Ayrton Senna’s Family Tree | 🇧🇷
In 2019, a group of genealogists led by the Italian-Brazilian Daniel Taddone decided to look into Ayrton Senna’s ancestry. After a lot of research and digging through records, they managed to trace his family roots.
And like, turns out Ayrton Senna da Silva was 50% Italian, 25% Spanish, and 25% Luso-Brazilian — This last one being more distant, from Portuguese descendants who had been settled in São Paulo for a long time.
Let’s start with his father, Milton Guirado Theodoro da Silva, a Brazilian born in São Paulo.
His father, Antônio Theodoro da Silva (Ayrton’s paternal grandfather), was Brazilian, and descending from old Luso-Brazilian roots. 🇧🇷/🇵🇹
This kind of long-established Luso-Brazilian ancestry is very common in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which is why the surname “Silva” is one of the most common in Brazil.
His mother, Rosa Guirado Requena (Ayrton’s paternal grandmother), was Spanish. She came to Brazil when she was just four years old, in 1908. 🇪🇸
Now, Ayrton’s mother: Neyde Joanna Senna
Neyde is what we can call a “pure” Italian-Brazilian, since all four of her grandparents were born in Italy. She was born in São Paulo.
Her father, João Senna (Ayrton’s maternal grandfather) was also Italian-Brazilian. 🇮🇹/🇧🇷
He was the son of Luigi Sena and Giovanna Maria Magro, both Italians.
(The family name sometimes appeared as “Sena” or “Di Sena”.)
They came to Brazil separately — he in 1893 and she in 1894 — both arriving in the state of Espírito Santo, where they eventually got married in 1896.
• Luigi is even mentioned in the Senna series.
• After living in Brazil for a while, he started going by Luiz Senna, adding an extra “n” to his last name — a more Brazilian-Portuguese version of his Italian name.
* The Sennas didn’t actually start out in São Paulo, but in Espírito Santo — which, at the time, had one of the biggest waves of Italian immigrants. Luigi only came because a relative from the Di Sena side invited him to move there too.
Later on, the family moved to São Paulo, where João was born.
Her mother, Marcellinna Di Santoro (Ayrton’s maternal grandmother), was also Italian-Brazilian. 🇮🇹/🇧🇷
• Her parents were distant Italian cousins and they got married in São Paulo.
• She was the only grandparent who lived long enough to see Ayrton win a WDC.
• The Di Santoro family was a bit better off financially compared to the rest of Ayrton’s ancestors.
With both families already settled in São Paulo, it was easier for Milton and Neyde to meet — and four years after they got married, Ayrton was born.
a super summary of this post
• Giovanna Maria Magro was also called Joanna Maria Magro (her nickname was Joaninha Senna), which is why her granddaughter is named Neyde Joanna Senna.
• The Di Santoro family frequently traveled between Italy and Brazil and were the ones who kept the Italian language alive the most. Their family tomb is in São Paulo.
• Until he was four years old, Ayrton and his parents lived with his grandfather João Senna.
The journalist Roberto Cabrini, also Italian-Brazilian, said a memorable phrase to the millions of viewers of Jornal Nacional on May 3, 1994, during the coverage of Ayrton Senna's funeral:
“Italy is the country where the man ended and the myth began."
