Download (14Mb) - VUIR - Victoria University

RIGHETTI
Four brothers of the Righetti family emigrated to Australia in the middle of the
nineteenth century. Their father, Giovanni Griacomo Righetti, was a farmer, bom 7
January 1788 in the Ticinese viUage of Someo. He had married Maria Domenica
Lafranchi ui her home town of CogUo: an endogamous marriage, it united two families
of similar geographical location and cultural heritage. Symbolic of the extensive
kinship network which would later characterise the Italian-speaking population in
AustraUa, Maria appears to have been related to the ancestors of Andrea and Celestini
Lafranchi, introduced earUer. From their marriage six children were bom, Anna Maria
~ the first of two girls — arriving eighteen years after her parents had wed. Her father
had perhaps been one of the eight per cent or so of the village population forced to
seek work for long periods outside the canton.^ A son, Celestino, was bom around
1832, followed in 1834 by the birth of Giuseppe. Addolorata arrived inl836 foUowed
by Battista in 1837 and (GiuUano) Serafino in 1839. Raised in Someo, where their
parents had made their home, the children all received a Roman CathoUc upbringing
and leamed the skills of the peasant farmer. By the 1850s, when most of the Righetti
children were nearing their twentieth year, viUagers had begun emigrating overseas in
large numbers in order to escape the poverty and hunger then consuming their village.
(It may be recalled that some members of the Morganti family had already departed by
1853.) Soon swept up in the enthusiasm (as was their cousin Battista, who later
settled at Yandoit m AustraUa), the Righetti boys made their plans to emigrate. While
a large number of their clan would eventually depart for America between 1853 and
1863, thirty (at least) arrived in Australia.^
203