Tracing the Footsteps of Our Ancestors — Part 1

Yours truly standing in the town of Chiavari, the ancestral home of Downieville's Costa clanMany newcomers to Sierra County have probably heard something to the effect of “be careful who you talk about when talking to someone, because they’re probably related” or “a murder cannot be solved in the county because all the DNA is the same.” More specifically, in Downieville, it is said that almost everyone in the town is related to a Costa, either by blood or through marriage (I belong to the latter category). It should be noted that Sierra County was the place to which numerous families immigrated from Italy and Switzerland in the latter half of the 1800s and the early 1900s, mostly from the Liguria and Piedmont regions of Italy and the Canton of Ticino in Switzerland. To this day, numerous descendants of these early settlers still live in Sierra County.

In September, I took a week off work and traveled from my home in Rome to the Liguria and Piedmont regions of Italy to retrace the steps of the North Yuba region’s Italian immigrants and my own ancestors. I spent a few days in Genoa, made a day trip to Chiavari, then took the train further north to Domodossola and the Bognanco Valley, passing through many towns, including Rigoroso and Piedimulera, on the way. In this series, I will go into depth about the histories of many of the early Italian settlers of the North Yuba region, the places they came from, the traditions and work methods they brought to California, and my interactions with the distant relatives of these families that I met during my trip (some of whom are descendants of former Sierra County residents that eventually returned to their homes in Italy).

While pouring through the archives of Liguria, I was amazed by how many surnames matched those of early Sierra County families: Sorracco, Rosasco, Grondona, Lagomarsino, Canessa, Garibaldi, Schiaffino, Quirollo, and many more - I felt like I was reading early Sierra County census records!

Perhaps the two earliest Italian families to settle in western Sierra County whose descendants still remain in the area are the Costa and Lavezzola families that originated from the region of Liguria. I started out my trip in Genoa, the capital of the region. A few days after arriving, I took a short train ride to the seaside town of Chiavari, to trace the footsteps of the Costa family, who will be the focus of the first few parts of this series.

The patriarch and matriarch of the Costa clan of Downieville were Antonio “Antone” Costa (1827-1887) and his wife Anna Bacigalupi (1824-1916). It is believed Antone Costa came from Chiavari (as noted on his death notice in the Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d’Italia), though it is possible that he came from a smaller village further inland from Chiavari (many Italian immigrants often had the nearest “large” town to their village listed on their immigration records - some records also list Antone’s hometown as Genoa). Antone Costa and his wife Anna had two sons born in Italy: Michele “Nick” Costa (1849-1936) and Giovanni “John” Costa (1856-1937). In John Costa’s biography found in Volume 3 of History of the Sacramento Valley, California by Jesse Walton Wooldridge, published in 1931, it is stated that John and his parents were all natives of Genoa.

Adding to this, some records concerning Antone Costa state that he was a native of Sardinia. However, this should not be confused with the large Italian island of Sardinia. Before the unification of Italy in 1861, several regions, including Liguria and Piedmont, were part of the Kingdom of Sardinia which existed from 1720 to 1861. Therefore, many of Sierra County’s immigrants from Northern Italy that either immigrated or were born before the unification of Italy claimed to be from Sardinia.

It is believed Antone Costa came to California in 1857. Soon after, he sent back to Italy for his wife and two sons. Of interest, the obituary of Antone’s wife Anna states that she “came to California on August 7, 1861, coming via the Isthmus of Panama. From San Francisco she journeyed to Marysville by steamer and thence to Downieville by stage… [her husband] came to California in 1856.” However, almost all other records I have found regarding Antone Costa state he came to California in 1857, not in 1856. Interestingly enough, the 1860 census of Downieville shows Antone, Anna, and their two sons already living in Downieville, so I am under the opinion that Anna’s obituary listed a few incorrect dates about the immigration years of her and her husband.

The history of the Costa family will be continued in Part 2 of this series, coming next week!