So, the next day I decided to take a side trip to Popoli (where a good friend's father was born).  On the map is didn't look too far.  Damn!  I forgot about the mountains again.  The GPS was very accurate, but there were times I had my doubts.  Here I was traveling along a two way country road and then the GPS would tell me to make a turn and soon I would find myself in either on a rocky road or a pasture.  Can this be right?  Will I forever be lost?  Then before you know it I'm back on the highway.  Then I hit another small town with the neighbors looking very suspicious at me.  Eventually, I reach the town of Popoli and I start walking around with my video camera for about a half an hour.  My friend Tom better appreciate the effort.  Well, knowing Tom, I know he will.  Whoopee!  Time to drive back through cow shit.

Now, it's Friday, the day I was told to come back to the Town Hall.  If this doesn't bare fruit I may never know of my Grandfather's birth and his secret will remain just that, a secret.  I'll admit I was a little nervous heading in.  My new Italian BFF Laredo accompanied me so he could translated the news, good or bad to me.  As we entered the lobby there was a line of people waiting to go in a see the official I spoke to on Wednesday.  Laredo told me to follow me upstairs where he introduced me to Elia Finamore (a top official in the town).  He spoke to her in Italian, with me standing there with a dumb-ass expression on my face and hoping he's not telling her that he's taking me around so people can look at the stupid American.  Fortunately, after Laredo stopped talking she turned to me with a big smile, shook my hand and said "Finamore!".  Just then she lead us down stairs, past the people waiting in line and through the door and into the room that might hold the "key" to my quest.

The women inside had me look at a big book laid out on a long table and there written out in beautiful calligraphy was the birth record on my Grandfather "Giuseppe Nicola Finamore" born April 29, 1880,  his father, Angelo Finamore (a pastore or sheppard) and his mother, Columba Valente.  I was stunned standing there.  I couldn't couldn't take my off the page.  Standing there I could feel the wave of emotion come over me.  I wanted so badly to have a family member next to me to share this moment and say "we did it."  The dots have been connected.  I looked up a saw the joy in the eyes of those who helped in my search.  Joy in my excitement and satisfaction that they were able to help. 

Elia then pointed out the the address on the certificate and said she would take me to where my Grandfather was born.  So, Laredo, Elia and myself headed off down the road to where it all began.  As we got closer to the address my heart began to sink.  I had been here during an earlier walk.  The archway of the Benedetto Croce home (a landmark in the town).  It was a lonely door in the archway and the home had long been abandoned and some graffity was written upon the ancient wood.

I started thinking about the hardship that the family went through.  And the courage it took the leave and head off to a strange country to start a new life.  Columba and her nine year old son Joseph Nicholas.  She must have heard that America was the land of new opportunity and hope.  It's unknown what came of her husband Angelo, so here was a mother wanting the best for her son trekking down to Napoli on a horse-drawn cart from the mountains of Pescasseroli to board a ship heading heading across the atlantic to a city that must have overwhelmed her and her son.  A city and a country that welcomed them like so many others that came with a dream and hope that a better life was in their future.  Thank you American and thank you ancestry.com