The descendants of Don and Elizabetta grew in number. Rosario and Placido, their sons, would have been alive to witness the devastation of the black plague as it swept through the garden island of Sicilia in 1642.  They had survived the drought and famine that soon followed the plague, which killed one third of the population of this pleasant island in 1646.

We know from the records that some of their descendants inherited land and became landowners and farmers. Good marriages were made, and more land was owned and farmed by our ancestors. We know of land holdings in Vallone Vina, San Piero Patti and Sant' Agata di Militello, Sicilia. The records allow us to trace the movement of family members as land was inherited or bought. Some sons learned crafts or trades and moved to the more populated areas to become respected tradesmen with the title of Maestro in front of their given names. Other sons moved to Patti and became merchants, especially fruit merchants, or worked on ships. Perhaps they sold some of the produce from the Colloraffi vineyards, olive groves, hazelnut or almond groves or even flour from the mill in Vallone di Vina. We assume that the Collorofe or Colorofe families that lived in Patti and the area now known as Sant' Agata di Militello in the late 1600's and early 1700's, were part of our family, since we sometimes find that spelling of our name even in Librizzi in the mid 1800's.

It was not unusual for families to move to the sea and then back to the mountains and vineyards. Although the seaside towns offered business opportunities to the Sicilians, the people there were exposed to malaria and in danger of seige or attack by pirates or even rival nations or armies. The history of Sicilia is that of a country that has changed hands 12 times in the past one thousand years. The watch towers, including German bunkers from WW II, that still line the coastal areas of Sicily are a reminder of this. In times of danger, the families living in or near the more than 60 ports of Siclia, including the cities of Patti and Sant' Agata di Militello, would move to the mountains, where villages perched high on the cliffs could look down and see the invaders, giving them time to fortify their defenses. Also, there were few roads that led to these mountain villages and towns, which made it difficult to attack them.

I am sure that our Colloraffi family lived much as we do today, celebrating each birth and marriage, mourning the deaths of loved ones. I believe that there was communication between the different branches of our family which lived in the areas of Vallone di Vina, Librizzi, San Piero Patti, Patti and Sant' Agata di Militello. I have seen this in the civil records. For example, Pietro Collorafi, born in Librizzi in about 1780, moves with his brother to Sant' Agata di Militello, perhaps to help his father, Biagio, with the vineyard and farm lands there.

Pietro is a farmer, as is his father. Some of Pietro's sons go back to the mountains of San Piero Patti or Vallone di Vina in Librizzi to farm; another goes to Patti to become a merchant, selling fruit. We find evidence of this in marriages, too. The same families marry into the Colloraffi family of Librizzi, Sant' Agata di Militello, Patti and San Piero Patti. Marriages were usually arranged with other honorable or related families. There was often a benefit of keeping property within a family by having cousins marry. This also strengthened family bonds. Some of these families continued to marry into the Colloraffi family - even in Tunisia and the United States in the 20th century.