******Project Description...Location: Sicily 1896 ---- Ancient crossroads by seafaring cultures for 1000's of years; Mesopotamian-Egyptian-Phoenician, Greco-Persian and Roman.... Later the Vikings, Moors, Ottoman, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch, English voyagers sailed by, and Mediterranean pyrates. This chapter of the story opens with a little 10-year-old orphan in1906, leaning under the sparse shade of an olive tree on the side of a warm stony mound of earth, standing-watch over his small herd of white Agrigento goats. Young Pietro looks far beyond the falling hills of Misilmeri, Sicily, down to the flat azure sea, thinking; who am I?...Where is my family? I am a shepherd boy now but someday I will go to Amer’eca to seek my fortune with a better future. He at least accomplished ONE!...Thank you Grandpa! ----- Seven years pass very slowly for one so small and alone....Never looking back, he dreams and plans for when that day finally arrives. He and his best friend have earned their tickets on the S. Guglielmo, sailing today from Palermo, bound for the United States, 1913. ----- Just ahead of angry seas soon to come during the Great War of 1914, their ship of opportunity will be sunk in the very near future by the German Wolfpack U-boat submarine: U-63 on January 8th, 1918. But that's another story. ----- Each boy stares outward across the sea, then back to Palermo one last time... Only this time far beyond the horizon due West toward that fabled-land where their American Dreams await. (Little does young Pietro know what fates lay in-store, he anxiously stands alongside his future brother-in-law.) ...Such is Life!----- Now it’s 2007 and I'm looking back far across the years to 1896, and farther beyond to the frightened couple who abandoned their/our baby grandfather, condemned to grow-up isolated and alone....WHY? My search for our grandfather's people; my father's family, our ancestors, my children's namesake, our heritage, my REAL NAME!----- Isn't this what We are all ultimately here looking for? ----- Who are we?? ______ ** Most recently in 2022, FTDNA’s continual activity for 25 years has determined that (our grandfather’s ancestors, perhaps his parents,) were in-fact; father was Sardinian, .....and Pietro’s "shrouded" mother was Greek!-----BINGO!! .....*Why dump your anonymous healthy newborn in a Port city; no identifying-note, or toy, or blanket dropped into the Orphanage-Turnstile in a foreign country?...Did they come from the mainland? ....Passing thru on a ship? ___________________ *****SURNAMEs Included... **The following Surnames, as well as other variations who have entered the United States over the decades far back to the 1800s, though by accident or by design these names were altered along the way, or perhaps changed through time..... Many of them, if not all when written-down onto those hundreds of ship’s Manifest Records, they were all originally spelled: “VINCOLO”! And, as well as being altered or changed for thousands of future US Census Records: “VINCOLO” became = ? e.g. Now: Angelo Vincola = Who was originally: [Angelo Vincolo], clearly visible on all previous documents, e.g. Now: Raymond Vincols = Was originally: [Raymond Vincolo], clearly visible on all previous documents, e.g. Now: Joe Vincalo = Who originally was: [Joe Vincolo], clearly visible on his previous documents! ===*** PROJECT GOAL ***=== ASKING ALL; Vincolo, VinColo, Vin Colo, Vinnicolo, Vincalo, Vincoli, Vincolis, Vincols, Vincola, VinCola, Vin Cola, Vinicola, Vinnicola, Vancola, Van Cola, VanCola, Vanicolo, Vancole and any other variation or composite of those surnames; Join Our FamilyTree DNA (VINCOLO Surname Project), and find out who's related to whom to make those imperative additions to your families.....Plus, to contribute and assist with other's ongoing (Family Tree Research). ...And hopefully we're All Cousins. --- Other FamilyTreeDNA tests available, especially "The BIG-Y" Test can best provide the most world-wide definitive-HELP amongst 1.5 million member, helping you locate all the other branches in your Family Tree, and "The mtDNA Test" for your mother’s side of your X-DNA! --- ***Switching: America in 2007, having spent 30 years of investigation, I've only discovered (2) other Vincolo’s having been here, now deceased, when contacting relatives; one widow had once been told by her husband that his father, (her father-in-law), was named Robert Vincolo, Sr., born Sept. 27, 1904, and he was (You guessed it – was himself a "Foundling"), who was brought to the USA as an infant. ****Project BACKGROUND My name is Gary Peter Vincolo, Vincola, Van Cola, VanCola! My grandfather was a "Foundling" in Sicily, Italy, an Abandoned-Orphan! My Grandfather Peter Vincola was born: Pietro Vincolo. Named by nuns: Vincolo (VINK'-o-lo), means: "the chains of Christ" Supposedly a commonly used "term for an Orphan" in Italy back then, why this particular Foundling was “given the name Vincolo", whether by happenstance or precisely by circumstance, whomever left-him at that orphanage on July 21,1896 is forever a mystery... But, more specifically during my research: (Vincolo) is a totally "unknown and unused name to Sicily" in particular! Now, with searching into the past of our grandfather’s family, the only catch: there aren't any "Vincolo's in Sicily", nor today either, and I can't find that there were ever-any-others living in Sicily specifically...In Italy yes, but not in Sicily! No one else, other than this little boy who had to grow-up in this orphanage to be hired-out as a farmhand at age 10, to help tend goats and deliver milk... I wonder who got that money? $$$$ ***Now, switching "back to Italy, & back here to America" through Ellis Island’s open-doors; Only 2 Vincolo's ever traveling-here popped-up in Ellis-Archives: my Grandfather at the age of 17 in 1913, and a gentleman who entered the USA, at age 47 yrs. in 1927, whom, would have been age 33 yrs old at the time when our "Grandfather Was Born and Abandoned" in Sicily, 1896. This particular Vincolo had made numerous trips back-and-forth during those years from Italy to the United States, while visiting his brother-in-law, always traveling without any spouse, according to all the ship's manifests! His name was "Carmine Vincolo" in 1910, but he was also "Carmelo Vincolo" when he first left the Port of Bordeaux, France Apr. 28, 1888, and that's where my search starts or maybe ends for mine & 3 other Orphaned Vincolo-Foundlings. There were a few other Vincolo Families that had emigrated here in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but they all had large established families in the New England areas, with lots of children and histories. The following Surnames have entered the United States over the decades, back to the 1800s, and though by accident or design these names changed along the way, and many of them, if not all on those ship's manifest records were originally spelled "VINCOLO"....As well as on many future US Census Records." E.g. Surnames; Vincolo, VinColo, Vin Colo, Vinnicolo, Vincalo, Vincoli, Vincolis, Vincols, Vincola, VinCola, Vin Cola, Vinicola, Vinnicola, Vancola, Van Cola, VanCola, Vanicolo, Vancole eMail: Gary Peter VanCola VINCOLOfamily@aol.com To join the (VINCOLO Surname Project) please fill out FTDNA order form, FREE, with your choice of a FamilyTreeDNA test-kit that will be automatically mailed out next-day...Good Luck!