Seeking information for my CROLLA family name.

[John Crolla]

My lineage of the CROLLA family lived originally in the village of PICINISCO - Province of Frosinone - District of Fontitune - Italy.
My Great Grand-Father, Pietro Crolla (B 16/03/1853, D 1903) was a farm labourer, and my Great Grand-Mother, Gaetana (B 07/08/1852. D 1920) was also a manual labourer. Four members of the CROLLA family,
Rosa (b 19/07/1889, D 1934)
Fillipo (B 24/10/1881, D 1916)
Nicolina Marie (B 08/03/1884, D ?)
Dominico (B 1886, D 1984) were born in PICINISCO.
At some time during their lifetime, the family moved to the village of CERVARO. It was there that three other family members were born,
Maria Madeleine (B 1889, D 1927)
Marcus (B 1890, D ?)
Maria Madeleina (B 1889, D 1927)
Celeste (B ?, D 1959) was born at the side of the road on their way to Naples during their emigration to Aberdeen in Scotland.
The family moved to Scotland [in 1894 or thereabouts] travelling in two groups. Pietro and Maria Madeleine left first, Gaetana and the other family members followed soon after.
They travelled by train to Calais-France, boat to London-England, then boat to Aberdeen-Scotland.
Their son Pasquale, was the ninth member of this CROLLA family and he was born (B 1901, D 1968) in Aberdeen, Scotland.

I have the names of many of the family members for most of the above to the most current dates, but due to space restrictions I have not elaborated.
Does anyone recognise any familiar names and dates ??

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
John Crolla.

[Michel VACCA]

Hello John,

I read your message with attention. You have a lot of luck because I almost ended the genealogy of your family of Picinisco. I have all the ancestors of Pietro CROLLA and Gaetana until +/-on 1600.

Did you know that Pietro and Gaetana were cousins?
Communicate me your e-mail address so that I can send you the information.

Best wishes,

Michel VACCA
www.picinisco.net
e-mail : michel@vacca.be

[eilthireach]

I am not related to the Crollas, but my uncle married (as her third husband) someone who had married Pasquale Crolla (Pasquale was her second husband - her first husband had died, five months after they married, in the sinking of HMS Hood 24 May 1941). I did not have Pietro and Gaetana's date and place of birth. I see you have given dates for their births. Can I say definitely that they were born in Picinisco?

Pasquale Crolla b. 8 Sep 1899 d. 17 Sep 1968 Aberdeen, son of Pietro Crolla and Gaetana Crolla. I don't have the actual place of birth for Pasquale, but if you go to http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk, the official site for registrations in Scotland (a pay-per-view site), you will be able to view the actual entry in the register of births. You will, of course, also get his death and his two marriages (and the entries for the death of both Pietro and Gaetana Crolla).

From the marriage I am talking about (which took place 16 Sep 1946 in Aberdeen) there was a son, Carlo Philip Crolla b. 11 Jan 1949, Aberdeen, who has also been twice married.

Pasquale's marriage in 1946 was actually his second marriage. He first married 15 Oct 1936 in Aberdeen.

Witnesses at his wedding in 1936 were Louis Morocco (c/o Pacitti, 40 Jasmine Terrace, Aberdeen) and Violet McKay, and at his wedding in 1946 were A. Morocco [could this have been, I wonder, Alberto Morrocco, the famous Scottish artist and teacher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Morrocco who was born in Aberdeen and lived there until 1938??] and M.B. Morrison. At the time of his first marriage Pasquale was a master confectioner and at the time of his death he owned a restaurant.

I don't know if there were any children from his first marriage. As he wasn't directly related to me, I did not try to find any issue.
I haven't given details of all the individuals associated with the Crollas, but I can supply any information privately that you might need.

Note, with reference to the online service ScotlandsPeople, that access to the (images of the) original entries in the birth, marriage and death registers is restricted, with cutoff dates of 100 years for births, 75 years for marriages and 50 years for deaths. However, online access to -the indexes- of births marriages and deaths up to 2006 (not the actual entries) has now been made available and you can search the indexes but you would have to apply to General Register Office at New Register House in Edinburgh (or engage a researcher to visit) if you wanted to have a copy of the relevant entry). Note also, that you can search
the censuses from 1841 to 1901 online at this site and also wills and testaments up to 1901.

