Founded by the Etruscans with a Roman colony established in 183 BC, in the Middle Ages Parma was part of Charlemangne's Holy Roman Empire. (I am a descendant of Charlemangne.) Parma is where Parmesian cheese is from. So did we stop there? No. No time to, as we were headed for Beth's family's town of Renazzo.At Parma we again headed SE on another Italian autobahn (no speed limits again!) on the A1 for 55 km and then, at Modena (the home of Ferrari), we got onto the SP255 and headed for Renazzo.
While in the farm fields of Northern Italy we came upon, of course, the Lamborghini factory and museum! Out in front were my two favorite Lamborghinis, a 1968 Lamborghini Muira S in yellow, and a brand new 2009 Lamborghini Reventón. We got out and bought a few souveniers and then continued on. The reason, by the way, that Lamborghini is located where it is is because the creator of Lamborghini, Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in Renazzo, just a few km away.
So here we are in Renazzo, where Beth jumped out and began trying to talk to the locals. They of course spoke no English and we spoke no Italian. She did somehow find out the direction to the cemetary and the lady to the left actually rode her bike with Beth to show Beth where it was.
At the cemetary we met this lady, out on a stroll with her granddaughter. She actually spoke a bit of English, one of only two older people we met who did. The other was her brother, a Catholic priest who happened to be visiting from Brazil and who was to return there in a few days. She is calling her brother and asking him to meet us at the church in town where Beth's ancesters married.
This is at the church and the man with the book is Don Ivo Cevenini, the head of the church and
essentially of the town. He was skeptical of us at first, until he learned that we were Tassinaris.
Don Ivo Cevenini died 6 Feb 2018. He had been the priest in charge of Renazzo's San Sebastiano church
since 1974. A celebration of his 60 years of service to the church was held 30 Jun 2014, but he did not live long
enough to see repairs completed on the church due to the 2012 earthquake damage it sustained.
This man is Padre Guido, the brother visiting for a few days. He helped Beth find some good information.
Including this document from 1877...
and this one from 1835.
A close up.
Meanwhile Don Ivo took me on a fast walk across town to show me something in a school. We passed nuns who did not like the look of me, but all bowed to Don Ivo. He took me past the head nun into the main office of the school and showed me this portrait of Beth's great-great-great grandfather Peter Tassinari. Beth has this same photo in her family history!
Here is the detail on the bottom of the photo that mentions his death in Salem, Massachusetts.
He then toured me past an addition to the church that was paid for by a different American Tassinari, a cousin of Beth's. He was our friend once he knew that we were from the Tassinari family as they had given land and buildings to the church when they went to America over 100 years ago.
We stayed the night at the Grand Hotel Bologna in Pieve di Cento.
The next day we went to a utility company called CMV. It handles all utilities including cemetery records.
Here we met Sylvia Fornaciari, who has relatives in Plymouth Mass. She is probably a cousin of Beth's. She made calls for us and setup an appointment for us in the town of Cento.
Here we are in Cento looking for the Commune di Cento.
The receptionist there was an Ottani, which is Beth's great-great-grandmother's name. She is here calling her husband and had me talk to him, which was kind of difficult given that neither of us spoke each other's language... but it shows how they want to be related to Americans!
Here is the official, Triziano, that Beth talked to in Cento, but again he did not have the right years of information available and we continued our hunt.
So, we went to McDonald's.
Here is a street sign with Beth's family name of Tassinari.
Created: 27 May 2009 Modified: 6 Feb 2018