lo Guasto, Loguasto, Loquasto

The name "lo Guasto"

        In the Italian language, "guasto" means "broken", "marred" or "spoiled", and "lo" is the article "the". Literally, "lo Guasto" would seem to mean "the broken one" or "the one with a birthmark". This may have been an appellation given to an early ancestor who was lame or disabled in some way. "Albert the lame", in Italian, would be "Alberto lo guasto". My latest research shows that the first ancestor I have found with this name, my GGG-grandfather Libertino lo Guasto, was the child of an unknown father and an unknown mother. Both his Civil and Church death records confirm this. "lo Guasto" would be a "fantasy surname", that is, given by the priest or orphanage that first reported the foundling. The baby may have had a birthmark, twisted limb or other imperfection. "Libertino", too, is a name that might be given to an orphan, meaning "libertine", which could mean "free", or could be a reflection on the perceived morals of the parents who abandoned the baby.
         Libertino's wife, my GGG-grandmother, was Francesca Lattuca. This is confirmed by the birth records of seven known children, all of which give the parents' names as Libertino, Alberto, or Bertino lo Guasto and Francesca Lattuca, Lattuga or Lettuca. Francesca Lattuca's (in this case spelled Lattuga) death record shows that she was the widow of Bertino lo Guasto. Her age was 74 when she died in 1878, so that her birth in about 1804 matches dates derived from other records. This death record gives one more generation of ancestors, since it gives Francesca's parents' names as Pietro Lattuga and Crucifissa Papia, my GGGG-grandparents. Excited by this find, I searched for the death record of Libertino. I found both the Civil and the Church records of his death, 11 January 1846. His age at death was 50, meaning he was born about 1796, which matches the date suggested by his children's birth records.
           Now for the "clinker": the name of Libertino's wife given on both his death records is Francesca Saetta, not Francesca Lattuca! Because Libertino was an orphan, and because of the Sicilian naming convention, it would be highly unlikely that he would be given a name that was common in the small village of Serradifalco. I am quite sure that there was only one Libertino lo Guasto in Serradifalco at the end of the 18th century, and that was my GGG-grandfather, and he had at least seven children with Francesca Lattuca, one of whom was Concetta lo Guasto, my GG-grandmother. So who was Francesca Saetta? Neither Francesca Lattuca nor Libertino lo Guasto had more than one spouse, because death records would give such information, and none is given. Both the Church scribe and the Civil clerk may have put down the wrong name for Libertino's wife's surname.
          A more likely explanation has to with Sicilian "sopranomi" (supernames) or "nciuri" (insults), which is what "nicknames" were called. Virtually every Sicilian person at that time had a nickname, often unflattering. "Lattuca" means "lettuce". A man who grew or sold lettuce might be nicknamed "lattuca". Nicknames often were carried for generations and may have eventually become an "official" surname. "Saetta" means "arrow". It may have been used as a nickname as we might use "skinny-hook". Saetta is a common surname in Serradifalco, while Lattuca is not. My guess is that Francesca's father's surname was Saetta, that he was a greengrocer or lettuce farmer, and that he and his children were nicknamed "Lattuca". When Libertino died, the clerks who made out the death records knew the true family name of Francesca (Saetta), and entered it on the records. That's my theory. I'll continue to search for records of Pietro Lattuca/Saetta and Crucifissa Papia to see whether or not it holds water.

A compound name like "lo Guasto", probably started as just "Guasto". Then, through usage, the individual was called "lo Guasto" so often, that eventually the name became "LoGuasto", then "Loguasto". The earliest instances of the name that I found were listed alphabetically with other names starting with "G", even though the name was given as "lo Guasto".

Many of our ancestors were illiterate. When they gave their name, someone else wrote it down, and since our "great-grandfather" etc., couldn't read, he couldn't correct the spelling. This seems to be what happened with the American branch of the family, where the modern spelling is "Loquasto", with a "Q".

The earlier names in this list were found on the Mormon Church's microfilms of civil and church records of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths for the town of Serradifalco, in the Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, and I have used the spelling given in those records. Where the Ellis Island website has had information on the family, I used the spelling given there, and where the names involve more recent family members, I have used the spelling they have given me, mostly "Loquasto". I have also used the given names that I believe were on the individual's birth records: Michele, Alberto, Serafina, etc.; even though these names may have later been anglicized. The "original" lo Guasto (the earliest I could find) was definitely named Libertino, but he was variously called "Bertino" and "Alberto". He has descendants named Bert, Albert, and Robert.

It would be impossible (for me, with my limited webpage resources) to list here every descendant of Libertino and Francesca. Their sons Salvatore and Fedele were the ancestors, respectively, of the American Loquasto's and the French Lo Guasto's: and their daughter Concetta was the ancestor of the American Coniglio's. Elsewhere, I have listed the descendants of Concetta's great-granddaughter Rosa Alessi Coniglio, and also Rosa's ancestors. Besides the Cimino - Abate - Alessi - Coniglio surnames, other families that the lo Guasto daughters have married into include the Montante/Montalto line, the Vancheri's and the Insalaco's.

The list below shows primarily descendants with some form of the name "lo Guasto", and some with other surnames, introduced when lo Guasto women married. Persons with a # after their name have contacted me. Click on the # to e-mail them. For protection, I have placed the characters nospam. in front of every e-mail address. You must remove the extraneous characters in order to use the address. For a complete list of the related persons in my data base, click here and "surf" the pages at GenCircles.com. That site also gives some information on birthplaces, immigration dates, passenger ship names, and so on. Entries marked with * had more than one partner.

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Bernard's high school graduation ~ 1941	Bernard, Wendy and Onnolee DeLass Loquasto ~ 1984	At Wendy's Stetson Commencement ~ 1988 ~

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Photos from Mary Jo Loquasto
William, Louis, Albert, Paul and Bernard Loquasto (not sure of order)	Aliyah Janelle Loquasto Mary Jo Loquasto Nigel Bernard Ruise	Belinda Ann Loquasto

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Alessi Family List	Coniglio Family List
Antonio Coniglio Family	Giuseppe Coniglio Family

Home	Site Index	Origins: . Alessi . Coniglio	Heritage	Coniglio Generations in America:
			Genesis	1	2	3	4

Bernard and Onnolee's 25th Anniversary	Dale Sam and Patti McCaffery Loquasto Key Largo ~ 1998

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Alan and Sarah Loquasto ~ 1997 ~	Paul Loquasto and Pauline Bonanni LoGuasto Tiberio

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.Michele LoGuasto and Grazia Farina at their wedding in 1903	Michele's "speakeasy", the Spider's Web, at 125 S. Main Street, Pittston, PA ~ about 1920 ~

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