The families

Crisci 100 records

Twice into the direct line, and again into the collaterals

The Crisci are the family this one is most bound to. Francesca Crisci married Matteo at the head of the line, and two generations later Andreana Crisci married Vincenzo — she was twenty at her son Raffaele's birth in May 1818, so born about 1798, and had married in December 1814 at about sixteen. Arienzo has a strada Crisci, and the register is thick with them: Domenico Crisci witnessed Raffaele's birth; Andrea Crisci, fifty-eight, was the neighbour who reported Anna Falco's death in 1831; Giuseppe Crisci, a shoemaker of strada Camellara, reported Rosa Falco's in 1830. The 1816–18 death registers add a Crisci household the archive did not have — Angelo Crisci and Elena Buono, whose daughter Faustina died in April 1817 as the wife of Vincenzo Diglio, her son Carmine following her in October — as well as Ruggiero Crisci, sixty-one, of strada Porta di Sopra, and Antonia Crisci, married to a Balletta of strada Camellara. Ruggiero is also the surname the parish record gives Andreana Crisci's mother, which is worth noticing and nothing more.

There were two Arcangelo Crisci. He appeared both as Andreana's father and as the husband of Anna Falco, dead at twenty-two in 1820 — one man twice married, or two? The 1817 birth register has two of them declaring births in the same year, aged fifty-two and thirty. Two men, born about 1765 and about 1787. The elder fits Andreana's father; the younger fits Anna Falco's husband.

Morgillo 266 records

Three marriages across three generations

The Morgillo married Falco three times. Rosa Falco — Pasquale's sister — married Carlantonio Morgillo around 1810, and reading the 1818 death register has turned up something the archive had missed: there were two men of that name. On 3 August 1818 Rosa's husband, thirty-three and a contadino of strada Maddalena, declared the death of Giuditta Morgillo, «figlia delli fu Carlantonio Morgillo, e Manilia Rivetti» — an older Carlantonio, already dead. He declared as parente, kin. If he was Giuditta's brother, that act names his own parents; the register does not say how they were related, so this archive does not claim it. His age still will not settle — thirty in February 1816, thirty-six in October 1816, thirty-three in September 1817 and thirty-three again in August 1818 — but the two later readings agree on a birth about 1784–85. Their son Raffaele Morgillo died on strada Camellara in 1832, aged twenty-two. Two generations after Rosa, Raffaele Falco of the direct line married Angela Rosa Morgillo.

So the family generation four married into were his great-aunt's people, and his neighbours — and the claim that they were on strada Camellara before they were in-laws is now in writing: in January 1818 Nicola Morgillo, thirty, a cavajolo of strada Camellara, declared a death there. Salvatore Morgillo, eighty-seven, a carpenter, died on that street in November 1830; Anna Morgillo, eighty-two, widow of a Francesco Crisci, died there the same month.

Two other threads. Angela Rosa Morgillo is recorded as a daughter of an Orazio, and in July 1818 an Orazio Morgillo of strada Travo declared a death aged twenty-six — born about 1792, the right age to have fathered her in February 1818, and the first Orazio Morgillo found in any record. not established — she was born at San Felice, not Arienzo. And the Morgillo, like the Falco and the Rivetti, had a branch of standing: Don Luigi Morgillo, son of Don Lelio Morgillo and Donna Carmela d'Ambrosio, died in November 1817. No join to this family has been shown.

Rivetti 169 records

Once into the direct line

Chiara Rivetti married Pasquale and outlived him by nine years, dying in 1843 at a stated eighty. Her death entry is the only record that names her parents: filia quondam Nicolai et Anna — a whole generation this archive would otherwise not have. Reading the Arienzo death registers of 1816, 1817 and 1818 act by act has turned a bare surname into a population. On the family's own street stood Giuseppe Rivetti and Nunzio Rivetti, both bracciali; on strada Sant'Andrea a household of vaticali — carters — in Francesco, Salvatore and another Giuseppe; on strada Sajanella Antonio and Carlo. Three generations of one house can now be laid out: Giuseppe Rivetti and Andreana Sossi, their son Paolo, who died in March 1818, and his daughter Maria, who died in December 1817 as the wife of Giuseppe Martone. The declarants at Paolo's death were «vicini e parenti» of strada Camellara.

