I looked through my family records today. The documents that prove somewhere in the past there were people whose remnants of DNA I carry. My past, my family. I trace my finger up the family tree: Albert, my father, Francesco, my grandfather, Pietro, my great-grandfather. But connected to Pietro are two lines, one solid and one dotted. The solid to a shadowy woman whom I do not know, that I never met, and who, in the recounting of family tales, I heard spoken of only once in hushed tones. There is a solid line between her and Pietro: she is Vittoria Amandala, my great-grandfather’s first, and only, wife.

Vittoria Amandala, born in 1874 in the town of Antilia, was the daughter of Serafina Amandala and a father unknown. To be sure, not an auspicious beginning because an unwed mother—which Serafina doubtless was—would have been considered a whore. Only a whore would get pregnant and have a child without the protection and companionship of a husband. Vittoria Amandala, daughter of a whore.

But in 1899, Vittoria married a man named Pietro Maione. A common labourer, Pietro would not be able to give her a comfortable life, but they could be together and raise a family. This, amidst the rising turmoil in Italy at the end of the 19th century, would be the prospect ahead of them for the years to come.

And joy would have arisen in Vittoria as she discovered in January of 1900 that she was pregnant. She would later give birth on September 5th of that year to a healthy and happy daughter, Maria Rosina Maione. But by then, her joy would have evaporated. For in May of 1900, Pietro had left.

There are no stories about the leaving, no tales of how or why he left; all anyone knows is that one day, he did leave. Walking cross-country, Pietro escaped the poverty and uncertainty of Italy and boarded a ship in Naples destined for the United States of America. And, once again, Vittoria, daughter of the whore, was alone, but this time with a baby on the way.

Maria Rosina Maione would be born, live, and die. And, perhaps on her wedding certificate may have been written the words “father unknown.” Maria Rosina Maione, daughter of a woman abandoned, of a mother as alone as her grandmother.

My family tree includes a small branch, Vittoria Amandala and Maria Rosina Maione. They are connected by a solid line to my great-grandfather. The irony of all of this is that the woman whose name does show up in the great-grandmother slot next to Pietro in my family tree is there due to a dotted line, for the two were never married. While it is possible that Vittoria was able to get her marriage to Pietro annulled, which would have been required in order for her to have married a second time, there is no record of that in my family because she is not really a part of our tree; she has become an afterthought. Vittoria shows up only as the “first wife of” Pietro Maione. But, given the legalities of the situation, she should show up as “the one and only wife of” Pietro Maione.

We quite easily make determinations about heroes and villains in our personal stories, often based on convenience and pragmatism, on our comfort levels. We see our lives through our own lenses, embracing those whom we’d embrace and rejecting those whom we’d reject sometimes for no reason other than that they, in the mist of time, have a familial connection to us. And such is the effect of our personal stake in the matter that the farther back in time we go, the more willing we are to embrace the villains as essential parts of our stories.

I cannot truly judge my great-grandfather, for I did not know him nor did I know his story. But, if I were to label him based on what I do know he did, at least in the beginning, I would with ambivalent hand place “villain” on his picture.

But, I have seen redemption. I have seen redemption in my life and in the lives of those around me. I have seen redemption in the lives of my family members. I have seen many individuals  overcome what they should have been to become something better. And I can, perhaps presumptuously, over the span of the years, hold out a hand of grace to Pietro for this thing that he did.

We are bastards, all of us. For the woman who is my great-grandmother was not married to my great-grandfather and, therefore, were we royalty, we would have no claim to the throne. That claim would fall to the descendants of an unknown (to me) woman named Maria Rosina Maione. The daughter of a woman who through no choice of her own carried on the label which her mother bore. And I wonder what became of her, Maria Rosina Maione, twice daughter of a whore. I do not know, but I have to believe that, having Maione blood in her veins, she could not help but rise above the path that her life was set on to become something more.

Happy Anniversary, Baby
Got you on my mind.

Happy Anniversary, Little River Band

Beware of looking, because if you look, you just might find something you do not like.

I was talking with a friend the other day. He said that he made a trip to Germany to see the places of his ancestors. He discovered that his grandfather was a soldier in Hitler's army. And he remarked, with much emotion, "I am embarrassed to be associated with him."

It is often with mixed emotions that we discover and then learn to embrace a villain in the family. It seems that the farther back in time that you go, the less problematic such a discovery is, but still, who would want to find out that Adolph Hitler or Pol Pot or Joseph Stalin falls amidst the ranks of your family?

