ITALY-L Archives

Archiver > ITALY > 2000-08 > 0966520813


From: "Salis, Pat" <>
Subject: RE: Surname CATTANEA Migration to France? Why???
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 09:00:13 -0500


Read up on the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), especially in Italy. Most of
Italy was under French control during that time, and possession of some
areas changed several times during that period. A person might be nominally
Italian one day (though Italy didn't really exist as a nation until later),
and French the next. In northwest Italy, this situation was exaggerated.
My ggg grandparents, who were said to be from Italy and France on their
son's 1850 Cuban marriage certificate, appear to have left Europe and
emigrated to Cuba in the late 1700s or early 1800s. It's hard to know what
they meant by "Italy" and "France," since the national boundaries then would
not be the same as today's. I'm working under the assumption that they
originated in northwest Italy, possibly Piemonte, where Italian and French
were doubtless mixed for both geographic and political reasons, and I wonder
if they migrated because of the chronic military and political unrest during
that period.
Pat, in Texas

> -----Original Message-----
> From:Vincent E. Summers [SMTP:]
> Sent:Thursday, August 17, 2000 8:25 AM
> To:
> Subject:Surname CATTANEA Migration to France? Why???
>
> Dear Folks,
>
> I find an Anthony CATTANEO in Pennsylvania, the emigrant to the US of
> a line of CATTANEAs. Now I do not know why all his children, and all
> of his grandchildren, on down, are CATTANEA. Maybe the appearance of
> the name CATTANEO is a typo. But I do not think so. Somewhere along
> the way, there was a change.
>
> In the Ancestry.com telephone listings for CATTANEA, 7 were from
> France, and 32 from Italy.
>
> I do not know which ours was from. But my question is: Did the 7
> in the phone books descend from a line in France that originally
> came from Italy? And what would cause a migration to France, when
> there seems to be no other migrations. What was special, apparently
> in the early to mid 1800's about going from Italy to France? Surely
> it was no coincidence. Was there some historical event or something
> that would have encouraged this? Was there no port to the US from
> Italy at that time, but one was especially convenient to reach in
> France?
>
> Thanks,
> Vince Summers
>
> cc: Bob Cattanea
>
>
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