Hello suanj
Actually I don't know to explain why... The fact Giovanni has only his mother's last name is a mistery to me as well...
When I first found out his parents name, it was completely bad spelled, his father was "Nicola Bonego/Borrego" what for sure didn't sound as an Italian surname, so then I started to work with the possibility of his father being Spanish because I heard that in Spain people use to put the surname of the father first on their kids, and the surname of the mother after. So I thought Nicola might be the surname of his father in this logic, and it could explain why his was NICOLA PACE.
After that I found some more documents where Giovanni claims that his parents were both Italians, and that he arrived in Brazil with 10 years old in november/1897. Then I checked at the Imigration House and found a family PORRECA, where the father was Nicola, the mother was Giacintha and there were 3 kids with them, one 10 years old named Giovanni. This information disturbed me for 2 years, but I thought it was too much madness to think that the name BONEGO/BORREGO turned into PORRECA. Ok then.
Last month I was looking into the passengers list of a navy that arrived in november/1897 and there we go, I found again the PORRECA family with the same information of the Imigration House, but this time the name of the mother was written not only as Giacintha below the name of PORRECA NICOLA, it was written GIACINTHA PACE!
After that, I found a declaration where Giovanni claims to be legitimy son of Nicola and Giacintha and borned in Naples. So yes, I told you the whole story and I still can't answer why my antenatti doesn't have his father name as everybody else. Would love to know why too
