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MORGANTI
Five members of the Morganti family emigrated to Australia from their village
of Someo (ref figure 4) in the middle of the nineteenth century. Situated only a few
kilometres from Giumaglio (the home of the Pozzis) in the Valle Maggia, Someo also
found itself severely affected during Ticino's years of economic and political turmoil.
So serious were its problems to become that, by 1873, 40 per cent of the population
would emigrate to Austraha or North America.^ By the end of the 1850s, around 50
per cent of that total would have come to the colony of Victoria.^ Like Giumaglio,
Someo's economy was based on farming and the seasonal work of its population ~
mostly labouring, woodcutting and stonemasonry ~ in neighbouring Lombardy,
Piedmont and Veneto. In 1850, over eight per cent of Someo's population was
employed outside Switzerland.^ The Morganti family, generations of whom had
resided in the village as pastoralists and as peasants stmggling with the region's harsh
climate and terrain, was swept up in the problems of the village and faced the risk of
financial min.
Eustachio Morganti and his wife had produced five sons: Giacomo, bom in
1822, Battista in 1826, Maurizio in 1835, Lazzaro in 1839 and Eustachio in 1841 ~ all
of whom were employed on the family farm. The boys helped supplement the family
income as itinerant workers in Lombardy, Battista as a woodcutter and the others
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