Return to Dawn’s Family History Page

Looking for the surname Bragazzi or Bregazzi

This is an interesting one. A researcher called Howard Slatter has done a Sterling job on a one name study of Bregazzis world-wide who, it would seem, all point back to a little place called Stazzona near Lake Como on the northern boarder of Italy with Austria. His vast work nets just about all Bregazzis anywhere and traces them back to a certain Andrea Bregazzi born in the late 17^th century. He also presents a highly plausible hypothesis for a link for my 2x great-grand daddy to this formidable tree.

Andrea Bregazzi

| Domenico Bregazzi

| bd. Oct 14, 1722, Stazzona, Italy

| | Giuliano Bregazzi

| | bd. Jul 6, 1760, Stazzona, Italy

| | | Domenico Bregazzi

| | | bd. Sep 15, 1796, Stazzona, Italy

| | | | Maria Domenica Bregazzi

| | | | bd. Nov 13, 1826, Stazzona, Italy

| | | | Maria Rosa Lucrezia Bregazzi

| | | | bd. Apr 10, 1829, Stazzona, Italy

| | | | Anna Maria Bregazzi

| | | | bd. Jun 9, 1836, Stazzona, Italy

| | | | Giuliano Bregazzi

| | | | bd. Mar 3, 1840, Stazzona, Italy

But in the genealogy game it never pays to jump to conclusions without the documentation. That said the circumstantial evidence in this case is rather compelling. Family rumor does have it that my 2x great-grandfather Giuliano or Juliano, came from the Lake Como area. So far our earliest reference to him is his marriage certificate in 1866. From this, the approximate date of birth we have for him appears to fit Howard's proposal, as does his father's name.

As for the spelling change, Giuliano's name appears to have settled at Juliano Bragazzi by the time he died in Newcastle in 1903, but the early attempts of English registrars and enumerators to deal with the Italian orthography did result a variety of weird and wonderful spellings. Often they made a stab at his first name with a 'G' and his surname with an initial vowel of 'e'. Of course our best bet on resolving the issue of the original spelling is to examine the only example we have from Giuliano’s own hand – the church copy of his marriage certificate….but as you can see, this isn’t entirely clear. It is rather difficult to decide where the ‘B’, ‘r’, the vowel and the ‘g’ each begin and end and the jury is still out as to whether that vowel is an ‘e’ or an ‘a’.

Also however convincing the argument looks we can’t overlook the fact that Bragazzi too is a legitimate Italian surname also often found in the Lake Como area. So, is there another Giuliano Bragazzi with a father, Domenico, born about 1840 in Northern Italy? Well, we're still working on that one!

Whatever your interest in the Bragazzi or Bregazzi surnames I thoroughly recommend a visit to Howard's website.

As for the Bragazzis of Newcastle, we think we now have an almost complete picture of them. Although Giuliano has plenty of modern descendants, his last male heir, Louis, is believed to have changed to his mother’s maiden name, Howe, before or during World War One. Sadly, there may be none who still bare this rare surname.