English person, after 64 years, find his broter In Italy. The “italoeuropeo” helped in the search.

Written by Filippo Baglini Manager Editor of italoeuropeo (member NUJ journalist)

This is a story, which started long time ago. One of these moving stories, that at the end leaves you smiling.

A story that teaches us, not to give up on our dreams, even if someone tries hard to destroy them. A lesson that reminds us, that in life there is always something to fight for, to sacrifice life itself. Do you remember? Some time ago I wrote an article (UN ITALIANO IN CERCA DI SUO PADRE INGLESE UNA STORIA TOCCANTE ITALOEUROPEO SI IMPEGNA NELLA RICERCA)  about Mr Perlini, who contacted me personally asking me if I could help him to find a missing person, a Scottish soldier: his father. I was intrigued by his story. I was touched by the shaking but determined voice, of a man who needed to shed light on his past.

This person who was in an orphanage for 14 years, wanted to know who his father was.As he always told me: “…… I must have come from someone, it does not matter if I discover that my dad is dead, however I would like to know where I come from,if I have relatives….”.

Everything started in the far autumn of1944, his mum was living in Castiglione dei Pepoli (Bologna), met and fell inlove with a Scottish soldier from the Scots Guards called David Jackson, asoldier sent to those regions, during the second world war. Few months latershe realized that she was pregnant, however she had no more news of the soldiershe loved. He had vanished. Even the Italian Tv programme “Chi l’ha visto?”, local and national newspapers tried to investigate, but nobody had managed to bring some hope to Mr Perlini. I was able to get everything delivered to me in London, that had to do with his father: a photo, an old excerpt from anewspaper, an approximate date of birth and an old address in London, that the father left to his mother in the first meetings. I discovered straight away that at that address no Jackson was living any longer. Determined, I started tofollow every trace of this event, digging in the English archives, from Scotland Yard to the National England Archives. In the middle of the search,Raffaella Matera from Termoli (Campobasso) a passionate genealogist decided tohelp me and Mr Perlini. She contacted Mr Perlini and collected the data, butshe needed some (riscontro) and therefore she got in touch withthe Scottish members from the forum http://www.rootschat.com whereshe found some willing people.

Thanks to the help of the Lanark Library staff,she was able to trace the exact place and date of birth of David Jackson, and to rebuild the story of his family in Scotland, in Carluke to be precise. Thedecisive input, the winning idea came from the back of the newspaper excerpt from the time that David Jackson left to the Italian woman. We went back to theplace of origins and we obtained the whole article published in the Carluk Gazette edition of the 19th of May 1944, full of informative data that has allowed the progress of the search until the complete success. David Jackson has sadly died in the Decemberof 1994 in the London area. However, the most fascinating thing wasto find out that Davide Perlini had a sister in London, still alive, who wasglad to know of the existence of an Italian brother. For Mr Perlini, who for 60years thought that he was an only child from an unknown father, to find outthis reality, to know that he has an older sister, was a , like to be bornagain. For them there will be in the short time a first meeting and both ofthem are very emotional. An event born under the bombs of thesecond world war and which ended today.

Myself, L’italoeuropeo, Raffaella Matera and all the wonderful people we met searching, are all glad to deliver this story to England and Italy . Today for the Italoeuropeo is a specialday that we will never forget…