Our family history, as best is recalled...can be traced back to my great-grandparents, Domenico & Concetta Vezza, and Antonio & Filomena Coppola.
This journey will begin in the Chiaia section of Naples, Italy and will make its way to the United States. It will also include many family photos dating from the late 19th century to the present.
Lets climb the Vezza Family Tree and see where it takes us. This first branch belongs to my great-grandparents, Antonio & Filomena (Romagliono) Coppola. They will eventually have 4 branches, Bianca, Gennaro, Saverio and my grandmother, Anna.
Bianca The first branch is that of my great-aunt Bianca, who becomes Mrs. Mariscano and will have a child, Barolo.
A second branch belongs to Gennaro Coppola who has 3 small branches named Antonio, Maria and Renato. Some family contact with relatives in the United States continued until the mid-1930's.
The 3rd branch of Antonio & Filomena Coppola is Saverio who has 13 branches to account for. Saverio eventually moved to or near Rome and we have no further information regarding his side of the family.
Finally we see the youngest Coppola branch, Anna (1877-1943) who will become my grandmother. It is unfortunate that, except for a few photos of her family, we do not know more about the growth of the Coppola branches. If we climb this other branch we can find my other great-grandfather, Domenico Vezza. He marries Concetta Fedele and they will have 5 branches to care for, Vincenzo, Luigi, Anna, Umberto and Emilia.
Over here, this is the branch of my great uncle Vincenzo. Though it is not a long branch, it does stretch out to northern Italy in the late 1800's. He becomes a master chef for some of the finest hotels throughout northern Italy. He is so engrossed in his work that he never takes the time to marry and sadly at about age 45 his branch succumbs to illness.
We notice the branch for Anna Vezza is also a very short one, stretching for only 26 years and it too, through illness dies. There are no existing photographs of Anna, and it is not know if she ever married.
Hey, here is Luigi's branch, it seems to be closely intertwined with his brother Umberto's branch. The two will emigrate to the United States in 1906 and settle in at 166 Mulberry Street in the Little Italy section of NYC. Luigi was married and had several children who remained in Italy while he searched for gainful employment in America.
Luigi remained close to his brother and family for awhile and spent many an evening and weekend in Union City. Luigi would eventually find his independence and settle in Brooklyn. As best as can be recalled my great-uncle Luigi's branch lived about 70 years until the early 1930's.