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Families of Valle Maggia, Ticino

Parish Reconstructions of
Giumaglio, Coglio, and Someo

Overview

When I started working the parish records of Giumaglio in March 2013, I understood it was going to be more of a family bowl of spaghetti than a family tree. The parents of my immigrant great-great-grandmother, Aurelia Cerini, were both Cerinis—and as it turned out, they were second cousins. Right from the start I figured the only way to get to the bottom of this bowl of spaghetti was to do it all—everybody, no exceptions. I completed Giumaglio 22 months later and then undertook Coglio, which I completed in May 2017 after 14 months. Afther that, I started reconstructing Someo, which turned out to be larger than both Giumaglio and Coglio combined. I worked two years on it but progress was halted by the pandemic in 2020 and I have yet to regain my momentum.

The parish reconstructions are done in a Family Tree Maker database and output in two forms: an alphabetical index of all persons affiliated with parishioners of Giumaglio, Coglio, and Someo in respective PDFs, and the database uploaded to Ancestry.com, which I will share upon request. In addition, as I learn about emigrants to California and Australia, I select certain emigrants and post pedigrees for them--see "Select Pedigrees of Valle Maggians." Lastly, Dave LaFranchi and I have been manually adding our respective work into FamilySearch.org.

Parish records, from which most of this information comes, is primarily written in Latin, while civil records are primarily written in Italian. Names that have only been observed in Latin but have either been converted to Italian or left in Latin are rendered in italics.

Baptism records give the names of the infant, parents, and godparents, along with the names of all their fathers, all in Latin. When godparents are relatives (frequently aunts or uncles), the relationships are sometimes stated, making these superb records to reconstruct families and extended families. The parish censuses (stato d'anime) are equally useful in presenting households as a unit, however, ages (rather than birth dates) are often given. When dates are given, they often reflect the baptism date and therefore can be a day or two after the birth dates described in baptism records. Furthermore, priests appear to have continued adding children to families for a couple years after the census period had ended, which is good when birth dates are listed but confusing when ages are listed.

As part of the parish reconstructions, I also took note of the parish priests and listed them in their individual parishes. I started this first to help straighten out the chronologies during periods of incomplete records or back-entered records, and to gain a better understanding of the relationships among the various priests and parishes. Finally, I decided to post these summaries as a tribute to the priests who meticulously recorded our ancestors' activities and made the reconstructions possible.

Individual Parishes

The parish reconstructions are based on microfilmed records that include the following:

Giumaglio

Of the three parishes, Giumaglio's records are the most complete and extend the farthest back but have a couple notable issues. Records between 1785 and 1806 were back-entered and are incomplete. There is also a gap between 1808 and 1825, with the exception of a parish censes that was taken in 1817. These issues may be because of disruption during the Napoleanic Era (1798-1815).

• Baptisms, 1668-1899, less gap of 1808-1825;
• Confirmations, 1677-1776;
• Marriages, 1671-1899, less gap of 1808-1825;
• Deaths, 1668-1899, less gaps of 1808-1825 and children 1785-1806; and
• Censuses (stato d'anime), 1692-1843: 1692, 1698, 1702, 1703, 1709, 1741, 1748, 1760, 1769, 1776, 1795, 1817, and 1843.

Coglio

Parish records in Coglio were destroyed in a fire in January 1745 and Father Giovanni Battista Pozzi interviewed parishioners to reconstruct baptism and marriage records dating back to 1658. Death records were not reconstructed, nor are any available on microfilm until 1888. Most Coglio parishioners will therefore have only estimated death dates based on the last time they were mentioned in records:

• Baptisms, 1658-1903;
• Marriages, 1658-1980: 1658-1930 (less gap of 1821-1830); and
• Deaths, 1888-1899.

Someo

I am now working through three microfilms for the parish of Someo. At first I focused on any connections to Giumaglio and Coglio families, and on my Tognazzini family and others connected to that family; but last year I returned to the beginning and restarted with a full parish reconstruction similar to those I did for Giumaglio and Coglio. At present I am up to 1786 and I plan to continue this to about 1850 to cover the emigration generation and fill out the nieces, nephews, and cousins of my most recent Someo ancestor, Giovanna Maria (Tognazzini) Cerini⁴ (1804-1876). These films cover:

• Marriages: 1689-1899;
• Deaths: 1717-1899;
• Confirmations: 1719-1899; and
• Baptisms: 1723-1900 (less a gap of 1868-1878).

