Al Capone’s Italian Roots: A Pasta-Making Family from Angri, Salerno

Alphonse Gabriel Capone — the most famous American gangster, who controlled organized crime in Chicago from 1925 to 1931 — was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 17 January 1899. Both of his parents came from the same Italian town: Angri, in the province of Salerno, in Campania.

A family of pasta-makers from Angri

His father, Gabriele Francesco Saverio Capone, was born in Angri on 12 December 1865. In Italy he was an artisan of pasta and then a lithographer; after emigrating to the United States he worked as a barber. Al Capone’s paternal grandparents, Vincenzo Capone and Marzia Calabrese, were themselves pasta-makers, with their own shop in Angri. His mother, Teresa Raiola, a seamstress, was also born in Angri, on 28 December 1870, daughter of Raffaele Raiola.

Even the most notorious name leads back to a town and a register. Where does your family begin?

Behind Al Capone stands Angri, a town in the province of Salerno, and a family of pasta-makers whose names are written in the Campanian registers. Your family’s trail is waiting in an Italian archive too. Tell me a little about your family, and I will give you an honest assessment of what is possible.