They were not only contadini. Don Giovanbattista Rivetti, thirty, declared a birth in 1818 as speziale di medicina — an apothecary — and in October 1818 Don Giuseppe Rivetti, forty-one, declared a death as a sacerdote, a priest of strada Sant'Andrea. The 1816 death register names Donna Francesca Rivetti, wife of Don Claudio Cimmino and «figlia del fu Don Nicola, e Donn'Anna Quotolo» — the same two forenames the 1843 entry gives Chiara's parents. If the two women are sisters, Chiara's mother was Anna Quotolo and this line married into a gentry house. not established — and reading the three volumes in full has made it less likely, not more. The Rivetti turn out to span the entire social range of Arienzo: day-labourers on Camellara, carters on Sant'Andrea, an apothecary, a Don, a priest. When a surname reaches from the bottom of a town to the top, a shared pair of forenames tells you nothing about which Rivetti a woman belonged to. It is on the open questions with what would settle it.

Zampiello 607 records

Once into the direct line — and a second Falco brother married a second sister

A surname with about 123 bearers in the world. Francesca Zampiello, born at Arpaia on 27 April 1928 to Angelo Zampiello and Giuseppa Ferrara, married Carmine Falco at Arpaia on 15 January 1955. Her sister Caterina married Carmine's brother Raffaele — two brothers, two sisters. Two more sisters reached Queensland and married out, into Servodio and Miceli.

Angelo Zampiello's own father was Tommaso Zampiello, named on the War Merit Cross conferred on him in 1938 — a generation recovered from a certificate the family had, filed under the wrong caption. The certificate →

Annecchino 1092 records

Once into the direct line — and it moved the family north

Filomena Annecchino, born 10 April 1897, married Carminantonio Falco. Her family were of Forchia — and Forchia is where the Falco surface in 1930. The move out of Arienzo, after two centuries in one parish, was a marriage rather than a migration.

Her own birth act has never been found: the Forchia births of 1897 are one of the two volumes at the Archivio di Stato di Benevento that were never digitised. The descent from Carmine Annecchino and Maria Carfora fits exactly, including the grandfather's name, but rests on that gap.

di Guida 6 records

Once, into Pasquale's own brother

Antonia di Guida was thirty when her daughter Maddalena was born on 7 June 1818, so born about 1788. Her husband Giuseppe Falco is the son of Matteo and Francesca Crisci — Pasquale's brother — and that birth act is what places him, and so a documented child of the founding couple, on strada Camellara.

Reading the death registers of 1817–1824 has since found the family itself, and it is not on Camellara but on strada Maddalena, a street of massari di campagna. Giuseppe di Guida appears there in 1819 aged sixty-eight — born about 1751 — and again in 1822, when he declares the death of an infant Quotolo as her avo, her grandfather. A Giuseppe di Guida is also named in October 1817 as the father of Angelo Andrea di Guida by Michedalena Rivetti. A man of that age could father both him and Antonia. not established — no record yet names Antonia's parents.

The family runs from labourers to property. Beside Giuseppe there are Raffaele di Guida (forty-two in 1819, forty-eight in 1824), Gennaro (thirty-seven in 1822, forty in 1824) and Simone (twenty-six), all contadini or massari of strada Maddalena — and LUIGI DI GUIDA, twenty-seven in 1824, a possidente. A separate branch descends from Agostino di Guida, whose daughter Carmina died at sixty in 1821.

1827 and 1828 add three more, and two of them change the picture. LUIGI DI GUIDA reappears in May 1827, now twenty-seven — the age is the same three years on, which is this register's usual arithmetic — but no longer merely propertied: he is an agrimensore, a land surveyor, of strada Monticello, and he declares the death of Matteo Carfora as ***a kinsman***, «parente del defunto». A surveyor is a lettered trade; it is the first di Guida in this archive who was not working the ground. And GENNARO DI GUIDA — thirty-two in September 1827, thirty in July 1828 — is living on strada Camellara itself, twice declaring beside the Diglio and the Carfora who bury the Falco children. A di Guida on the family's own street, in the years Giuseppe Falco and Antonia di Guida were raising theirs there, is the closest the record has yet come to joining her to a household.

Further back, TERESA DI GUIDA — mother of the Antonia Carfora who died at seventy-six in September 1828 — was born before about 1752, the earliest di Guida the civil series reaches.

