Hello I'm new to the list. Many thanks to those of you who set it up. I am interested in the IACOMINI family from Vorno. Two members of this family settled in North East Scotland where they worked as stucco figure makers and their name became Anglicised (if that is the right term for Scotland!): * Joseph (aka Santi) YACOMENI who was born in 1801, married in Dundee in 1827 and died in Aberdeen in 1872, and * Francis YACOMENE who married in Perth in 1831 and again in 1833 and who died some time before 1854. Joseph was the son of Guiseppe IACOMINI (a farmer) and Angela Lucrezia DECANINI. I know nothing of Francis's parents, although I guess Joseph and Francis were related as Francis was present at the baptism of Joseph's son in 1833. (Needless to say I am descended from the one who has left very little trace of himself in the records!) Both men had children and the name has developed numerous variations of which the most common are YACOMINI or YACOMENI. I have found them in records as YACKOMINIE, JACQUIOMINI, GIACOMINI, YACOMEN and many others, as well as mistranscribed as LA OMINI and LIACOMINI. I have a couple of questions which I hope more knowledgeable folk may be able to answer: * what should I read to find out more about stucco figure making - and why two young men would leave the sunny skies of Tuscany and settle in NE Scotland? *neither Joseph nor Francis married in Catholic churches but Joseph had some of his children baptised as Catholics and some in other churches as he travelled around NE Scotland (presumably for work), his second marriage in 1858 took place in a Catholic church and some of his children married in Catholic churches while others did not - was it normal for Italian immigrants to be this cavalier about religion; didn't the Ministers of the other churches check? Many thanks for any help anyone is able to give - and I'd obviously love to hear from any one else researching the same family. (I did make contact with another researcher about 4 years ago but I stupidly managed to lose her details when we moved house.) Elizabeth Kent