I have been able to trace the roots of my ancestors back to ~1200. Most were from Erice and Monreale in Sicily. My approach has been to follow all family names, not just those of my parents, Francesco SCUDERI and Maria BRUNO. As I went further back in time, I found that there were many links between the families, which I have called TWISTED ROOTS. I suppose this is to be expected in relatively small cities like Erice and Monreale. Thus, after a few generations, everyone is related to everyone else! This has meant though that my research has somehow become a fairly full documentation of many families from these cities, not just SCUDERI and BRUNO.

Over the past 4-5 years, I have been granted access to the original historical archives at Erice, housed at Casa Sales. Together with my husband, John, we have photographed many of the original documents from around the year 1550. At present we have collected about 29,400 images, and have created a specific web-site where these can be viewed online. Access is by login and password only, and an online registration system has been implemented. For anyone who has ancestors in Erice, this is the only place where you can access these records. We have recently added a "search" mechanism for marriages that took place at Erice. Please login at www.casasaleserice.it

Recently, while carrying out research in Erice, I met another researcher who was in fact using my data to help in her research. I am very pleased when this happens. If you do use data that I have provided, can you please mention that it came from lomascuderi.com.

As anyone who carries out family history research will know, the problem is "how" to present the data we find. I have now published the latest version of my family tree on on Ancestry, but you will need an Ancestry account to view this. Here on this site, I have also provided a Webtrees implementation of the basic data, which includes a complete list of all the people in the tree. Finally I have provided some basic facts about how the families intertwine.

If we start from my paternal grandparents Alberto Scuderi and Antonina Scuderi (yes, same last name!), there are about 10 SCUDERI forefathers back in the 1500-1600s that lead directly to me not only through the SCUDERI line, but also through my maternal BRUNO line.

If on the other hand,we look at the BRUNO ancestors and my maternal grandparents Giuseppe BRUNO and Giuseppa FONTE, we can see that not only do they lead to me on my BRUNO side but also to the SCUDERI line!

Antonina Scuderi
1 February 2024