lo Guasto, Loguasto, Loquasto

The name "lo Guasto"

In the Italian language, "guasto" means "broken" or "spoiled", and "lo" is the article "the". Literally, "lo Guasto" would seem to mean "the broken one". This may have been an appellation given to an early ancestor who was lame or disabled in some way. "Albert the lame", in Italian, would be "Alberto lo guasto".

A compound name like "lo Guasto", probably started as just "Guasto". Then, through usage, the individual was called "lo Guasto" so often, that eventually the name became "LoGuasto", then "Loguasto". The earliest instances of the name that I found were listed alphabetically with other names starting with "G", even though the name was given as "lo Guasto".

Many of our ancestors were illiterate. When they gave their name, someone else wrote it down, and since our "great-grandfather" etc., couldn't read, he couldn't correct the spelling. This seems to be what happened with the American branch of the family, where the modern spelling is "Loquasto", with a "Q".

The earlier names in this list were found on the Mormon Church's microfilms of civil and church records of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths for the town of Serradifalco, in the Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, and I have used the spelling given in those records. Where the Ellis Island website has had information on the family, I used the spelling given there, and where the names involve more recent family members, I have used the spelling they have given me, mostly "Loquasto". I have also used the given names that I believe were on the individual's birth records: Michele, Alberto, Serafina, etc.; even though these names may have later been anglicized. The "original" lo Guasto (the earliest I could find) was definitely named Libertino, but he was variously called "Bertino" and "Alberto". He has descendants named Bert, Albert, and Robert.

It would be impossible (for me, with my limited webpage resources) to list here every descendant of Libertino and Francesca. Their sons Salvatore and Fedele were the ancestors, respectively, of the American Loquasto's and the French Lo Guasto's: and their daughter Concetta was the ancestor of the American Coniglio's. Elsewhere, I have listed the descendants of Concetta's great-granddaughter Rosa Alessi Coniglio, and also Rosa's ancestors. Besides the Cimino - Abate - Alessi - Coniglio surnames, other families that the lo Guasto daughters have married into include the Montante/Montalto line, the Vancheri's and the Insalaco's.

The list below shows primarily descendants with some form of the name "lo Guasto", and some with other surnames, introduced when lo Guasto women married. Persons with a # after their name have contacted me. Click on the # to e-mail them. For protection, I have placed the characters nospam. in front of every e-mail address. You must remove the extraneous characters in order to use the address. For a complete list of the related persons in my data base, click here and "surf" the pages at GenCircles.com. That site also gives some information on birthplaces, immigration dates, passenger ship names, and so on. Entries marked with * had more than one partner.