Parishes and Churches

Other regional churches noted, north to south, include:

• Prato, Valle Lavizzara: Oratorio di San Sebastiano (Ecclesia Sanctis Sebastiani), which is adjacent to the back of the older Church of San Domenico, dates back to the 15th Century and was restored in 1496 and again in the 19th Century.
• Sornico, Valle Lavizzara. Chiesa di San Martino di Tours probably dates back as early as the 11th Century but surviving records first mention it in 1372. Its present appearance comes from alterations made in 1597.
• Broglio, Valle Lavizzara: Chiesa di Santa Maria Lauretana was consecrated in 1487 and belonged to the parish of Sornico until 1616, when it became an independent parish.
• Brontallo, Valle Lavizzara: Chiesa di San Giorgio was consecrated in 1516 and again in 1526 when it was remodeled. It was further remodeled during the 17th Century.
• Campo: Chiesa di San Bernardo di Chiaravalle, was built in the 14th Century in honor of a 12th Century French Cistercian abbot. It was completely reconstructed in the 17th Century and later restored in the 18th Century.
• Cerentino: Chiesa di Madonna delle Grazie dates back to the 15th Century and became independent from the mother parish of Cevio in 1513.
• Bignasco: Chiesa di San Michele dates back to the 15th Century.
• Cevio: Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta e di San Giovanni Battista, dates back as far as 1253.
• Riveo: L'oratorio della Madonna delle Grazie (Oratorium Beata Virginis Gratiarum) was consecrated in 1703 and was subordinate to the parish of Someo.
• Someo: Chiesa di Santi Placido ed Eustachio (Ecclesia Sancti Eustachii et Socios, Matyres) in Someo dates back to 1365, was completely rebuilt in 1536, and improved in the 18th century. Its own parish was formed from the parish of Cevio before 1591.^{[Signorelli 325]}
• Giumaglio: Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta (Ecclesia Sancta Maria Gratiarum)
• Coglio: Chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmelo (Ecclesia Sancta Maria de Monte Carmelo) in the neighboring village of Coglio reportedly dates back to 1579. Its own parish was formed from the mother church at Maggia before 1698.^{[Signorelli 325]}
• Lodano: Chiesa di San Lorenzo in nearby Lodano dates back to 1281 and was completely rebuilt in the 18th century and completed in 1876. Its own parish was formed from the mother church at Maggia in 1691.^[Signorelli]
• Maggia: Chiesa di San Maurizio and the chapel Chiesa della Madonna delle Grazie. The Chiesa di San Maurizio was built in 1636 on a site that dates back to 1000, the first parish and mother church of the lower Maggia valley. The Chiesa della Madonna delle Grazie was built on the site of an earlier chapel in 1510.
• Gordevio: Chiesa dei Santi Giacomo e Filippo (Ecclesia Sancti Jacobi et Philippi), dates back as far as 1296, but at the time was only dedicated to St. James. It was separated from the mother church at Muralto in 1333, with the same name. The first record of the modern name was in 1578.
• Avegno: Chiesa dei Santi Luca e Abbondio (Eccelsia di Sancti Abondi et Luca), founded in 1250 and expanded at the end of the 16th Century.
• Orselina/Locarno: Santuario della Madonna del Sasso (Sanctuarii Beata Maria Virginis de Saxo), a Capuchin monastery at Orselina, above Locarno overlooking Lago di Maggiore, that was a favorite wedding destination. It dates back to 1480.
• Muralto/Locarno: Collegiata di San Vittore il Moro (Ecclesia Collegiate Sancti Victoris) in Muralto (Locarno) likely was the office of Father Giovanni Roggero, Commissarius Apostolicus. The site dates back to the 5th century and the present structure was built in the 11th and 12th centuriies with later rennovations completed in 1745.
• Valle Onsernone: Chiesa di San Remigio di Reims.

Historical Background

The Cerini family has its earliest known roots in the town of Giumaglio in the Italian-Swiss canton of Ticino, Switzerland, the only canton of Switzerland that lies south of the Swiss Alps, and the only canton in which Italian is the official language.

