Journeys
The whole geography of this family in five moves — four of which you could walk in a day, and one which you could not.
The shape of this family's movement is the most striking thing about it. From about 1735 to 1901 — seven generations — nobody leaves Arienzo. Then, inside a single lifetime, the line moves to Arpaia, to Forchia, to Benevento and to Australia.
The first four moves total 27 kilometres. The fifth is 15,800.
Arienzo stays put
c. 1735 – 1901 · generations 1 to 7
Seven generations do not move at all. Every one of them is born, married and buried within the same parish — and most of them on or beside one street, strada Camellara.
Arienzo→ Arpaia 4 km
1913 · generation 7
The first move in two hundred years, and it crosses a provincial border — Caserta to Benevento — without leaving walking distance. Gerardo Falco is born here in 1913.
Arpaia→ Forchia 3 km
1930 · generation 8
Carmine Falco is born at Forchia, a town named for the Forche Caudine — the Caudine Forks, where a Roman army was made to pass under the yoke in 321 BC.
Forchia→ Benevento 20 km
1955 · generations 8 to 9
Carmine Falco marries Francesca Zampiello; Giuseppina is born the same year. The capital of the Lombard duchy that gave southern Italy the personal name Falco.
Benevento→ Brisbane 15,800 km
26 March 1964 · generation 8 and 9
And then, in one lifetime, sixteen thousand kilometres. The family that had not left one parish in seven generations crosses the world — aboard the ss SYDNEY of the Lauro Lines, official number 668, master Leopoldo Cafiero, Genoa to Brisbane, arriving 26 March 1964. «FALCO Carmine — Tourist — Naples — BRISBANE — 43 Mount Joy, Petrie Terrace, Brisbane — 2.9.63», and FALCO Francesca on the line below. The address had been notified nearly seven months before they sailed. Giuseppina was eight years old.
Why seven generations stayed. They were coloni and contadini — men who worked another man's land. You cannot take a tenancy with you. The registers record the same twenty surnames on the same nineteen streets for two hundred years, and the DNA measures the same closed valley from the other end: two people born eight kilometres apart who are, at the test's resolution, indistinguishable.
The places themselves
| Place | Province | When | Why it is in this story |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arienzo | Caserta | 1672 – 1913 | The home parish. The Collegiate Church of Sant'Andrea Apostolo holds baptisms from 1672, marriages from 1754 and deaths from 1733. Every Falco generation from Pasquale to Raffaele was born, married and buried here. |
| San Felice a Cancello | Caserta | 1818 – 1818 | Birthplace of Angela Rosa Morgillo, who married into the line in the 1840s. The next comune west of Arienzo. |
| Arpaia | Benevento | 1913 – 1935 | Across the provincial border, four kilometres from Arienzo. Gerardo Falco was born here in 1913; the Zampiello family were here through the 1920s and 1930s. |
| Forchia | Benevento | 1930 – 1938 | Where Carmine Falco was born in 1930. The comune takes its name from the Forche Caudine — the Caudine Forks, where the Roman army was made to pass under the yoke in 321 BC. |
| Benevento | Benevento | 1955 – 1955 | Where Carmine Falco and Francesca Zampiello married, and where Giuseppina was born in 1955. Capital of the Lombard duchy that gave southern Italy the personal name Falco. |
| Brisbane | Queensland | 20th c. – present | Where the line arrives. Carminantonio Falco and Filomena Annecchino are buried at Nudgee Cemetery. |