cofrancesco.net

11. The Cofrancescos of Massa

          Everything is easier to trace regarding the origin of the Cofrancescos of Massa.  Indeed, from the Catasto of Massa Inferiore it is clear that Caterina Sagnella, widow of Alessandro Cofrancesco, lived there with her elder brother, Giovanni, who was only 14 years old, and her three other children. They lived in a very large house of six rooms on two floors, together with Antonio Cofrancesco, son of Giovanni Donato and Vittoria Mattei, and his recently married young wife Angela Ciarlo, born in Massa, and their two little children.

          The reasons for their move to Massa are quite clear.  In fact, the Cofrancescos owned land is this area for a long time. In the Catasto we find that Antonio and his brother Simone owned land with a farm, which served perhaps as a home for some of the first Cofrancescos who moved there from S. Lorenzello in the mid-1700s.  Today the house is still standing in the same location, now owned by another Alessandro, a descendant of those Cofrancescos.

          Alessandro Cofrancesco was born in S. Lorenzello on 8 April 1703 to Lorenzo (son of Giovanni Donato and Caterina Pacelli) and Marsilia Mattei, and married Caterina Sagnella in S. Lorenzello around 1733.  He had died before the Catasto Onciario for Massa was compiled around 1745.  Antonio Cofrancesco, who was much younger, was the son of a cousin of Alessandro, and was born in S. Lorenzello on 7 May 1727. 

          None of the descendants of Antonio lived beyond the mid-1800s. The descendants of Alessandro, through his son Carmine, born on 27 August 1743, and those of Simone, brother of Antonio, have sired all of the existing Cofrancesco genealogical lines of Massa, with branches in the United States of America, Australia and Northern Italy.

The house of Simone and Antonio Cofrancesco and their heirs in the 1700s
now owned by Alessandro Cofrancesco