Hello listers Have you ever thought that your Italian ancesters might have come from Corsica? Although Corsica is a French Departement today, and French is the main language, it was not always so. In the C11 the island was ruled by the Pisans, followed in the late C13 by the Genoese who dominated the island until the mid C18 when the French took over, apart from 2 years from 1794 when it was part of the British Empire. As a consequence the island has a very strong italian influence. Although most islanders now have French surnames some have Italian ones, particularly in isolated areas. This was brought home to me rather forcefully some years ago when on holiday on the island. By chance I visited a small chapel in a little hillside village (Lumio) not far from Calvi and, passing through the graveyard, was astonished to find that a very large proportion of the monuments bore my surname, Moretti. Even the main village square, I later discovered, was Place Charles Moretti! As I had never met anyone outside my immediate family with the same surname before it came as a great shock. I wasn't researching my surname then so did not pursue the matter with the locals, particularly as my French is not much better than my Italian. Because of the mountainous nature of the island, until comparatively recently most communities were very isolated and some are still not accessible by road today. Consequently small communities have a small group of surnames with very little overlap from one to the next. All other village cemetaries I visited during that holiday had no observable Morettis at all but often other limited groups of 2 or 3 italian names. If you would like to explore the possibility of finding your Italian name in Corsica or in mainland France visit the French web site http://www.cartedefrance.tm.fr/index.htm where you can explore the frequency of occurence of any surname in France. Who knows, it might even give someone the lead they are seeking. Good hunting, Colin Moretti (we've been in London since before 1834) Researching Moretti, particularly, and Whatmough, Philo and Hall, all in London