my father was about 25% or less italian, although he never told me until i was much older, and i eventually discovered the uncomfortable reality that i'm related to the gotti clan via a dna test. i was able to determine that his y-dna (direct paternal, male over male lineage) is austrian celt. the gottis were actually germans that moved south into italy; the name gotti appears to basically be the same word as 'goth', which is a generic medieval italian slur for germanic person that ultimately stems from a swedish group that migrated into northern italy from ukraine as they fled attila the hun.

i actually really, seriously appear to be relatively closely related to the gottis.

my father's mother was adopted because her parents were killed when they were "accidentally" hit by a train. one of my aunts did the research, and it seems like they were both tied to the tracks. people don't accidentally get tied to the railroad tracks, at least not outside of bugs bunny cartoons. it would seem like it was a mob hit.

that is legitimately all i know - my father's mother's parents were killed in an obvious mob hit in ottawa, canada and she was raised by a french family in ottawa's franco-ontarian community.

i don't really want to know much else.

but he knew he was part italian, and he made me watch all of the movies when i was a kid: all of the de niro, all of the pacino, all of the stallone. i'm actually about twenty years too young to remember this stuff otherwise, but it was seen as some kind of educational process.

i have actually long suspected that he knew more about the mob connection than he ever told me or ever told anyone else. he didn't want me to know, and i don't want to know.