Where the Name Went

Scorzè, Moniego in the commune of Noale, Cornedo Vicentino, Castelgomberto and Pederobba — all in the provinces of Venezia, Vicenza and Treviso, all pinned as places of heavy departure. And one couple named outright: «DE FRANCESCHI Luigi, spouse BAROLO Caterina Luigia, from Moniego, Noale, Venezia, Italy to São Paulo.» Beside it a second: Giuseppe Romano De Franceschi, born at Scorzè on 22 May 1835, died at Moniego. That is a father's generation and a son's, in two villages eight kilometres apart, with the emigration between them.

The same layer pins Castelnuovo at 11.494 E, 46.052 N — which is not the Veneto Castelnuovo but Castelnuovo in the Valsugana, in Trentino, four kilometres from Telve and six from Strigno. That matters, because David's own family tree holds eighteen people of this surname baptised at the Assunzione di Maria Santissima at Telve, more at Strigno, at Fiera di Primiero and at Rovereto — a Trentino cohort this site has filed under namesakes and never looked at as a migration.

In 1874 some four hundred peasants of the Valsugana were called to Brazil by Pietro Tabacchi, a Trentino who had gone before them and made money in timber and land. By 1914 close to thirty thousand Trentini had chosen Brazil. Rio dos Cedros in Santa Catarina was founded in 1875 by Italian-speaking Tyroleans, most of them out of the Adige valley and the Valsugana. This archive's Brazilian cluster reaches into Santa Catarina — Concórdia is on the list — and it has never asked why.

Indaiatuba, Pirassununga, Ribeirão Preto, Ipuã, Itápolis, Limeira, São Joaquim da Barra, Santo Antônio de Posse, Santa Cruz da Estrela — with Bela Vista, Cambuci, Tucuruvi, Ipiranga, Jardim Paulista and Santa Cecília inside the city. Every one of the country ones is in the coffee belt, which is where the subsidised passage went from 1886. That is a different migration from the Rio Grande do Sul colonies of 1875, and this page has been treating Brazil as one thing when it is two.

Three men out of Gologorica, all labourers, all within a few blocks of each other. Josip Rabar, «known as Josip Robert Baron» — born Gologorica Istra, 18 January 1887; 5306 North 47th Street. Married Elisabeth on 10 May 1920, and she was born at Gologorica Estra too. Two people from the same hamlet, married in Washington State. Frank Rudolph Baron — born Gologorica, 6 May 1890; 5145 North 46th Street; «visible distinctive marks: scar on chin». His wife Jennie was born at Mrkopalj, and they married at Seattle on 24 March 1919. Joseph Kancijanich, who signs his declaration Josef Kancianich — born Gologorica, 2 February 1889; 5318 Commercial Street, Ruston. He came out of Hamburg on the Kaiser Auguste Victoria. Rabar and Baron are the same name. One man is recorded under both, which is the whole anglicisation caught in a single line of a government form — and it makes the second Baron, at the next street over, a question worth asking rather than a coincidence.

Giovanni Udovicich — born Gologorica, 21 February 1886; 239 West 10th Street; «ring finger left hand short». He came from Trieste on the President Wilson, where the Tacoma men came through Hamburg. Two ports, two routes, one village.

Anton Flegar, twenty-six, «place of birth: Gologorica», a labourer landing at New Orleans in 1907 — the earliest of these and the furthest south. His nearest relative is a brother, Giuseppe Flegar, left behind. Giuseppe Ghersanich, born «Gologorica, Italy», crossing into the United States at Rouses Point, New York, from Montreal in January 1945 — thirty-eight years later, by land, out of Canada, in the last winter of the war. His nearest relative is Francesca, at the same place. One hamlet, and its people are entering the United States through New Orleans, New York, Hamburg-to-New-York and the Canadian border, across four decades.

Seven people, one hamlet, and six different answers: «So. Italian» · «Slavonian Italian» · «Croatian» · «Croatian», nationality «Italian» · «Slavonian» · «Slovenian» And the country changes under them as the decades pass — the same village is «Gologorica, Austria» in 1929, «Gologorica, Italy» in the same year by a different clerk, «Gologorica Istra, Austria now Italy» in 1935, and «Gologorica, Italy» again at the Canadian border in 1945. This archive has a whole page about who ruled Istria and when. Here is what that looked like at a counter, to a clerk who had to tick something — and the same man's neighbours came out Italian, Croatian, Slovenian and Slavonian depending on who was holding the pen.

«… Giordano Defranceschi, laborer, swam out into the … but Defranceschi disappeared. She struggled to the bank just as two other members of the swimming … before the eyes of a girl he met here last week.» Only Trove's snippet has been read, not the full column. What it says is enough. A labourer of this name drowned in Victoria in the summer of 1954, in front of a girl he had known for a week, while two members of a swimming club came for him too late. And there is an arrival to set against it. The Australian inward passenger lists carry a Giordano de Franceschi arriving in 1950. Same name, four years earlier, in the first great cohort of post-war Italian migration to Australia. This archive believes they are the same man and cannot prove it. He came out in 1950 and was dead by January 1954.

doc for the drowning and the arrival; inf for joining them

«DeFranceschi Bros, 716 Chappie Lane, Broken Hill» — Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales, Friday 17 June 1966, page 2438. A firm of brothers of the name, in the silver town, in the middle sixties.

No nineteenth-century Defranceschi in the Australian press at all. The name arrives in Australia after the Second World War and not before — which matches the passenger lists exactly, where forty-odd Australian arrivals are all dated 1950 or later, with a single outlier in New South Wales in 1893 — and that one is now explained. He was a quartermaster. See [The name at sea](/at-sea/).