Old Swiss Confederacy

Following the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan (1395-1402), the Old Swiss Confederacy began conquests south of the Alps and into Ticino in 1403. There they wrestled for control over Ticino with the Duchy of Milan throughout the 15th Century.

In northern Italy, Louis XII of France sought to fulfill his father's claim to the Duchy of Milan, invaded Milan in 1498, and ousted the House of Sforza in the Second Italian War (1499-1504). Meanwhile, in northeastern Switzerland, the Swiss defeated the Holy Roman Empire in the Swabian War (1499) and gained de facto independence for the Swiss Confederacy within the Holy Roman Empire.

Wars in northern Italy continued (1508-1516) with frequently changing alliances among the powers of France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, and Venice. Pope Julius II hired an army of Swiss mercenaries in 1512 to fight the French in Milan, and with them the Swiss brought their Milanese ally Massimiliano Sforza. The Swiss wrested the remainder of modern-day Ticino from the French, annexed it, and installed Massimiliano as the Duke of Milan. The Swiss continued southward into northern Italy against the French but were ultimately stopped in defeat at the Battle of Marignano (Melegnano) in 1515. Milan fell to the French again but the Swiss Confederacy retained Ticino.

Following the Protestant Reformation (1517), the Holy Roman Empire split between Catholics and Protestants. Resulting wars, such as the Schmalkaldic War (1546-1547) and the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), devastated Europe while Switzerland officially maintained neutrality. At the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) formerly established the Swiss Confederacy as independent from the Holy Roman Empire.

Early Church Confirmations (1677-1776)

Parishioners flocked to mass confirmations held by the Bishop of Como on several occasions during the 17th and 18th Centuries:

• 1677: May 22, Maggia; May 31, Someo
• 1683: June 19, Maggia; June 29, Someo
• 1719: Bishop Giuseppe Olgiato, June 12, Maggia; June 16, Cevio; June 18, Sornico
• 1761: June 6, Prato; June 16 & 17, Someo
• 1769: July 29, Someo; July 30, Cevio
• 1776: July 30, Gordevio; August 1, Cevio

Napoleonic Era (1798-1815)

The French Republic (1792-1804), which had been at war with the monarchies of Europe for five years (1792-1797), took advantage of Swiss revolutionary activity in Switzerland and invaded in 1798. It annexed Geneva and establish the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803) as a client state. Dating back to the Old Swiss Confederacy, Valle Maggia (the river valley) was administered as the landvogtei (bailiwick) of Valmaggia. With the establishment of the Helvetic Republic, the Canton of Lugano was formed to comprise the landvogteien of Lugano, Medrisio, Locarno, and Valmaggia. Similarly, the Canton of Bellinzona to the east was also established and both cantons of Lugano and Bellinzona would later merge to form the modern-day Canton of Ticino after the Helvetic Republic was abolished and the New Swiss Confederation established.

Swiss troops fought for the French, but in 1799 Swiss nationals failed to support the French in repelling an invasion of Switzerland by Austrian and Russian forces. French forces ultimately drove the invaders from Switzerland, but France subsequently withdrew from Switzerland in 1802 under the provisions of the Treaty of Amiens. The following year, Napoleon, as First Consul of the French Consulate (1799-1804), went on negotiate the Act of Mediation in 1803, which abolished the Helvetic Republic, restored the Swiss Confederacy, and provided Napoleon a buffer state between France and Austria. Mediation in Switzerland was short-lived and began to erode in 1806.

In 1808, Emperor Napoleon ordered a census that named every male, regardless of age. That census was incorporated into "Pro Valle Maggia" (1970) in a chapter on "Le famiglie valmaggesi nel 1808"

Imperial French troops occupied Ticino between 1810 and 1813.

Following Napoleon's defeat and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the independent Swiss Confederacy was fully restored in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna, during which the "Big Four" (Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia) redrew Europe.

New Swiss Confederation

After the Swiss confederacy was restored, the Radical Party began to grow in the Protestant cantons and gained a majority in the Swiss Diet (Tagsatzung). The Radical Party proposed a new constitution that would centralize power while the Catholic cantons (but not including Ticino) responded by forming the Sonderbund ("Separate Alliance) in 1843 to protect their interests. Such alliances were forbiddben by the Federal Treaty of 1815 and in October 1847 the Radical majority moved to dissolve the Sonderbund and raised an army against it. The Sonderbund yielded after a month-long civil war of less than 100 casualties in November 1847. The following year a new constitution established a federal government. The federal government went on to replace numerous local currencies (including the Ticino franc) with a national Swiss franc in 1850. It also went on to unilaterally abolish the jurisdiction of the dioceses of Milan and Como, in Italy, over the Catholic parishes of Ticino in 1859.

