Embark on an intimate odyssey with our guest Regina Vighetto, as she unveils her family's vibrant migration tapestry from Italy to the coffee farms of São Paulo, Brazil. Her tale is one of resilience and discovery, and unearthing a narrative enriched by ancestral dreams and the quest for prosperity in a new world. As Regina shares her genealogical saga, I can't help but interweave my own pursuit of Italian citizenship, which sparked a genealogy fervor that mirrors her and her husband’s scholarly endeavors in the field at BYU-Idaho. Together, we journey through the poignant realizations that come with genealogical tourism and the heartfelt tug to physically connect with our past.
As we unravel the complex layers of our lineage, we stumble upon the shadowy figures of war deserters and the murky waters of family secrets concealed by time and societal pressures. Our discourse meanders through the revelations that emerge from documents like the Strato di Famiglia and the fascinating tales they tell. We delve into the emotional and cultural implications of an Italian way of life when discussing the seductive slow-pace, the rituals of food shopping, and the tantalizing health benefits of a traditional Italian diet. Whether you're drawn to the mysteries of your own heritage or simply curious about the allure of Italian living, this episode is an exploration of the profound connections between personal history, identity, and the enchanting Italian lifestyle.
In 2019, my husband Henrique Vighetto Neto and I embarked on an online course in Family History at BYU Idaho. We did not know that it could become a profession. In my opinion, this field is currently growing and evolving. As we connect with our ancestors, we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and begin to feel like a part of something greater—a family. Soon, we developed a strong desire to come to Italy and pursue our citizenship processes. And so, we did. Let me share a bit of our journey in discovering the Vighetto’s family roots in Turin, Piedmont.
To reconstruct his family tree, we needed the marriage certificate of the Italian ancestor. A quick phone call to his cousin, Iris, led us to the church where Enrico (the Italian grandfather) married Rosa Ianni, and we obtained the document.
Certain aspects of his family history were always recounted: the family’s wealth, complete with a butler; their ownership of the Tobacco and Salt Monopoly; and their business on Via Appia. Additionally, his ancestor was described as war-worn and somewhat neurotic (after we discovered he was a war dissident).
After obtaining our Italian citizenship and settling in Italy, our primary goal was to find living relatives. We scoured documents, visited places (embracing genealogical tourism), and engaged in conversations. We did find family members, but unfortunately, they were all in the cemetery. This particular branch of the family did not flourish. Enrico, the sole son who had fled war memories, was the exception. He wasn’t part of the massive wave of Italian immigrants who left poverty behind between 1880 and 1930, he left for other reason. His family line
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Speaker 1:
Hi everyone, this is Bob Sorrentino from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to check us out on Facebook, our YouTube channel and our blog and our great sponsors Io Dolce Vita, italy Rooting and our blog, and our great sponsors your Dolce Vita, italy Rooting and Abiativa Casso. And my guest today is Regina Viguetto, from Turin, and we're going to talk about her background and also her genealogy business. So welcome, regina. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much, bobby, I'm very happy to be here with you. Oh, regina, thanks for being here. Thank you so much, bob, I'm very happy to be here with you.
Speaker 1:
Oh, thanks, so you're originally from Sao Paulo.
Speaker 2:
yes, yes, Sao Paulo, a very big city in Brazil.
Speaker 1:
And what brought your family there, do you know?
Speaker 2:
Well, many places, because I have my great-grandfather, so they had got married in Brazil, so they mixed it up everything.
Speaker 1:
So from Venezia, Salerno, Calabria and just and when did they first arrive in Brazil?
Speaker 2:
In São Paulo. They arrived in São Paulo to work in the farms of coffee.
Speaker 1:
Oh, so interesting.
Speaker 2:
They arrived in a boat. They had contract deals with the farmers to live there and work for them. Because, first of all, because there was no more slaves in Brazil and they needed manual labor.
Speaker 1:
They needed, they needed people to uh to uh, collect or pick the coffee, beans and whatever. Uh, exactly, so I didn't.
