A mountainous region between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas, crossed by four rivers, and the hill town where the name is most at home.
The family of spellings centers on Laurenzana, a hill town in the province of Potenza in Basilicata. Martoccia is the most common surname in Laurenzana and is borne by roughly 278 families in Italy, two thirds of them in Basilicata. Passenger arrivals to the US between 1830 and 1912 point the same way: of 12 Martocci arrivals with a known origin, 9 came from Laurenzana (2 from Ferrandina, 1 from Naples); of 50 Martoccia arrivals, 37 came from Laurenzana; Martoccio arrivals came mostly from nearby Castelmezzano. Martocci itself is almost unknown in Italy today (6 bearers), which suggests it is largely an American spelling of Martoccia that settled around emigration. The family's own tree confirms the town: of the 45 relatives carrying the name in any spelling whose Italian birthplace is recorded, 43 were born in Laurenzana, in records running from the 1720s to the 1890s. Laurenzana is also the most frequent Italian birthplace across the whole tree, shared by 15 family surnames.
Basilicata declared its own annexation to the Kingdom of Italy on August 18, 1860, with the Potenza insurrection. After unification, former Church lands went mostly to a few wealthy families and brigandage followed. Heavy emigration left a demographic crisis the region is still recovering from. Civil records are on the Antenati portal.
Capital: Potenza · Provinces: Matera, Potenza
Most Italians who came to America between 1880 and 1920 left the South. These are the neighboring regions whose records and history overlap with the family's.
Capital L'Aquila · Chieti, L'Aquila, Pescara, Teramo
Abruzzo kept the civil registration introduced under French rule through the Restoration, so registers generally run from 1809. It is one of the Mezzogiorno regions that supplied most Italian emigrants after 1890. Abruzzo and Molise formed one region ('Abruzzi') until a 1963 constitutional law created Molise.
Capital Catanzaro · Catanzaro, Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio Calabria, Vibo Valentia
Calabria was part of the Kingdom of Naples, ruled by Joachim Murat from 1808 until the Bourbons returned in 1815, and joined unified Italy after Garibaldi's 1860 campaign. Comuni sent copies of their 1809-1865 civil registers to the State Archives, and these are now online at Antenati. The 1908 Messina-Reggio earthquake devastated the south of the region. Catanzaro has been the regional capital since 1971.
Capital Naples (Napoli) · Avellino, Benevento, Caserta, Napoli, Salerno
Naples was the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies after 1815 and one of the three main Italian emigration ports, along with Genoa and Palermo. Its comuni have civil registers from the Napoleonic period (1809) onward, searchable on Antenati. A cholera epidemic killed more than 5,000 people in Naples in 1884.
Capital Campobasso · Campobasso, Isernia
Molise is Italy's newest region, created by Constitutional Law no. 3 of December 27, 1963, which separated it from Abruzzi. It was among the Mezzogiorno regions of heavy emigration after 1890.
Useful for reading old records: provinces are where Italy's State Archives (Archivi di Stato) keep civil registers.
| Region | Capital | Provinces |
|---|---|---|
| Abruzzo | L'Aquila | Chieti, L'Aquila, Pescara, Teramo |
| Basilicata | Potenza | Matera, Potenza |
| Calabria | Catanzaro | Catanzaro, Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio Calabria, Vibo Valentia |
| Campania | Naples (Napoli) | Avellino, Benevento, Caserta, Napoli, Salerno |
| Emilia-Romagna | Bologna | Bologna, Ferrara, Forlì-Cesena, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Ravenna, Reggio Emilia, Rimini |
| Friuli-Venezia Giulia | Trieste | Gorizia, Pordenone, Trieste, Udine |
| Lazio | Rome (Roma) | Frosinone, Latina, Rieti, Roma, Viterbo |
| Liguria | Genoa (Genova) | Genova, Imperia, La Spezia, Savona |
| Lombardia (Lombardy) | Milan (Milano) | Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona, Lecco, Lodi, Mantova, Milano, Monza e Brianza, Pavia, Sondrio, Varese |
| Marche | Ancona | Ancona, Ascoli Piceno, Fermo, Macerata, Pesaro e Urbino |
| Molise | Campobasso | Campobasso, Isernia |
| Piemonte (Piedmont) | Turin (Torino) | Alessandria, Asti, Biella, Cuneo, Novara, Torino, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Vercelli |
| Puglia (Apulia) | Bari | Bari, Barletta-Andria-Trani, Brindisi, Foggia, Lecce, Taranto |
| Sardegna (Sardinia) | Cagliari | Cagliari (metropolitan city), Sassari (metropolitan city), Gallura Nord-Est Sardegna, Medio Campidano, Nuoro, Ogliastra, Oristano, Sulcis Iglesiente |
| Sicilia (Sicily) | Palermo | Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Catania, Enna, Messina, Palermo, Ragusa, Siracusa, Trapani |
| Toscana (Tuscany) | Florence (Firenze) | Arezzo, Firenze, Grosseto, Livorno, Lucca, Massa-Carrara, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato, Siena |
| Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol | Trento | Bolzano/Bozen (autonomous province), Trento (autonomous province) |
| Umbria | Perugia | Perugia, Terni |
| Valle d'Aosta | Aosta | Aosta |
| Veneto | Venice (Venezia) | Belluno, Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venezia, Verona, Vicenza |
