It seems one of the big questions people ask in January is about travel. “Any good trips planned for 2013?” Whatever vacation we may take this year can’t possibly top our summer 2012 trip.   My family and I had a once in a lifetime adventure that was exciting, educational and deeply emotional.  We met our relatives in Italy for the very first time.

This was a trip that was really many years in the making, decades in fact.  I had been told about my Italian ancestry for as long as I can remember, but I knew few details about it until 2010.   As a boy, my mother Marilyn talked with great affection about her late father Crescenzo Chully; the surname being an Americanized version of Chiulli.  My “Nonno” was killed in a horrific hornet attack at the age of 38, when my mother was only twelve so many questions she had about her ancestry went unanswered. …