Back to Family Story outcomes, S22
by Matthew Barravecchio
My Catholic faith has been a huge part of my life ever since I could remember. I grew up going to a Catholic elementary school high school, and now university. I also received several sacraments, went to Church every Sunday, and did charity work with my parish throughout my childhood. My childhood was engulfed with these Catholic activities because of the values that my family instilled in me. My father’s and my mother’s families are both Catholic, and many members of my extended family value their faith greatly. On my father’s side of the family, we celebrate our saint’s name days, Christmas Eve, and attend Palm Sunday Mass together when possible. On my mother’s side of the family, we celebrate St, Patrick’s Day, as that is where my Irish blood comes from, Christmas, and Easter with one another. It has always been clear to me that my religion was important to me and my family, but I had always wondered why family was Catholic and where the roots of my faith stemmed from. Through genealogical research, I have been able to uncover several things that have given me a greater idea of why family was brought up Catholic.
During my research, I was not really expecting to come across much that would tell me about the origins of my religion in my family. I was correct regarding my father’s side, which is Sicilian, as I could not gather much information as to where our Catholicism started on that side of the family. However, I was able to find a lot of information on my mother’s side, and the first thing that I came across was the obituary of my third great grandfather, on my mother’s paternal line, Patrick Matthew Devoy. His obituary explained that he was member of St. Agatha’s Parish in Kings, Brooklyn, where he immigrated to from Kildare, Ireland. This was crazy to me, not only because I was able to find out that my Catholic roots started at least six generations ago, but also because I visited this parish in high school as my school had a community mass there in 2017.
After finding this document, I became excited to find out what other documentation I could find that would potentially stretch my Catholic heritage back even further. As stated, Patrick Devoy was on my mother’s paternal line, and I was able to find out many things about this line including information about my faith. Next, I found Patrick’s father’s, William Devoy Baptism certificate and was able to find his name in the Irish Catholic Parish Registers. This information made it clear to me that the origin of my family’s faith spanned back to those who grew up in Ireland, and it went back at least seven generations.
My research continued, and the information that I was able to find this line continued, and I was able to garner more documentation. It is evident that Ireland kept very prestine Chirch records and that is a big reason that I was able to find documentation on my Irish side. Evidentally, I was also able to find documentation for William’s parents, John and Mary Devoy, so this spanned my Irish Catholic origins back eight generations. Then, John’s ftaher John Sr. also had documentation which spanned my family’s faith back nine genrations. I was able to find nine generations via this Irish line and, even to the last generation, I was able to find Catholic roots which I found really cool. Before this reasearch, I had very little idea as to whether my ancestors were religious and wondered why my family had such strong Catholic values. I now know my Catholic hertiage spans back nine generations and likely more!
