THE BLACK HAND FORUM

Inconsistent spacing in names with a prefix like La- or De- is a given with any of these kinds of records and in the United States the families themselves usually end up spelling these surnames as one word. We're lucky if historical records get the spelling even close to right, so something as subtle as LaRocca vs. La Rocca is a given.

Gambino member Sebastiano Bellanca is one of the few North American mafiosi from CE who didn't join the Bonanno family in the US or Canada and his mother was a Renda. He was part of the early Sciacca element of the Gambinos and was a major drug trafficker closely connected to Montreal and the Cotronis. Renda appears to be a common surname in CE but with his ties to both Cattolica Eraclea and Cotroni/Montreal, maybe there is a connection to Sciascia and the well-known Rendas.

When I first started constructing a family tree for Gerlando Sciascia, I thought his mother's maiden name was [i]Larocca[/i] because Ancestry.com showed it spelled this way when I was trying to determine when Sciascia and his parents applied for a Social Security Number in New York State after they arrived in the US in 1958 or early 1959.

I am certain that Domenica's maiden name is La Rocca because of the prevalence of this spelling in historical records for people born in Cattolica Eraclea. The closed-up spelling [i]Larocca[/i] is much less common in Sicily than [i]La Rocca[/i], but I have also seen many instances of the Italian-American surname [i]LaRocca[/i], which is not only closed up but also has a midcap.

I could have saved myself a lot of time constructing the tree if I had first used [i]The Sixth Family...[/i], which incorrectly shows Domenica's maiden name as "LaRocca" in all three editions. The book also incorrectly shows the surname "LoPresti" for Joe Lo Presti and his relatives. The well-known Montreal cemetery where Domenica La Rocca is interred shows in her cemetery entries two dates of interment in separate places: June 29, 1982 and March 25, 1974. Humphreys and Lamothe's book shows a year of death for Domenica of 1974.

So Sciascia's mother was a LaRocca. There were early LaRoccas in the Colorado family from Lucca Sicula, near Cattolica Eraclea. A lot of ties between mafiosi from Lucca Sicula and Siculiana as well.

Somewhat relevant, I learned a while back that St. Gerlando is the patron saint of Agrigento which is why that name shows up almost exclusively in that province, similar to Leoluca being patron saint of Corleone hence all of the men named Leoluca from there. I don't know if I've come across a mafia "Gerlando" who was not from Agrigento -- just something to keep in mind when the name comes up.

I've attached a JPG of the cemetery entry.

[attachment=0]Pasquale Sciascia--cemetery entry - Copy.jpg[/attachment]

Pasquale Sciascia died last Friday. His funeral-home visitation is taking place today at the Complexe Funéraire Loreto, which over the decades has had Rizzutos and Rendas listed as primary stakeholders in the establishment.

http://www.complexeloreto.com/en/obituary/pasquale-sciascia/