The events described in this blog occurred earlier this year during the months of April, May and June.
Jodie’s 4th great grandmother, Maria Margarita Martinelli, is from a small town named Pagliaro. Maria Margarita Martinelli married Zacharia Ceroni from Oltre il Colle. We didn’t have any additional information about Maria Margarita Martinelli, so on a whim one day, we decided that we would drive to Pagliaro (a small village about 13 km down the hill from Oltre il Colle) only with the intent to document the cemetery there for Billion Graves. We had no contacts in this community so we thought that we would just go there and look around and see what we could find. We were looking for the last name of Martinelli in the cemetery.
On the drive to Pagliaro, I asked Jodie if she wanted to find someone to let us into the archive. She said, yes, but we doubted that we would have much luck with that. We arrived in Pagliaro in mid-afternoon. The small village was absolutely quiet; there wasn’t anyone out and about on the streets.
The Church in Pagliaro, Italy
The small cemetery in Pagliaro sits directly behind the church. We found a parking spot across the street from the church, parked the car, and then walked over towards the cemetery. From the outside the church is actually pretty plain. The entire village of Pagliaro sits on the side of a hill that looks over they valley below. Before going to the cemetery, we decided to walk up to the front doors of the church to admire the view.
Ancient olive tree in front of the church in Pagliaro
Just as we arrived back at the street, returning from the front of the church, a man came walking past with a small backback and two walking sticks. As we said buongiorno to him, he took a couple of more steps past us, then suddenly turned around, smiled and asked if we would like to see inside the church. We responded that we would like that. He introduced himself, and we introduced ourselves. He then proceeds up the walkway towards the church, sets down his backback, opens it up and pulls out a set of keys to the church. He unlocks the doors and invites us inside the church.
Although the outside of the church is nondescript, the inside is filled with 15th-century frescos depicting the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Wow, what a treasure. We looked around for a bit and then decided to leave as we were delaying our new friend away from his walk.
Inside the church in Pagliaro
Frescos in the church
Frescos in the church
As we exited the church, we told him that Jodie had a relative from Pagliaro that we wanted to find more information about, specifically a grandmother Maria Margarita Martinelli. He recognized the Martinelli surname, in fact, a former parish priest had been a Martinelli. We explained that we wanted to find the birth record for Maria and asked if he knew who we could contact about the archive. He simply said, Me. Me?? He then walked over to the bulletin board across from the front door of the church and pointed to a sign with his name on it, indicating that he was the Don, the local priest, his phone number, and indicated that he could be contacted on WhatsApp. What? You have got to be kidding. The town is completely empty, and the only man who happens to walk by just as we arrive at the church was the local Priest and the keeper of the archive!
The Don said that he was done for the day and was going on a hike. He invited us to contact him another day. Absolutely. We thanked him again, and he went on his way. We then proceeded onto the cemetery and took photos of the headstones in the local cemetery. What an absolute miracle. We wander into this town just to look around and the only man we see is exactly the contact that we need to get us into the archive. Not only that, he was warm and friendly and went out of his way to make us feel welcome in his church and community. What a miracle.
As we were driving home, we realized that we had had a second miracle that day. This one more subtle, but a miracle nonetheless. Our entire greeting and conversation with the Don was done without the use of Google Translate or any other kind of interpretation. The Don only spoke Italian and didn't speak any English. We were able to speak just enough Italian and understand his Italian well enough for our entire interaction to be in Italian. Of course we also recognize that the Don was patient and understanding with us, but what a confidence boost for us. We usually feel somewhat handicapped by our lack of understanding and speaking Italian, but on this day, it was enough!
The timing of this miracle, the gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues, was critical for us. Our friends and fellow Family Search Records Preservation Specialists, Ken and Pam King, were completing their mission in May. We have visited several of Jodie's ancestral cities with the King's who have an impressive command of the Italian language. Until our meeting with the Don in Pagliaro, we have been relying upon them to help us communicate in the archives. This experience was a witness to us that we could indeed carry on without their assistance. A little scary for us, but we can do it!
Our next stop was at the Cemetery in Pagliaro to photograph headstones for Billion Graves. We then went on to photograph two other nearby cemeteries in Frerola and Dossena.
The cemetery in Pagliro
Fast forward a couple of weeks. Jodie had been communicating with the Don on WhatsApp. (The beauty of using WhatsApp is that we can translate from English to Italian and Italian to English to enhance our communications). The Don recognized both the Martinelli and Gritti surnames and agreed to take a look at the records for her. After a few days, he sent a message back with the dates of and a small photo of the portion of the pages containing the birth record for Maria Margarita Martinelli (born in 1802) and the marriage record for her parents Bartholomeus Martinelli and Maria Chatarina Gritti (married in 1797). Wonderful. Now we knew we were looking in the right place. We wanted to go back to get a better photo (the whole page and not just a part of the page) and to see if we could find additional family connections now that we knew we had the right church in the right village.