Speaker 2:
I didn't know that, I didn't know that now that was, that your grandparents or your grandfather, great grandparents great great grandparents, so so a long time ago, yeah a long time ago and uh, but the, the family of my husband, uh, is only his grandfather, so he's very close and that's the part of the genealogy that was uh. More easier is it was easier to do because only three generations to research and that we had a. We did. We have had a great success on that and that was amazing to do what we have discovered about the family. Unfortunately they are. There is no one alive. We would like to to meet the alive ones, but nobody had the children oh wow, that's so interesting.
Speaker 2:
That's something.
Speaker 1:
Yes so, um, so was it? Was it you or your husband that wanted to originally start to research the families?
Speaker 2:
We had both. We had to research everybody at the same time. But for doing our citizenship we had to find someone and go on with that and we started with the grandfather, grandfather, my husband, because it was easy and it was easier but there was a lot of steps to get there yeah, I know I'm working through that now, um and and I'm waiting for the council in in New York City is just too long, so I'm going to go through a lawyer and also by doing it that way, he could do my children at the same time.
Speaker 1:
So I could have one petition and do everybody all together.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes, it's a lawyer.
Speaker 1:
So there's so much stuff to ask you. So you started this because you wanted to get Italian citizenship, because you wanted to move to Italy.
Speaker 2:
Yes, but there was another fact Me and my husband started studying genealogy at BYU-Idaho and we are there studying. We didn't know it was a profession we were doing just for hobby. And then we got to a point that we said, why don't we move to Italy? Oh, it would be great. We have already 50 years old and it would be a good place to live for the rest of our lives. And at this point we started researching to get the citizenship. So the thing is happening all together we continue studying genealogy, a background in this stuff, and uh, searching for our own, uh families to do the citizenship to that all the same time yeah, and that's a big so.
Speaker 1:
So now when you moved to I mean obviously I don't know if you both you and your husband worked with or how how did you make that decision that, okay, we're just gonna go? I mean, did you just pick up and go?
Speaker 2:
yes, yes, but we, we choose it. First of all went to lombardia because we have friends there and the big deal is to rent a house. That's the the big deal, nothing else. And we had a friend who helped us to rent a house. Then we moved to Piedmont, torino, because my oldest son started working as an engineer at Fiat and we'd like to be close to them. And here we live, very near the city of my husband's grandfather, and that started the journal journey to discover things a little bit closer to the reality, to to know, to do that turismo genealogico. Have you heard that? Yeah, yes, to have that feeling to walk in the streets that your ancestors walked. And I say that it really is like everybody is saying it's a big emotion to be there.
Speaker 1:
I know I tell people all the time some people they go and they don't go to the hometown, and I can't understand how you could go to Italy and not go to the hometown. Yeah, sure, so now you Did all your children. I don't know how many children you have, but did they all move to Italy?
Speaker 2:
No, I have one with us who is 17 years old. He is studying at school. Every guy studies here. My oldest is my second oldest, gabriel, is living near here, and I have two children in Brazil and one daughter in Ireland.
Speaker 1:
Ireland. Now that's interesting.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, how'd you wind up there? Yes, we are everywhere five children.
Speaker 1:
Uh, yeah, my daughter lives in Texas, one of my my sons with us. My daughter lives in Texas and my wife is always. You know she's so far away. But I said you know there's a different world today.
Speaker 2:
People are every people all over the place um and thanks to technology that bring us closer yeah.
Speaker 1:
So now, when all this research with your, with your, you and your husband, um, how far back were you able to go and what did you find? That was interesting, that you would never thought of the most interesting thing.
Speaker 2:
We know there was a lot, but the most one was a page of a book that was in the State Archive of Turin and that page was not there. Only one page in a big old book was not there. Only one page in a big old book was not there. And people who work in the National Archive, the State Archive of Turin, were surprised, like us. Why not that page was there? Sorry, Also, the page was not there. But the interesting thing is that no one in the family said the truth. The truth is that he was a dissident. How can I say that in English? He ran from the war.