Mixed emotions? Well, sure, who isn't just a bit titillated to think that there is a notorious villain in the family? Sure, no one wants Hitler, but to say that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great Grandfather was Ghengis Khan? How cool would that be?

Today is the death-versary of Harry "Happy" Maione.

Harry did not come to a happy end. He did not die quietly in his sleep, a kindly old man. He did not cross over to the great beyond full of years and surrounded by his family. Well, it is possible that he was surrounded by his family at his death but not in a venue conducive to warm feelings. Instead, at 2:00am on February 19th, 1940, having been strapped into a chair, electricity was passed through Harry's body until he was declared dead. And with that, Harry had his final distinction: he was the first mobster to be executed in the state of New York by electric chair.

By all accounts, Harry Maione was a bad guy. Not just a bad guy, he was a monster. Harry was a contract killer, a man whose rose up in the ranks of the underworld to become a prominent part of an organization called Murder Inc. the assassination arm of the National Crime Syndicate. His final mistake: he was ratted out by a compatriot for killing George Rudnik, an execution that involved stabbing him 63 times with an ice pick with a meat cleaver to the head, just to complete the task.

But somewhere, somehow, Harry Maione is part of my family tree. The Maione historians are not quite clear where Harry fits. We think that he is connected to the tree via one of my great great aunts, but that is not really certain. However, with the Maione surname, we can be sure that he is attached somewhere.

And that brings this story back to me. What am I to think of this character? I am not particularly moved by his story nor do I feel any lingering guilt over his connection to my branch of the family tree. But, there he sits, staring back at me. Daring me, perhaps, to figure out what his presence there means. And, perhaps, there is no meaning, just a random guy, a branch that came to a bad end. Or, maybe something else, one more story of redemption and the subversion of destiny.

I don’t know much about Gaetano Maione. Family trees are so flat and two dimensional, just lines and boxes and names of the long forgotten with a date or two. What I do know I can relay in a few sentences, but these are facts: no emotion, no experience, no fire. I know that Gaetano was born in rural Italy in about 1770. His father: a farmer, a soldier, a politician, a criminal? If the lineage is any indication, he was born in the town of Altilia in the province of Cosenza in the region of Calabria in Southern Italy, near the tip of the boot. On the modern map this town is right next to another town, a small one called Maione. It is impossible to know whether the surname was obtained from the town or whether the town got its name from our family. I expect the former is the case, but perhaps farther back in time we rode in, took over the place, and stamped our family crest onto the town hall.

Gaetano is my great-great-great-great grandfather. So that means that some of his DNA is still a part of mine. Not much, mind you, for there are 64 people who contributed DNA at that level of my ancestry, but there is a little bit of him in me.

My decision to embark on this story came from a question that I stumbled upon while musing about destiny and DNA and the influence of the past on the present. The question is not new, psychologists have been asking the question about genetics vs. environment on the construction of the personality and of a person’s life. I think the question has been batted about enough, by now, to know that it really does not have an answer. We know that our predispositions are often created by our genetics and then the manifestations are guided by our environment.

On my mother’s side I know the effect of genetics. I carry a mutated gene, MSH2 exon 15 G2575T, and it has produced significant effects in my maternal line. Effects: that is a pretty benign word to describe the havoc that is wreaked on a family by a mutation which predisposes any carrier to a 60-80% chance of colorectal cancer. That one is straight-forward and obvious in its manifestation. There is no question of the effect of genetics.

On my dad’s side, things are more complicated. Yes, just like with my mom’s family tree I can trace patterns on my dad’s side. But the effects are not easy to see, not like tumours and cancer. They are soft, soft like divorce and a tendency to drink too much.

As I grow older and my personality has solidified around the probably unchanging core that is me, I have been able to stand outside of myself and look at what, or who, I have become. Sometimes the observations I make are concerning. And I have, on more than one occasion remarked how much like my dad I see myself become. But, I am not my dad, I am someone else.

And now I look back to the age-old question: are we a product of our genetics or our environment? But I rephrase that in a way that is, perhaps, a bit more dramatic; am I destined to become who I am or can I become someone else?

And so I look back to Gaetano because I want to know him. I want to know him and his wife Littera Greco. I want to know his son Salvatore and his son Giovanni and his son Pietro and his son Francesco and his son Albert. I want to know these men because, in the end I want to know Albert’s son Dennis. And, perhaps in knowing myself I can ensure that I never become who my genetics destined me to to be and so that I can teach the sons of Dennis how to be their own men.