steep hills. The roads are very tiny and twist and turn without logic amongst the homes and stores. It gives you a strong sense of going back in time. It is surreal to walk through the streets and see the name plates of the streets overhead sporting the surnames of your names carved in stone (e.g. Vicolo Miceli, via Miceli).

The lemon and orange trees were in season, teaming with ripe fruits, their brilliant yellow and orange colors standing out boldly against the dark green foliage. 1 woke to the smell of fresh baked breads in the village and the hollering of street vendors peddling fresh fruits, bread, and cheese from the streets below. Pasta and pizza are the daily staples. I have traced the following family lines back to the early 1700s or the 1600s: Sedita, Panepinto, Chimento, Mascarella, Miceli, Allessandra, Lotuso, Guccione, Todaro, Biondolillo, Sagoma, Taravella, and Vicari. The D'ippolito's it appears came to Alia from a neighboring community of Valledolmo in the mid to late 1700s. I did not have time to go to Valledolmo to research them further. The Pizzillo's seem to date back to the early natives of Alia (circa early to late 1600s) but I ran into a road block at 1740, tryíng to find their path and ancestry part that point. I extended it one generation to the mid 1700s. It'll take some serious sleuthing in the originai documents.

I had to move on in the essence of time to other lines that were more obvious and easier to identify. When you go back before 1750, the Miceli name was actually De Miceli. The "de" signifies nobility. Giovanni said he can find the origine of their nobility, but it will take some work. We are also directly related to the Guccione's of the famous local Guccione Palace origin. I did not have time to socialize with the Gucciones while in town, but I have an email and phone number [...]. Once I get my tree updated, l'll send it to him to see how and where we tie into the Guccione palace group. Sufficeth to say, I have most of our lines on mom's side traced back 9 generations, some 11 generations. I did find additional children to some of these families, but that needs to be the focus of future work. I wanted to get back as far as I could on this trip.Next will be feshing out thr each family. I was surprised to find that our great great grand-parents, Giuseppe d'Ippolito and Giuseppa Taravella had many more children than I thought.

The people of Alia are very hospitable. The city councilman (also a relative) picked us up at the airport in Palermo and drove us the 1.5 hours to Alia. A local policeman, Zimbardo, brought us back to the airport on Friday. It was his place at which we stayed (rented a room with it's own entrance and basic accomodations). The room was spacious overall, but cold. The floors are marble and the walls plaster paris on stone. The heating was from wall mounted radiatore that are only turned on for a few minutes in the morning to try to take off the morning chill and in the evening to warm of the place before going to bed. Utilities are expensive so the Italians try to get by with little usage as possible it seems. The room had no kitchen, tv, or phone. It was a nice change to be out of contact with the rest of the world for a week and get immersed in the culture.

Rumors spread quickly in the small town regarding us. Many saw us the first day at the local community office. We were looking through the birth, marriage, and death records from 1800 (the rest of the time we spent in the church because our church has all of the community records after 1820 micrrofilmed. I can search through them in Salt Lake City. It made sense to research the church records which predated 1820 to 1640.

The locals that saw us in the community office with our latex gloves on combing through records began rumoring that we were some kind of government special agents searching the records of the community (because this same office is where they have all of the caurrent resident identification informations on the citizens of the community). Later, they rumored that we were the two men of whom the local priest had taken a liking to and was allowing to stay in the archives all day (this was a true rumor however!).

As we passed them in the streets, they usually looked at us with great interest and curiousity. The gatherings of i vecchi (older folks) along the streets stopped talking and just stared at us as we passed by. We would courteously greet them as we passed, and if we had time, we'd stop and visit. They all seemed to be so surprised that we here to research and document my relatives. That surprised me. Like Americans, they are interested in their heritage, but nearly none of them has document their family's history, and struggled to recount more than two generations from memory. Consequently, I could not confirm for them if or how we may have been related.

Father Disclafani of the local church was great and every bit a gracious host and gentelman. I could not have made the progress I did without him letting us working from morning to late night (far outside the norm for him we were told. The locals have never known him to let anyone in the archive outside of the appointed 4 hours of each day, and never without his constant supervision). I think he quickly sensed that we were serious researchers and would take great care and fastidiouseness with the recxords as much as he has for all of these years.

We used latex gloves and handled the volumes and pages gently. We went about our business in a very organized, through approach. We were sensitive to his needs and activities (he was busy t preparing the local children for thei first communion and expecting the visit of the regional bishop on the day we were scheduled to leave). He was every bit gracious and hospitable. I left the church (La Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie) a sizable personal offering as a small token of my appreciation.

The church records were golden respective to helping us fill in our missing family history links. I spoke with Father Disclafani about preserving the records and improving access to them for others. He said he would be willing to let us come in and microfilm or digitize the records. He wants to know more about the process but thinks it is a good idea. This way we could make the records available to others throughout our family history centers worldwide and ultimately via the Internet.

He knows the interest in the records will increase as others get into genealogy with Alia ties. He is desirous to help them fulfill those needs but knows the records cannot withstand heavy or continued handling and use. I will talk with my department leaders when I retum to see if we can get it on our project list for future microfilming, digitalization or preservation. I had lunch everyday at the Guccione Palace (the Ortolano's insisted that we join them in the palace for lunch). It is located adjacent to the old church. I met some Sagona's that are direct relatives. That was fun. It was interesting, as I spoke with the mother, Signora Ortolano, I found the origins of many of our traditions. The popu cu l'uova coffee cake is very much an Alia thing. The local products are olive oil, a cheese made from sheep's milk (formaggio pecorino), a sweet called Scattata (made mostly from eggs, sugars, and nuts; tastes like a very hard praline), and those hand made doilies (they are very expensive) like grandma and mom used to place on their nice forniture under lamps, etc. A small one takes an Aliese woman two days to make. The large ones that cover an entire larger table and drape down would run $500 to a $ 1000 or more. They love their heritage as much as we do. There are very active efforts to try and bridge the descendants of the Aliesi with the Aliesi today.

I met the mayor of Alia. He invited me into his office and we spoke for two hours of multiple things and business possibilities and projects. I need to further consider. They'd like to consider a youth exchange program of sorts where the descendants of Alia can send their children (16-21 years of age) to Alia to live with an Alia family for 1-2 weeks or so to experienee their heritage moorings and they send theirs to story with the descendants of Alia in America, Argentina, Brazil, etc. I told him I'd explore it further with Vincent Dispenza and others. Great stuff. Forward this to our siblings and Aunt Jo will you? I do not bave access to their emails here.

I'm off to Cagnano Varano Monday to work on the DiNauta's genealogy. Vincenza and Antonio seem excited to meet me (and I them). Antonio is a jokester. He loves to get on the phone and bust my chops. He'll be fun to meet. The train ride will be four hours to their area from Rome, but I'll use the time to get some genealogy done or input. They say the weather is nice and they are located on the perimeter of Cagnano. We'll celebrate my birthdate at their son's pizzeria in town they say. Their patron saint's boliday and festivities will be next weekend also. That'Il be fun to see. l'll get to see traditions unique to them. It'll be fun. l'll take lots of pictures. Love ya. Ciao. Ciao.

Paul Nauta


Paul Nauta


Vincent Dispenza