Speaker 2:
Oh, like a deserter, we would call it a deserter yes, a deserter, we would call it a deserter someone to do that, to take off that page. Because why? It's an official record, it's in the archive. You have cameras that record you while you are recording turning the pages of a book, for example. There are cameras everywhere. And why that? And for that experience we understood that they have some money to do that, because it's not a common thing around the people.
Speaker 2:
And we continued searching this guy around around the people. And we continued searching this guy around. His father was a military too. In the first of all, he had died at 41 years old and left a wife with three children. One of these children was the grandfather and two girls, two daughters. The interesting thing is that nobody moved except this brazil. This grandfather went to brazil, and why did he? Went to brazil. He is not that people who went to America to work because they have a very good financial situation here. We don't know exactly what happened in the war, but he went away. He went away to Brazil. In that time he was a kind of neurotic of war. He wake up during the night screaming. He raised a family in Brazil, had three children, two that died, but three was alive. But he didn't have a good work in Brazil and he returned two times to Italy. Another thing is that he got married to an Italian also, but this Italian, rosa Ianni, was from the south of Italy and he is from the north, and this is a big deal.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:
The family didn't agree with the marriage. Because even nowadays I have heard another day that someone wasn't demitted for work because this guy was from South Italy and there is a kind of discrimination here about this. And okay, he came back two times to Italy by ship. The family, who had some money paid for that, travels and we would like to to find this family here in Turin and we start searching. I don't know if you know, but there is a Strato di Famiglia, a document that you can require to the community to see the addresses that the family had. Do you know that?
Speaker 1:
No, I didn't know that. I did not know that.
Speaker 2:
That's amazing because you can search for the houses and that's how they started the journey to search the family alive. And we went to Busoleno, where the family first lived. Nobody there, and from this structure of the family we have discovered that they moved to Pinerolo, so we started searching there. Moved to Pinerolo, so we started searching there in Pinerolo. We tried to go to the cemetery, but there are lots of tomb space and it's impossible to find it. We have spent about two hours there, but nothing, have nothing. And we got to the point um to search for some communication about the families and we found a how do I say?
Speaker 2:
busta, uh yeah a letter with address in Pinerolo. Oh, and here we go. But when we got to that address I don't know if you know the apartments where people live here in Italy In the front door you have the interphone with the name of the families who live in each apartment Not the name but the surname and we start searching for Eirali. No one, eirali there. But my son, who speaks Italian very, very well, started one by one to call that apartment. Hey, excuse me, but I'm searching for Famiglia Idali. Do you know them? No, no, no, no. Before let's see eight tries. Someone answered yes, I know, there were two sisters. They lived here for almost all their lives and they have died 15 years ago. Oh, okay, could you please tell us if there is any Viguetos family around for us to get in touch? No, viguetos, zero, zero Viguetos, oh no, where are they? Oh, that's the question. My son asked when is the cemetery? What are there? And they said oh, it's nearby. You go there five minutes by car. You go there the second entrance, go straight ahead and look at your left and you find the Vigetos there. And you went there.
Speaker 2:
It was so special that day because it was November. It was in October, near to the last days I don't know how to say that day in English a day to record our ancestors, and all the Italian people go to the cemetery to put flowers in the tombs. And as it was near to that day, it was exactly what we did. We went to buy some flowers and get to the tomb of Begetus and everybody was there and we thought how can we search for the histories? Because we started at one point that we want to know the histories of the family. We don't want only records or dates, we want to know more.
Speaker 2:
And we went again to that family who answered us on the interphone and the man, an old man, 88 years old, asked us to get in his apartment and he told a lot of histories for us. He told, for example, that that two sisters was looking for us in Brazil and they paid some good money to reach us there. But there was something strange in this part, because the sisters knew that you were from São Paulo, because they have written the letters to my father-in-law. But this man, this old man, said something curious is that his last name is Furbato. Furbato is a name that is close to furbo. Furbo is something that is a smart person and this man told that he picked up this money to pay someone to reach for us. But he told that he was looking for us at the consulate from Minas Gerais, brasilia and Rio de Janeiro, but why not Sao Paulo? That was the thing, why not?
