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PERINI
Like most of the ItaUan-speaking families considered in this thesis, the Perinis
came from a small-scale farming background. When Marie Butler, a descendant of the
Perini family and resident of Hepbum Springs, travelled with her husband to Mergoscia
m Ticino in the 1980s, she was amazed at the smallness and isolation of her ancestors'
viUage. She had come to the birthplace of her great grandfather Vincenzo Perini bom
on 2 Febmary 1836. Although close to the villages of Valle Maggia (homes of the
earUer families), Mergoscia Ues in a vaUey on the opposite side of a massive mountain
range in Ticino's district of Locamo (ref figure 4). The village had barely changed in
appearance since the days of the 1850s, the original Perini home stiU occupied by
members of the family and their name still evident on a wall of the Catholic church.
The viUage's static appearance beUed, however, the enormous turmoil of the 1850s
when almost thirteen per cent of its population (76 individuals)^ had emigrated to the
Australian goldfields. The worst affected districts, Locamo and Valle Maggia, had
each contributed over 850 people and, while this represented only four per cent of
Locarno's population (compared with eleven per cent for the Valle Maggia), its impact
was most strongly felt in only two regions ~ Valle Verzasca and Navegna.^ From
Mergoscia, which Ues within the region of Navegna, departed five members of the
Perini family including three brothers whose story now unfolds.
The Perinis were a farming family living in one of Ticino's typical stone
cottages designed for a self-sufficient life-style. Though it appears Giuseppe and
Margherita Perini raised a large family, the number of offspring can only be estimated
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