When I started exploring Granny’s branch of the family, I ran across a surname that wasn’t like any of the others in my lineage:  Cotta.  I wondered what kind of name this might be.  Was it maybe Italian?

Since they lived in the eastern part of Pennsylvania—not terribly far from Philadelphia—I anticipated they might be like the Italians in the Sylvester Stallone movie, Rocky.  Quite possibly their biggest achievement was to have run a neighborhood pizza parlor.
 
But while I considered it extremely unlikely that they had done anything to compare with my Dutch ancestors who had fought in the Revolutionary war and served in the first New Jersey State Senate, I wasn’t going to be a snob. The Cottas were my family too, and I was genuinely interested in learning all I could about them.
 
They turned out to be the most distinguished branch of my family.  By far.

I didn’t discover this overnight.  I started out randomly Googling for people with the name Cotta, and found that a lot of them lived in Northern Italy, especially Milan.  For some reason, Milan resonated with me.  Was this maybe because I had thought that if I ever visited Italy, I’d want to make a stop in Modena and the nearby area—because that’s where a lot of exotic cars like Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini come from—and then also head up to Milan?

I also found Cottas in Rome—as well as some in Germany.  In all three areas, people with this surname had done some remarkable things.  But were they related to one another? And was there a connection between any of them and my American Cottas, who had lived on an out-of-the-way farm in Pennsylvania?

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