Speaker 2:
But I didn't say anything, I just listened and he, at the end of the meeting, the interview, the talking, showed us some objects that appartened to them. It was, for example, there was an umbrella, very, very expensive the price of that umbrella is like the price of a good motorcycle and showed us some, some movies from them and okay. And there was another thing he showed us her apartment, their apartment. They were neighbors and who lives in this apartment now is her daughter, his daughter, his daughter, excuse me, his daughter. And since they were, they were, they died. The two Sorelas died. The daughter of this neighbor lives in this apartment. Oh, strange, all that was strange. But okay, we are very grateful to meet him and the stories that he had told about them.
Speaker 2:
But this is not finished yet. He asked me could you please make a book, a very good book, about this family? I just said yes, can you do this book within six months? I said yes, the six months will be in June. I have started this book and could you please bring me this book? And we are going to talk. I don't know what this man wants to talk to us. I don't know what this man wants to talk to us. I don't know, but it will be a surprise.
Speaker 2:
And he had told us many histories about the family. It was very interesting to know some deep histories. For example, one of these daughters, these sisters, he was married to a man who was in the army in a battle between Italy and Ethiopia and he went to Ethiopia, but there he was a prisoner of war. In this time that he was in the prison, he was sterilized like a eunuco and when he returned to Italy, the aunt of Clareta said that she needed to divorce this man. It was a very sad history because they had divorced this man and they started writing letters one to another. And when she died, this neighbor put in his pocket around 50 letters from her beloved one to go with her. And I think it was a sad history about them and we started getting closer to them.
Speaker 2:
This kind of history makes us discover our ancestors, in this case the ancestors of my husband, but I have felt like it was mine. After knowing many histories this old man has told us, I remember that I didn't sleep that night Only thinking about these two sisters. That was alone. Nobody in the family, Nobody wanted to have children. I don't know what was the impact of the war in this family. The great-grandfather of my husband has died. After the war he was 41 years old. He was very young, they were very rich, and sometimes I want to speak Italian. After he, he went to the warm. After two years he died. We didn't know the reason of his death, but we discovered that he died for the gripe espanola, a kind of, como se dice, rafredor in Spanish, that many people died at that time because of the war. The illness always was around everybody because they were together, getting in touch with many cultures and many different viruses. They died for that reason. The family was okay. They owned the monopoly of smoking.
Speaker 2:
Cigarettes smoking cigarettes, cigarettes the monopoly means that only that family could sell that thing. That's why they were rich. But after many things happened, he died. There was the second war, he died and there was Mussolini, mussolini. Mussolini in Italy had done a lot of things, had changed many things, and one of them is to finish that monopoly for the families. And they were not so rich anymore, but they have good conditions. So why?
Speaker 2:
The question is why Enrico has gone to Brazil to go away from some military condition that he had? I think that I was talking to some Italian people these days and they told me that many were the deserters of war. It was not few, many of them. I didn't know this information, but that's the reason why he went away. He was the only man in the family. He was supposed to stay here in Italy. Why did he go? We don't know the real reason. I think it's because of the war, but I'm not sure. When he got to Sao Paulo, a very big city, he started working as a pachicheiro I don't know who do candies in a very famous place in São Paulo. He worked there, but he didn't stay for a long time with this work because he was very perturbed with the war. Many times he wake up in the night, during the night, screaming and things, and they were very poor. And why did not he return to Italy? Because his family was.
Speaker 2:
We don't know the truth, but that's what happened. But it's not easy, because we wanted to warn this tomb to be buried there with the Vigeta's family all together, but we don't know if we will get it. We are trying to and we are going to see what is going to happen with what this neighbor has to tell us about this, this stuff. But the most important things were the things that they owned, for example, pictures from the family. For us it would be the most important pictures, documents, letters, all that stuff. Where are they? What are this stuff? The clothes that they were very rich. So, uh, the neighbor, the wife of this neighbor, told us that every year, when the change of the season for example, we are now in the spring, but we have just beginning the spring but after beginning the spring, these two sisters went to Milano it's very near from here, it's two hours from here to do the new collection of the clothes to use. So they have very expensive clothing, many things, many stuff. They were two daughters. One of them were casalinga, how they say home, like to take care of the home.
