Prostamo
The deepest line in the whole family — nine generations, back to 1697 — and it arrives through a grandmother.
A rare Calabrian name. Nobody is quite sure where it comes from, which is unusual for a family this well recorded.
From you, all the way back
Start at the bottom. Every step up is one more generation into the past — a real person, in a real place, written down in a real book.
What do the numbers mean? “2× great-grandpa” is just a short way of writing great-great-grandpa. Once you get past three or four greats it is quicker to count them than to say them. So your grandpa’s grandpa is your 2× great-grandpa, and his grandpa is your 4× great-grandpa, and his grandpa is your 6× great-grandpa.
Nobody to look at — yet
📷 No pictures. Not one.
Nothing yet from Briatico. For a line that reaches 1697, not one face.
Things they actually did
1697. That is the oldest anybody in this family can be named.
Franco Antonino Prostamo was born in Briatico in 1697 — earlier than any Falco, any D’Arcy, any Defranceski, any Booyzen. Eight generations in one unbroken chain, all in the same small town on the Calabrian coast.
And it comes in sideways.
None of those people were called Mazza. This line reaches the cousins through Domenica Prostamo, a great-grandmother. If you only followed the surname you would never find them at all.
Why this line and not the others?
Not because they mattered more. Calabrian records simply survived better than Sicilian ones for these particular towns — and relatives in Italy and Argentina have been working on this line for years. How deep a family goes measures the paperwork, not the people.
Francessco came on the Roma.
Out of Genoa, landing at Fremantle on 10 October 1957 — the same year the Falcos sailed for Brisbane from the other end of Italy.
🔎 The bit we still can't solve
Even this line stops. Above Franco Antonino in 1697 there is nothing — and 1697 is a very long way back for a small town’s paper to survive at all.