In
the Presence of a Count?
Did I ever tell you that one of my ancestors was a Count? Felice asked me one day. What!? I responded in slight disbelief, was this another one of his jokes? It's true, he said, my uncle has some information about it. I was curious, if one of Felice's ancestors was a Count, did that mean we had some land somewhere, or a castle perhaps!?
So we paid a trip to the uncle in question who I hadn't met before (and still haven't, he wasn't in when we went around, but he does have a friendly wife!) to find the relevant paperwork and it confirmed that Stefano de Cillis, originating from Spain, was made a Count in 1844.
Sadly, we haven't managed to track down the land or the castle, but Felice has always said he thought he was a bit Spanish (it could be to do with the way he dances!), and maybe this confirms it .....