Ticinese Emigration

The gold rushes of California (1849) and Australia (1851) prompted emigration overseas. Meanwhile, to the south, and after an 1853 Lombard rebellion in Milan, Josef Radetzky, Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia (1848-1857) under the Austro-Hungary Empire, ordered some 6,500 Ticinese expelled from Lombardy and sealed the border between Ticino and Lombardy for two years. This influx overburdened the canton of Ticino, halted trade, and plunged the region into oppressive poverty, ultimately contributing to turbulence that prompted federal authorities to step in and restore order in 1870, 1876, 1889, and 1890-1891.

With the Italian-Swiss border sealed, Ticino emigrants followed the Ticino river valley up into the Alps, over St. Gotthard's Pass, to Lucerne, Basel, and then west to the northern French coast where they took sail to the New World, commonly using the ports of Le Havre and Cherbourg. After arriving in New York, California-bound emigrants sailed on to Panama where they crossed the isthmus by stage coach and then caught another sailing ship up the Pacific coast to California. Later, they took the Intercontinental Railroad from New York to San Francisco. All told, 20,000 Italian-Swiss residents emigrated to California between 1850 and 1930. Many of them settled in Los Angeles, San Francisco, western Marin County, and Sonoma County.

After Radetzky's death in 1858, the northwestern Italian region of Piemonte (Piedmont), under the King of Sardinia (House of Savoy), allied with France to oust the Austrians from northern Italy and reunite Italy (1859-1861).

Research Resources

Research resources for Swiss-Italian family history provided by Marilyn L. Geary, Circle of Life Stories:

Swiss Research

• Archivio di Stato del Cantone Ticino, Bellinzona
• Società genealogica della Svizzera italiana (SGSI) (sogenesi.ch)
• FamilySearch Catalog (familysearch.org)
• SWI swissinfo.ch (swissinfo.ch)
• Signorelli, Martino. Storia dell Val Maggia. Locarno, Switzerland: Tipografia Stazione S A, 1972.

California Research

• California Room, Marin County Library, San Rafael
• Sonoma History and Genealogy Library, Santa Rosa
• Cheda, Giorgio. L' emigrazione ticinese in California. Locarno: A. Dadò, 1981. 2 Vols.

Australia Research

• Trove--National Library of Australia (trove.nla.gov.aus)
• Cheda, Giorgio. L' emigrazione ticinese in Australia. Locarno: A. Dadò, 1979. 2 Vols.
• Gentilli, J. The Settlement of Swiss Ticino immigrants in Australia, 1988

Valle Maggia Reunions & Events

Valle Maggia Reunion 2018, Santa Rosa, California

Sponsors of the Facebook group "Valle Maggia Families" held a reunion for all Valle Maggia descendants on July 21 & 22, 2018, at Finley Park in Santa Rosa, California. The reunion was attended by more than 120 descedants of the valley. Swissinfo.ch wrote two articles on the event: "How America’s genealogy obsession touches Switzerland" and "From the Swiss valley Maggia to the valleys of California."

"Connecting the Italian-Swiss Families of the Central Coast," Santa Maria, California

Sandy Peterson of the Santa Maria History Center profiled Midge Buchert of the Santa Maria Family History Center in a video interview titled "Connecting the Italian-Swiss Families of the Central Coast." The interview details Midge's years of genealogical work on microfilmed parish records from Valle Maggia and throughout canton Ticino. Sandy and Midge presented the video at the Santa Maria Public Library's "Heart of the Valley" series on February 15, 2020, and posted the video to YouTube at: https://youtu.be/i_C26rXLnxE.

Valle Maggia Reunion 2020 (Cancelled)

A second Valle Maggia Reunion was scheduled for June 20 & 21, 2020, in Aurigeno, Valle Maggia, however the COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation in March.

Valle Maggia Reunion 2023

The California Central Coast Swiss-Italian Gathering is scheduled for September 22-24 in Orcutt, Los Alamos, and Cayucos, California.