2024 is the “Year of Italian Roots“, a great event of attraction for the descendants of Italian emigrants around the world. The initiative, promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and foreseen as part of the PNRR Project “Root Tourism – An Integrated Strategy for the recovery of the Tourism sector in post-Covid-19 Italy”, represents the opportunities to celebrate our origins, rediscovering the stories and traditions that have shaped our communities.
A Migration Chronicle
The early 20th century witnessed a poignant exodus, where families from Piedicavallo, Montesinaro, and the Alta Valle Cervo region ventured across oceans, chasing dreams and seeking better opportunities in the United States and South America, but also France and other European Countries. The echoes of their departure resonate through time, shaping the narrative of the communities they left behind.
In the tapestry of 2024, the descendants of Piedicavallo are uniting to traverse the geographical spans that separate them from their familial heritage. This yearning for rediscovery is not just a pilgrimage to ancestral grounds but a commitment to fortify the communal bonds that transcend borders and generations.
Find Out More
About the Double Surnames
of Alta Valle Cervo
Roots Tourism and Heritage Pilgrimage in Piedicavallo
Piedicavallo proudly unveils the concept of “Roots Tourism” for 2024, inviting descendants to embark on a unique journey. This pilgrimage encourages visitors to explore the homesteads of their forebears, delve into family archives, and engage with local denizens, fostering a profound connection with the narrative of their lineage.
Roots Tourrism: [turismo delle radici] tourism based on family and cultural roots, leading travellers to visit friends and relatives.
Determined efforts are underway to safeguard and showcase the historical and cultural legacy of Piedicavallo, Montesinaro, and the Alta Valle Cervo. Museums, heritage trails, and cultural celebrations will serve as portals to the past, ensuring that the stories of those who ventured beyond borders remain eternally etched in the collective memory.
2024: Year of Italian Roots
The year 2024 promises a tapestry woven with reunions—local and global—where families separated by time and distance converge to celebrate their shared ancestry.
The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has published a series of research aimed at helping the descendants of those who left Italy to rediscover their origins, their roots.
Guide to Italian Roots. A Journey in the Footsteps of your Ancestors. Volume I
Guide to Italian Roots. A Journey in the Footsteps of your Ancestors. Volume II
First Report on Roots Tourism in Italy
Another interesting project, carried out already in 2019 by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, is “I diari raccontano” (The diaries tell stories), a platform that collects the testimonies of various Italian emigrants abroad.
The project Italians abroad, the diaries tell is this: a selection of the most significant parts of the testimonies collected in the collection cataloged with the subject “emigration” in the Diary Archive (consult the list of abstracts). At the time the site went online, June 2019, a total of 200 life stories chosen from more than a thousand, from which, on average, five pages were extrapolated from the dozens, sometimes hundreds in total. Each page has been digitized from the original document, diary or memoir or letter, transcribed, titled, introduced, placed in time, geolocalised, indexed with key words corresponding to the themes relating to the experience of Italians abroad from the nineteenth century to today . In this way each page was transformed into a story, for a total of 1,000 stories published at the time the site went online.
Here you can find some testimonies from Piedicavallo and Montesinaro, such as the letters of Mrs. Caterina Janutolo Gros, born in Piedicavallo in 1869.
If you want to tell your story to see it published on the “Italians abroad: the diaries tell stories” website, you will find all the necessary information by clicking here.
