Toponyms

 Messina, Sicily

     Why put a photo of Messina in a blog about Polizzi Generosa?  To illustrate an important caution about tracing surnames in Italy.  A surname that is also the name of a specific place in Sicily does not indicate where that name originated. For example, say you have an ancestor whose name was Mike Messina, one thing you can almost always be sure of is that his ancestral records will not be found in  Messina.  These surnames were almost always taken well after the date a family left the city or town, and before surnames became well settled things in Sicily.  I belong to an Italian American club where I live.  One of the member's surname is Polizzi.  Guess where his ancestors were not from?