Dear Ann and Maritza,
Hello! I'm Jose A. Tollinchi. I was borned in Ponce, PR. My grandfather was Dimas Tollinchi from Yauco, PR. The Tollinchi surname is not Italian. It is from Corcega, which is a French Island south of Italy. A lot of puertorricans are under the false impression (including myself until recently) that some of our names are Italian, when infact they are French. If you go to the Yahoo! French web site and type the name Tollinchi you will see a lot of people with the name. You will not get this result in the Yahoo! Italy site. I have maintained e-mail with Tollinchi in France, Germany, and Venezuela. A guy named Charles Tollinchi in France explained to me that the name is Corcegan NOT Italian. He was very offended that I thought the name was Italian

Thanks for that info. I didn`t know that. My grand father spoke Italin and not French. It seems we need more info.

I think both of you should do some research on the internet about corsican history. First of all, Italy was not a nation until the 19th Century.Before, it was composed of city-states. Two of them, first Pisa and later Genoa, had posession of Corsica until the 1760s. Genoa ceded it to France because we corsicans are very proud and hard to dominate.So, most oldtime corsican surnames have an Italian origin, and the corsican true language is not French, but Corsican, which is an Italian dialect. French is spoken now because of French- only laws.My aunt`s husband, a Corsican native from Pietracorbara whose surname was Giuliani, spoke Corsican first and later Spanish in the Dominican Rep. and Puerto Rico but did not know to speak French.

I have conducted exhaustive studies regarding inmigration patterns to Puerto Rico. I can tell you that the Tollinchi (or as it sometimes appears in documents Tollinche) came to Puerto Rico from Corsica. Following is a list of the four Tollinchi individuals that came to Puerto Rico followed by the date of arrival: Esteban Tollinchi Marfichi (1870), Juan E. Tollinchi Marfichi (1866), Pedro Mateo Tollinchi Marficci (1854), and Tiburcio Tollinchi Olivacci (1886). Prior to the arrival of the Tollinchi there were numerous corsicans in PR. The first on that I have identified is Antonio Silvestre (or Silvestri) who was in PR by 1762. My Negroni ancestor (Anton Francesco Negroni Mattei) came to Puerto Rico in 1822.

Hector Andres Negroni

Pedro Mateo Tollinchi Marficci is my great grandfather. Thanks for the info. I`m very excited. Thank you every one for replying to this post, your help is greatly received.

i am in the tollinchi family and lookin for others we are the real tollinchis please get back

Whats a fake Tollinchi?

I just did a random search on Tollinchi and came across these posts. I am very excited about the info. given. I am curious to learn more. Where have any of you done the research?? What's the real vs fake all about??

Michell

HI nice to meet you, my name is veronica and i am from philadelphia,i started my search here a couple of months ago tryin to find out more about my family and i see that everyone has a differnt story/opinion well the reason i wrote real tollinchi in the sense of the first tollinchis my greatgrandfather which is my grandmothers father alejandro tollinchi came from italy to p.r. years ago with three of his brothers and they where the first italians in p.r. and there they started there life he had 63 kids from 3 differnt wives and all these kids spreaded all over p,r. so we are lookin for all these branches to connect to our tree my grand mothers name is mercedes tollinchi she has brothers in new york (bronx manhattan farrockaway etc) and p.r. ponce caracas and etc so we are trying to connect the puzzles and all the tollinchis are related in some kind of way cause we are one of akind and also sometime in march they where going to name a street tollinchi because of a famous poet francisco tollinchi which was one of the brothers... so there really isnt a fake or real tollinchi get back

The Tollinchi Family in Puerto Rico originates with four individuals by that name who emigrated from Corsica to Puerto Rico. Here are their names, year of birth, year of arrival in Puerto Rico, occupation, and wife's name:

Esteban Tollinchi Marficci 1841 1870? Agricultor Juana (Cornelia) Battistini
Juan E. Tollinchi Marficci 1840 1866 Agricultor Camelia Battistini
Pedro Mateo Tollinchi Marficci 1831 1854 Agricultor
Tiburcio Tollinchi Olivacci 1874 1886 Agricultor

The complete and correct name of the poet that you cite is Francisco Antonio Rojas Tollinchi. His maternal grandfather was Esteban Tollinchi Marficci and his maternal grandmother was Cornelia Battistini. His father was Pedro Rojas Perez and his mother was Flora Maria Tollinchi Battistini.

The name Tollinchi is also found in the records as Tollinche.

I hope this helps you get started in the right track.

Hector Andres Negroni