They married the Quotolo of the same street, twice over: Francesco Quotolo married Vittoria di Guida, and a di Guida daughter bore the Quotolo child whose grandfather Giuseppe declared her death. The Quotolo in turn married a Falco — Maria Falco, buried in 1817, was the widow of a Francesco Quotolo. Strada Maddalena is where three of this archive's surnames meet.

Quotolo 43 records

Once into a Falco house, though not this one

The Quotolo are on this page because of one act. On 24 July 1817 MARIA FALCO died at Arienzo, «figlia delli fu Giuseppe Falco e Rosa Sossi, vedova di Francesco Quotolo» — and her death was declared by Giuseppe Quotolo, sixty-five, a massaro di campagna of strada Maddalena, as a parente. not established — her parents are a Falco couple this archive cannot join to the direct line: Giuseppe Falco and Rosa Sossi were both dead by 1817, and no record ties them to Matteo. So the Quotolo married a Falco house, not demonstrably this one.

They run the same range as the Rivetti. On strada Maddalena there are Giuseppe Quotolo (sixty-five in 1817, sixty-seven in 1819 — a rare age that behaves), Francesco and Pietro, all massari di campagna. In town there is DONN'ANNA QUOTOLO, who died in 1824 aged eighty-eight, a gentildonna and the widow of Don Nicola Rivetti; her father was Silvestro Quotolo, a possidente. She is one half of the couple that has been a candidate for Chiara Rivetti's parents since 1816 — see Open questions.

They married the di Guida of their own street twice over, and a di Guida grandfather declared a Quotolo child's death in 1822.

Maione 10 records

Once into the direct line

Costanza Maione was born at Arienzo on 2 May 1876, daughter of Aniello Maione. She married Raffaele Falco in 1897 and was the mother of Carminantonio, the generation that left for Brisbane.

Maione appear throughout the Arienzo registers a century earlier — Filippo, thirty-eight, on strada Calbarola in 1817; Gennaro, forty, in the same year — but no line yet joins them to Costanza.

Arricale 9 records

Once into the direct line

Giovanna Arricale married Carmine Antonio Falco, born 1850. The Arricale are one of the steadiest families in the registers, and almost always vaticali — carriers — of strada Capodiconca: Carmine at twenty-six, Giuseppe at thirty, Domenico at thirty-five and Aniello at twenty-five all declared births in 1818 alone.

The spelling wanders between Arricale, Arrigale and Arricole in the same decade and sometimes the same hand.

Esposito 40 records

Once, into the second founding household

Vincenza Esposito married Michele Falco — not the Michele of strada Camellara but a man of Matteo's own generation. They are named together on the 1832 death act of their daughter Giovanna, aged seventy, and they are the reason this archive knows there were two peasant Falco couples raising children at Arienzo in the early 1760s.

Esposito is also the surname given to foundlings across southern Italy, so it carries no presumption of kinship between bearers.

Vigliotta 16 records

Twice — and one of the two households is the one proved kin

The Vigliotta married Falco twice. Gelsomina Vigliotta, thirty-two, and Giuseppe Falco, a massaro di campo of strada Costa, had a son Domenico on 25 November 1816. And Mariantonia Vigliotta and Michelangelo Falco buried a daughter Anna, thirteen months old, in May 1831 — and the second man to swear that act was Vincenzo Falco of the direct line, described not as a neighbour but as parente, a kinsman. Theirs is the one Camellara household proved related to the line.

They used the name Anna twice: this child, and another dead at eight days in March 1834. How Michelangelo is kin — brother, cousin, nephew — the act does not say. A caution that came out of the same volume: the Giuseppe Falco who married Gelsomina Vigliotta is not the Giuseppe Falco who married Antonia di Guida. One was a massaro di campo of strada Costa, the other a contadino of strada Camellara, and both were thirty-six within two years of each other. Two men, one name, one town.

Families married by the collaterals

Beyond the ten above, the Falco households this archive has reconstructed also married Loffreda (Francesco Falco × Antonia Loffreda), Mara (Tommaso Falco × Marta Mara) and Ulivieccio (Francesco Falco × Maria Angela Ulivieccio) — and, in 1832, a Falco married a Falco: Francesco Falco and Raffaela Falco of strada Camellara, which in a town this size ordinarily means cousins and a dispensation.

Every person named on this page has a page of their own at The people, or an entry with its source at The register.