My ancestors are from small villages in southern Italy and Sicily. Sicilians are notoriously good record-keepers, but everything is in Sicilian (Sicilian language is not Italian, but a sister Romance language). I can muddle through Italian, but Sicilian, apart from a few words, is alien to me. Moreover, there is virtually nothing on-line.
My father's line (the Sicilian half of me) is quite mysterious. From my grandfather, whom I never met, since he died before I was born, I can find only his father's name. My grandfather was very secretive about his life. We (my family) suspect he was always on the run: after all, he did have to flee Sicily after stabbing a man in a fight over a dog. My father hated his father, and only reluctantly talked about "the old man", as he called him. He despised him so much that after my grandmother died, and my grandfather lived alone, my mother had to badger my father into going to check on "the old man". My father's response: "ahh the hell wit'im!". But he did take care of him.
My grandfather may have had 2 or 3 brothers, who were estranged. Typical Sicilians: "
a me tu sei mort'; non ti conosco; no teng' familgia" (you're-a dead-a to me; I dunta know you; I have-a no familee).
From my grandfather's mother and from my grandmother's lines I have some names and dates. I've gone back as far as my 4x great-grandparents for names and dates, but I question their accuracy. I've met people who say the resemblance I have to one of their family members is uncanny. We may be cousins because our great-grandfathers may have been brothers or first cousins. That family doesn't know much about their origins either.
My maternal line is only marginally better, the reason for the dearth of information is that both my grandparents came to the US as orphans. I have 2nd cousins who've been to our "ancestral village" in Italy. They got some information but the village is so rundown and changed (not to mention dangerous with crime) that it is easier to do a tooth extraction on an unsedated lion than to get information.
Maybe I
don't want to know.