About

Hello, my name is John Mancini and I’m looking for my lost Italian grandparents.

“...we look to the stories of our origins to make sense of things, to remember who we are. The role of origin stories...is to enlighten the present by recalling the past. Origin stories are rarely straightforward history. Over the years, they morph into a colorful amalgam of truth and myth, nostalgia and cautionary tale, the shades of their significance brought out by the particular light of a particular moment.”

(Rachel Held Evans, Inspired)

Growing up, here is the sum total of what we knew about our paternal grandparents — and for that matter, my father’s entire side of the family.

1. His parents were immigrants from Italy in the 1920s.

2. They were named Frank and Elizabeth.

3. They died in a fire in the 1930s.

4. He worked in his uncle’s fruit stand.

Well, maybe not quite.