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There have been a number of people that have had a little bit of a mystery on their family background, but they later discovered their place within the families of Altavilla Milicia. This project will tell their stories.
This is a work in progress with some vague info in the beginning before filling out some more interesting helpful details.
James Mareci
James Mareci was adopted at 5 days old in Phoenix, Arizona and was immediately taken to California where he was raised. At age 18 he began to search for his birth family. During James' long search he discovered that he is the biological son of Joseph A Mareci and his wife Gertrude's adult daughter Carol Babcock.
Gertrude worked at a hospital and was able to arrange for the baby to be sold. According to James' adoptive grandfather, he went to the hospital in the middle of the night to pick him up out of the back door. He said a large nurse with red hair handed the baby out the door to him.
Meanwhile, the mother baby's Carol was told that the baby was born with the cord wrapped around it's neck and did not live. The father Joe apparently may have known more about what happened because Joe's siblings said that Joe had said he had a son out there somewhere.
Autosomal and Y-DNA testing years later has further confirmed his close matches to both his biological mother and father's family's.
J K
J K's daughter's DNA tests uncovered very close connections to the Lo Cascio family
Bruce Specht
Bruce Specht was adopted as a toddler and he was able to locate his biological mother's family, and was still searching for his biological father's family when he took a DNA test from Ancestry.com. His results showed many matches to people that had family from Altavilla Milicia. His closest DNA match that appeared to be Sicilian was William Hennings who was approximately a 3rd cousin based on the amount of matching DNA. Research of William Henning's family pointed out that William's grandfather Alfred Devito was born in Chicago to immigrants from Altavilla Milicia. Alfred was deceased but his sister Frances was able to test to give Bruce a closer DNA sample to compare to.
Frances became Bruce's closest DNA match as roughly a 1st or 2nd cousin (518cM). After further time and research it appeared that Bruce's father would have likely been a first cousin to Alfred and Frances through their mother Maria De Vito's family. Maria De Vito has 7 siblings that married and had children. The search continued trying to research the families of each of those 7 siblings and locate any living children, but all of their children had already died so the search would have to involve testing a sample of the grandchildren of Maria's siblings:
- Catarina Scaletta
- Anna Scaletta
- Rosa Garite
- Antonina Abbinanti
- Vincenza "Virginia" Farina
- Alfio Scaletta
- Pietra Cullotta
A grandchild of one of those siblings above should match Bruce as a 2nd cousin, 1st cousin or half-sibling. First, Joyce Lee Hammer (granddaughter of Rosa Garite) was willing to test and matched Bruce as a 2nd cousin. Then, Gloria St Pierre, (granddaughter of Antonina Abbinanti was willing to test and also matched Bruce as a 2nd cousin. Then Verna Lee Arbogast, (granddaughter of Vincenza "Virginia" Farina tested and also matched Bruce as a 2nd cousin. The next one that was contacted was Lenny Scaletta, (grandson of Anna Scaletta) who was not willing to test, but one of his cousin's granddaughters, Private User, had already tested at 23andMe and we were able to compare her data to Bruce on GEDmatch. It did not look like Bruce fit closely on that branch either.
Four of seven branches had been eliminated when the search moved on to contact the grandchildren of Pietra Cullotta. First, Private and her husband hung up the phone when they were contacted about talking about the family tree with a cousin. Then a phone call to another of Pietra's grandchildren, Jacqueline Holt seemed optimistic. She wanted to help Bruce in her search and within a couple days she had ordered a DNA test from Ancestry.com and then within about a month her results came in. She matched Bruce as a half-sibling! A short while after that, Private User also tested and confirmed Bruce's two half-sisters.
Bruce's biological father was Jack Cullotta and he died on November 9, 2008 in McHenry, Illinois.
Private
L L's brother had a child... LL knew the child was out there somewhere and then one day one of their family DNA tested and was a close match to LL and family
Private
S G's father was adopted. The bio-mother's name was actually known, and then DNA testing proved connections to close family. She has since been in touch with some of her father's bio-family
Private
S R was adopted and lives in the Chicago area. His DNA test results show very close matches to the Mule family. We believe we know who his bio father was, but the half siblings have not DNA tested to confirm
J C
She was searching for her bio-father. I think she said she figured it out. I need to follow up and see if she was able to confirm
Private
L K's granddaughter DNA tested. She had some very close matches. Once she got in touch with these close matches she found they knew her great-grandmother's name from long ago and stories heard long long ago started to fit with this DNA match to explain it
Private
A W was adopted. He is still searching for his paternal side.
David Baur
D B was adopted. He DNA tested and it was determined who his biological father was
Zoë Bernal
Z B had identified her biological mother. Research on her biological mother's ancestors led to a connection to the Mucia and Faso family of Altavilla Milicia.
Robyn Stephens
R is the half-sister of Z B above
Private
R G was adopted. He tested with AncestryDNA and has a biological father match that has not been responsive yet, but while researching his family further it seems that the biological father appears to have not been raised by his own biological father. There are some theories on who R G's biological father's father is... R G also is a close match with someone else that is apparently also an adoptee of this same person or their son.