Speaker 2:
This is Maria Teresa, who never got married, and the other sister is Clarita. She was a romantic girl and that it was the story I told about the divorce in the war in ethiopia. It was her story. And another story about clareta is that she had someone to help her because she was getting older. And this girl, this woman who helped her, was from Romania. There are lots of Romanians here in Italy.
Speaker 2:
She was from Romania and one day she asked Clarita to some days off to go to London. But why do you want to go to London? Because I needed to meet the love of my life. And Clarita was very, very romantic. She said oh, yes, sure you can go. And before going there, go to the store here in Pinarolo. Find out the most expensive, the most beautiful clothing you can buy. Buy that and I will pay that for you, because it must be very beautiful to meet the love of your life. And this is a real story that a neighbor told for us and more. She told to this woman you need to take some, some, some bath, because you're very white, very you need to be, to present yourself beautiful to your love. And that was another story from this uh meeting we had that's so interesting.
Speaker 1:
And that's all because your son was persistent trying to find somebody that's you know. That's all because your son was persistent trying to find somebody that you know that's what I say that these things happen because they happen. If you persistent or you know that maybe there's somebody up above looking down that says I'm going to help you find this, it's, it's. It's very strange. So so now, how did you turn all of this into the business and helping others, you know, do their genealogy research?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, because at BYU we learn how to search the records in a scientific, we can say in a method you need to search official records, as we have done with our citizenship, so we can help others to do that. We can search for records online, but there are lots of repositories that are not online. You need to go in person to search and here we are in Italy to do that. After searching, reading out these documents, we must have a copy postular to recognize an official timbre that it is a valid record document for people doing their citizenship. So we started doing that, getting in touch with people. The people requested us to do the research, also other genealogists, because they are not here to get in person. So we do that work.
Speaker 2:
For example, today my husband is in Verona Verona is four hours from here by bus or by car and he's written there to get a certificate for someone who is in Brazil to get their citizenship. And we are turning that into a business because we are starting the business, but I'm still studying at BYU. I will be doing an internship now. I can also search for American documents, census, military records, find a grave. I can search everything online and the part of Ellis Land Register and many others. We can search online and help people get their citizenship or their genealogy reconstructions.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I know so many more. So many people are looking now for that information and so many more people want to be citizens. I wish the Italian government. I understand why they make it difficult, but you know some records are obvious, you know that they're accurate and all of that. But I know they really. You know, make sure the names are right and all of that kind of stuff. And I have to. My mother, my mother, was supposed to be Raquel Carolina, Rachel Caroline and Rachel Aunt Rachel was my grandmother's sister-in-law. Well, they had a fight just before or after my mother was born, so my grandmother started calling her Caroline. So all her records, her birth certificate, says Rachel, Everything else says Caroline. So we have to match that up. So they said so. They told me um, if you get her social security application, then we could show the judge and show that. So I just sent for that yesterday.
Speaker 1:
Uh it's a good idea uh, yeah, and I didn't even know that was available. I didn't know you could um actually get the uh, you know, through the it's called the freedom of freedom of information act here. Um okay, that's social security yeah, the social security actually has the original applications for the social security numbers.
Speaker 2:
Okay.
Speaker 1:
And then we have to send for our I forget what it's called, but there's an equivalent in Italy for that. So they told us to start sending for that. But the good news for us is I could go through my father's side on my mother's side, uh, but we decided to go yeah, we decided to go through my mom's side because they said um julia won't be as busy as naples, it'll be easier to go through ah, yes, julia, yes and go through the court of naples yes, I agree.
