This Brilliant Soprano...

... may be an ancestor. Her father, Salvatore Patti, was a pianist from Catania Sicily, where my own grandather, Anthony Patti, was also born.She sang for Queen Victoria, was awarded the Russian Order of merit by Tsar Alexander and even had a flower named after her by the French, the "Camellia Japonica Adelina Patti."No less than Giuseppi Verdi considered her the greatest singer he ever heard.In 1862, at the funeral of Abraham Lincoln's son, she performed a rendition of "Home Sweet Home" that moved the president and his wife so tenderly, they requested an encore.Here's a very old recording of her singing "Casta Diva" by Vincenzo Bellini from the opera Norma:What draws me so much to Adelina Patti is not the fact that we may be related by blood. Blood doesn't mean that much to me. And I certainly didn't inherit her gorgeous voice. What I love about Adelina Patti is the myth of her, the fact that she's a family legend. I don't think it would be difficult to trace my heritage back to Catania to find out if she and my grandfather shared more than a last name. But I don't want to. I prefer the myth.