Via WhatsApp, Jodie arranged to meet the Don once again at the church in Pagliaro. At the agreed upon time, we met the Don he showed us into the archive. Once again, he was very welcoming and cordial towards us. He allowed us to look through birth, marriage and death records for 200 years, the 1700’s and 1800’s. Just what we were looking for!
Cover of one of the books in the archive
We found the records that he had sent to us and took our own photos. Then we started looking for a few family members. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much luck finding any Gritti’s in the records as we quickly turned a few pages.
It is difficult to read and understand Italian records from the archive records, especially when you are turning pages quickly. Each priest has his own writing style and documents the events in a slightly different way. The handwriting is usually in cursive writing and in the early 1800’s the records are transitioning from Latin to Italian. In some cases, the records contain a mix of both languages so it can be a bit confusing.
The Don allowed us to take a few photos, only of things connected directly to the family that we were searching for. After a about a half an hour, we could tell that the Don started acting a bit anxious, and it seemed like we had been there long enough. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really find any records with the name Gritti that we had been looking for.
The Don holding a plaque listing the parish priests from 1542 to present
At this point, the Don said that perhaps that the Gritti’s that we were looking for were from another small town nearby named Bracca. The Don mentions that he lives in Bracca and was going back there as he is the priest for that church as well. He invited us to follow him back to Bracca so we could look at those records. We were happy to do so and off we went.
Bracca is about 2.2 km from Pagliaro, both of which sit high up on the west side of a steep mountain valley. There are a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns to get from one town to the other, but we did our best to keep up with the Don as he quickly navigated the turns from Pagliaro to Bracca.
The road from Pagliaro to Bracca
Once in Bracca, he invited us into his home next to the church where he keeps the archive. We looked over the records there, but unfortunately, we didn’t really find anything we were looking for in Bracca. After a few minutes searching we were convinced that we really need to be looking in Pagliaro and not Bracca. We thanked the Don for his time and his assistance and then went on our way.
We are simply amazed at the kindness and trust that we have been shown in Pagliaro and Bracca. The Don opened the archives to us, allowed us to look through the records on our own, and even left the room several time leaving us alone in the archive with the records. What a miracle to go so quickly from hello on the street to trusting us with these precious archive records. Not wanting to violate his trust, we limited our photos to just those that we thought had a connection to the family.
While in Bracca, we stopped at the cemetery which sits down the hill from the church and photographed the headstones for Billion Graves.
As we drove home from Bracca, we realized that meeting the Don on our first visit to Pagliaro was even a bigger miracle than we thought. He lives in Bracca and is headquartered at the church there. He just happened to be on a hike, at the end of his day, several kilometers from his home, just at the time that we stopped by to visit the church and the cemetery. Miraculous. Divine timing. Simply amazing. This is a witness to us that God is in the details and is directing his work.
The church in Bracca, Italy
The view of the valley from Bracca
Upon returning home, Jodie started to study the photos of a few pages that we had taken. As she learned the writing styles and penmanship patterns of the various priests, she decided that we may have missed what we were looking for on our previous visit. So, after contacting the Don again on WhatsApp, we made another trip back to Pagliaro. This time we had much better luck reading the records. When it was all said and done, we found Maria Chatarina’s parents, Alexander Gritti and his wife Dominica, as well as 2 of Maria’s siblings (Joanna Maria and Antonius). Unfortunately, we didn’t find much more on the Gritti line. However, we did find 8 siblings for Maria Magarita Martinelli: Petrus Alexander, Marcus Christinus Maria, Maria Pasqua, Anna Maria, Marcus Christinus, Fransciscus Maria Felix, Angelus Maria, and Angelus Maria.
Before leaving Pagliaro, we showed the Don how a Digital Reading Room works and offered our services to photograph his archives and create a digital record for him, similar to our efforts in Oltre il Colle. We left a letter (in Italian) with him explaining our offer to photograph and create a Digital Reading Room. He indicated that he would think it over and get back with us. Well, so far we haven’t heard anything back from the Don.
The miracle of meeting the Don and associated miracles have allowed us to tie 12 more of our Heavenly Father's precious children to our family records. Our miracle meeting with the Don in Pagliaro is a testimony to us that Heavenly Father is really guiding this work and is going before us to open the way.