Speaker 2:
That's the point, because there are a lot of people I don't know, some people, for example, brazil, argentina, who is kind of broken economically. They want to come to Italy to work or to have the citizenship, because you are not only citizenship of Italy, you are a Unione Europea, so you can work and live in many countries. And that's the most requested thing is to go to other countries England not anymore, because they are out of the Union Europea, but there are many good countries to live. But I don't know why Americans want so much to have their citizenship. I think it's to leave to visit.
Speaker 1:
I don't know, I think it's a couple of things. I mean, I think some people would like to retire there, that's for sure. I have a friend who moved there I think it's almost five years ago. She always wanted to live in Italy so she got her citizenship and there are certainly there are advantages of it to have it. A lot of people don't know that you can retire there and stay there if you have enough passive income that you don't have to be a citizen to stay as long as you could support yourself.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and it's not a lot. I don't remember the exact amount, but it's not a crazy amount of money to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:
Okay, yes, to be retired here is wonderful, because the life here in Italy is very slow. Everything is slow. It's not in a hurry, as, for example, in Sao Paulo, I don't know, new Jersey, new York. I think it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1:
Yes, new York is crazy. Where we live it's not so bad we're south of New York but New York is crazy.
Speaker 2:
It depends on your attitude also. But here you live very slow. You do things slowly, everybody is slow. You go to the supermarket, you do one thing, because if you want to be as fast as you were in your hometown, it's impossible because you the two things don't match. You get, you know, as time passes by, you get it's getting slower, slower until the best you can.
Speaker 1:
I think the toughest thing that, besides the language because I don't I hardly speak any Italian but besides the language I think one of the toughest things would be we're so used to going into a big, giant supermarket with tons and tons of stuff and that doesn't really exist in Italy, at least not that I've seen.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes, and there is no food that isn't good. Everything is good, everything is good. Um, you, the, the, you can eat very well here and something interesting that you don't get fat.
Speaker 1:
I don't know why?
Speaker 2:
I don't know why you can eat lots, lots of ice cream, pizzas, pasta and you don't get fat. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:
Well, I think part of it is at least in America. I don't know what it's like in Brazil, it is at least in america. I don't know what it's like in brazil here.
Speaker 1:
Uh, they put so much stuff into the food, um, preserve it, I. I think that has a lot to do with it. And also, you know, we noticed, like um, usually the portions if you go to restaurants the portions aren't as big there. But also things like like when you get a pastry in italy it's not super sweet like it is in america exactly here it's packed with sugar and there it's.
Speaker 1:
It's sweet, but it's not overly sweet no, it's half, at least half half sugar, at least yeah, and it's, I mean it's, you know it's still good, but you know, I, I think maybe you know not that I know anything scientific, but I think certainly, uh, the purity of the food and the fact that it's, you know, fresh, I mean like, for example, here now, my wife and I talk about this all the time uh, when I was growing up, if you got a a bottle of milk delivered to the house, it would last three or four days uh, yeah here now three weeks but it doesn't taste the same, so they're putting something in it.
Speaker 1:
So who knows, maybe, maybe that's the reason for sure, I'm sure and people here lives a lot 90 years old, 95 they are.
Speaker 2:
They ride the bikes.
Speaker 1:
They go to the supermarket to buy bike you have to walk up all those steps to get anywhere, at least in the south. Anyway, everything is, everything is up there. Um, everything's on hills and all of that, so that probably has something to do with it also. Um, so, uh, regina, before we go, if anybody wants to contact you to for help with you know genealogy or you know citizenship, how would they reach you?
Speaker 2:
uh, from the my websitegenealogycom by WhatsApp. That's what we use here in Italy WhatsApp all the time. I can leave my number. Okay, from Italy. The number is 39, then 379, 124, 2609. That's my number for getting in touch well, thanks.
Speaker 1:
I appreciate you taking the time and it's been a lot of fun, interesting stories for sure, and you know we'll get your name out there thank you so much, bob.
Speaker 2:
I like to to be with you. I like to hear, to watch your broadcasts and get to know people thanks again.