Culto aos ancestrais: encontros de famílias

Kinship represented in family trees, has revealed to be a borderless world. Several sites in the Internet show the history of families and also families that call for relatives all over the world to establish any kind of communication. This attempt for historical rebuilding of a remote past has promoted new contact forms, leading to what may be called virtual kinship, as well as meetings amongst people living abroad. The aim of this research is to reflect on the experiences that started in the 90’s in Santa Catarina State (Brazil) in Italian family meetings. These family meetings represent a new form of trip which may happen in the same state, in neighbor states, or anywhere else abroad. This research focused on an Italian party, where kinship is reconfigured in order to reinforce relations and also to discover “new relatives”. Through different dynamics homage is paid to ancestors who originated the stump from what the participants come. The host city gets ready for receiving the visitors. Meetings are held at Parish halls, clubs, and include visitation to the Italian immigrant pioneer’s grave