When Martinez Vice Mayor Debbie McKillop was invited to meet a delegation from Pittsburg’s sister city, Isola Delle Femmine, in the Palermo district of Sicily, she thought she simply would be representing Martinez, whose most famous native son, Joe DiMaggio, traced his ancestry to that Italian city.

What she found instead were family ties of her own among the delegates, which isn’t surprising since McKillop’s own ancestry ties into both the DiMaggio paternal line as well as to his maternal line, the Mercurios, Like the ball player, McKillop’s own family emigrated from Isola Delle Femmine.