At the start of his episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, Joe Swash says he "had no interest in" the past when he was younger, but is fascinated by his family’s remarkable journey from Italy to London and rumours of a connection to the mafia.
Beginning in Islington with his mother, Kiffy, they explore his late father’s Italian ancestry through old photographs and records. By looking at marriage certificates, he learns his great grandmother Maria Raimo married Charlie Swash in 1921 in the district of Holborn. Before this, Maria lived at home with her parents, Giuseppe and Rosa Raimo, both of whom had moved from Italy to the Italian quarter of London, an area called Clerkenwell, not far from where Joe himself grew up. To discover when his Italian family moved to London, Joe joins city tour guide Rob Smith. A census record from 1921 shows that while Giuseppe was born in Italy, all his children were born in England. Maria, Joe’s great grandmother, was born in around 1900.
By the time Giuseppe had moved to London, there were around 10,000 immigrants living in the city from southern Italy. Many lived in conditions of extreme poverty. Clerkenwell soon became known as ‘Little Italy’. Living in a poor area, Giuseppe became a street piano player. To learn more about this profession, Joe meets cultural historian Annemarie McAllister. She helps Joe understand Giuseppe’s role as a street barrel piano player – a barrel which when the handle is turned creates music. When Giuseppe arrived in London, a third of the working population of ‘Little Italy’ were street musicians. However, as Joe discovers through the records, Giuseppe didn’t just remain a street musician; by 1895, he had become an organ maker, and by 1921, he was a tuner.
Joe says he's "super proud of the tenacity of [his] great great grandad" and admires how "he got himself out of the slums, got himself a trade [and] looked after his family".
Alongside working as a street musician, Joe also uncovered Giuseppe’s involvement in communist workers movements. Historian Alfio Bernabei shows Joe that Giuseppe attended and spoke at these meetings alongside Sylvia Pankhurst, daughter of the suffragette activist, Emmeline Pankhurst. Sylvia was a suffragette and campaigned for workers’ rights. Speaking at these meetings in 1923, Sylvia and Giuseppe were concerned about the rise of fascism in Italy, following Mussolini’s violent rise to power. "This fills me with a great deal of pride", Joe says, upon learning about Giuseppe’s strong views against fascism. Giuseppe even wrote in a weekly paper, The Worker’s Dreadnought, that "We must abolish the greed of gain and unite in serving our neighbours", which Joe says makes him "proud and honoured to have him as one of [his] ancestors".
To learn which part of Italy his family were from, Joe visits John, a distant relative in Hertfordshire, who tells him Giuseppe was born in Senerchia, a province of Avellino. Joe then flies to Naples to visit the state archives in the city of Avellino, where he meets genealogist Joe Di Simone. Birth records show that Giuseppe had been born in 1864 to parents Rosaria Sciaraffa and Donato Raimo, who were farmers. Further records show Donato (Joe’s 3x great grandfather) to have been born in 1839 to Maria Trimarco and Giuseppe Raimo.
Here, Joe also learns of Donato’s criminal past. He was imprisoned in 1867 for supplying weapons and associating with wrongdoers. These ‘wrongdoers’ were brigands, a group of former criminals that emerged in the south of Italy following political unrest. It is unclear if Donato willingly helped the brigands or if he was coerced. However, Donato was acquitted of the crime when witnesses came forward that the family had fought against the brigands.
While no more Raimos remain in Senerchia, Joe learns there may be some in a nearby village and pays a visit. Here, he finds a bar called Raimo that may belong to a relative. Reflecting on his ancestral journey, Joe says he now feels "a connection" to this part of Italy, and to his past. It has "galvanised who I am, where I am from [and] the people who made me".
