La Vinella’s Family

One hundred and twenty years later, the circle closes

Some stories cross the ocean.Stories that depart from a port, change their surname at Ellis Island, and remain suspended for more than a century, waiting to be rediscovered.

This story begins in 1903.

From the town of Turi, in southern Italy, two brothers — Giovanni and Giangiuseppe Vinella — board a ship in Naples bound for America. Like many others of their time, they are chasing the promise of a better life: economic redemption, a different future, dignity earned through hard work.

They arrive at Ellis Island, where surnames often change.Vinella becomes Vinelli. One letter altered, a root that seems broken. But only on the surface.

In the United States they work maintaining newly built roads. They also become postmen — and one cannot help but smile imagining how they managed to deliver letters without speaking a single word of English.

Yet they did.Because those who leave home learn quickly. And because necessity speaks a universal language.

In 1906, Giovanni returns to Italy to bring his wife and children to America. The family grows: nine children, a new life across the ocean.

Giangiuseppe, instead, returns permanently to Italy in 1909. The following year he marries Maria Giovanna Colapietro. He becomes the great-grandfather at the centre of this story — the father of grandmother Maria Vinella.

Memory, sometimes, is the only thread capable of holding centuries together.

During the Covid restrictions, daily phone calls to grandmother Maria become routine. Two, sometimes three times a day. Not only to keep her company, but also to preserve family stories.

And in one of those conversations, a memory surfaces:an uncle who had left for America long before she was born.

"Who knows where they are now… I know they had many children…"

A simple sentence.But enough to spark a search.

What follows is a journey through documents, shipping lists, birth records and archives. Until, in a passenger list, a familiar surname appears:

Vinelli, from Turi.

A small spelling deviation, probably introduced upon arrival at Ellis Island.

From that moment, the search moves across the Atlantic.

And then something remarkable happens.

The first name that appears is Mindy Vinelli Marchetti.

A message is sent. Contact is made. The family tree is compared.

Everything matches.

The surprise is mutual: they too had been searching for their Italian relatives.

Soon other names emerge — Bea, John, Beverly, Mary — a family rediscovering itself through screens, photographs and shared memories.

But roots, sooner or later, ask to be touched.

And so, on 7 August 2025, Mindy arrives in Turi.

The first stop is the family’s ancestral home.

Then the historic centre, the Clock Tower, the small Church of San Rocco, and the Grotto of Saint Oronzo, thanks to the kindness of cousin Alberto Lenato.

It is not simply a tour of places.It is a journey through identity.

Mindy is welcomed with the flavours of the land: faldacchea, percoche, the traditional tastes that speak of the territory her ancestors once left behind.

But the greatest gift is not a product.

It is a lunch.

A lunch with grandmother Maria.

Four generations seated around the same table. Two women who had never met before, yet share blood, memory and history.

They tell their stories — with translation, of course — but in a language that goes beyond words.

Thanks to grandmother Maria’s living memory, one hundred and twenty years of family history come together in a single narrative.

Today the Vinella’s Family celebrates not just a reunion, but a rediscovered continuity.

An ocean crossed twice:the first time out of necessity,the second out of love.

And the story may not yet be complete.

It is known that Giovanni and Giangiuseppe had another brother, Paolo (probably married to a woman named Susca), and two sisters: Angela, who married a Valentini, and Francesca, who married a D’Addabbo.

If anyone recognises these roots, the family is ready to welcome them.

Because roots are never truly lost.They simply wait to be found.

Source and credits

Article written by Miriam Valentini, narrative adaptation of a post created by Mariangela D’Addabbo.

Family testimony shared by The Vinella’s Family.