As a general note, another good place for further research for any of the families that people who come to this forum are researching is the National Archives of Scotland (http://www.nas.gov.uk). There they will find references to legal cases concerning many individuals of Italian ancestry who settled in Scotland and were involved with with the
courts in one way or other (from something as simple as divorce proceedings, or commercial business dealings, or wills, to (as I found in one or two cases) criminal proceedings*) . Click on the "details" link to the left of any entry and a more detailed description will be given. If you wish to have a copy of the actual case papers, you can request an estimate of the cost of copying, but, beware, their charges are quite high, and you may find it cheaper to engage a researcher who will visit the Archives and copy the relevant details for you. The search page is not easy to find. You have to work your way through several links from the main page ("Catalogues and Indexes - "Welcome to the NAS public catalogue" - Click on the Search link at the top of that page) to get to it. Be advised that the search facility is appallingly slow and will often time out. (As a Scot and as a British taxpayer I am appalled that a government agency - a publicly funded institution - should offer such a poor quality of service. Yes, they admit that the service is inadequate, but it has been like this for months and months). Best to enter only as wide a search term as possible (e.g., just the surname, nothing else) and when the results come up, work your way through all of the entries (pages), as they are not displayed in chronological or even alphabetical order. So, Crolla, for instance, produces several pages of results, and some of the other names mentioned on this forum (which are familiar to me as a
native of Edinburgh but now retired to Arizona) appear in the database. I remember Crolla as in Valvona and Crolla, Luca's in Musselburgh
(http://www.skinnymag.co.uk/content/view/1552/133/ ) with its famous icecream, the DiMarco (or was it DeMarco) cafe at the top of Marchmont Road, the chipshops (can't remember the families involved) in Warrender Park Road, and at Tollcross, the Capaldi family who had a cafe in Loanhead just to the south of Edinburgh, where we had a Pacitti
family as neighbours at one stage, and we later knew some physicists and astronomers of Italian descent (but not necessarily from the Picinisco area), and of course, on a wider front (we didn't know them personally but they were familiar names and faces) other well known Scots who were clearly of Italian descent - Jane Franchi, Richard Demarco, Dario Franchitti, and many more ...



*When I entered the surname Capaldi - and there are many entries, but one that I found interesting was a reference to a Giuseppe (wrongly recorded as Guiseppe) Capaldi who was tried at Glasgow in 1914 for attempted murder (but was acquitted). However, most of the entries I found, whatever the surname, were, divorces or cases related to businesses and commercial enterprises.

... and for Pacitti (lots of references, but again, this is only one out of many otherwise unexceptional cases I found):


RefNo AD15/13/82
Repository National Archives of Scotland
Title: Precognition against Antonio Pacitti for the crime of shooting with intent to murder at 256 Grahams Road, Falkirk
Date: 1913
Accused Antonio Pacitti, Age: 37, restaurant keeper, Address: Main Street, Camelon, Falkirk, Origin: Native of Cerasuolo, Italy

(Precognition is a term used in Scots law. It is "a preliminary statement of the evidence which a witness may be expected to give that is taken down in writing. It is not signed and cannot usually be produced in court" (George Way: Everyday Scots Law. Glasgow, 2000))

JC26/1913/87
Trial papers relating to Antonio Pacitti for the crime of shooting with intent to murder at 256 Grahams Road, Falkirk. Tried at High Court, Glasgow
Date: 9 May 1913

RHP140127
Architectural drawing of cobbler's shop at 256 Grahams Road
Date: 27 Feb 1913

... and he perhaps (I don't actually know - he was acquitted - verdict: insanity at the time of the crime) went on to live a perfectly uneventful life! If anyone were researching him and found only such otherwise banal information as birth, marriage, and death dates, and had an idea of his occupation ("restaurant keeper"), they would probably be happy, but
would not have a full picture of his life, if they did not look for information other than mere life dates! I myself found a reference there only recently to one of my ancestors who was involved in criminal proceedings in 1835 - not as the criminal, but as the victim (of horsetheft, actually!). I had not thought to look in legal documents for any ancestor, other than for such mundane things as references to divorce or business dealings, and was
pleasantly(!) surprised to find this case which gave me some significant dates.

... and another one of interest:

SC70/8/755/9
Will of 301440 Private Joseph Pacitti, 89th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, Cause of death: Died, No 24 General Hospital, France, Theatre: France and Flanders, 13 Apr 1918 (Will dated 8 Oct 1915)
who is mentioned on the Commonwealth War Graves site (http://www.cwgc.org), another useful site if you are investigating those of Italian descent who fought with the British or Commonwealth forces in the two world wars. Joseph died, aged 20, and is buried (or is commemorated on the memorial) in Etaples Military Cemetery. Note also the site includes civilian casualties of war, such as Anna Crolla who died in Glasgow aged 54 on 7 April 1941 (wife of Carmine Crolla). She must have died in one of the air raids that Glasgow suffered during the Second World War.

It's a bit of a somewhat rambling reply, but I hope you will find something of interest there!


Angus Macdonald