[William Tell 2]

My name does mean "three wives." The dean of my college told me it was derived from the Muslims who conquered Sicily (my ancestral homeland). They were allowed to marry four wive yet never more than three at one time.

[Verginius Rufus]

The Muslims conquered Sicily in the 9th century and then the island was conquered by the Normans starting in 1072. I doubt that many present-day surnames date back to that era (before 1072), and I've never heard of Muslim men being restricted to three wives at a time--the rule was four at once, but it was easy to divorce one of them, and men could have "concubines" in addition to the four main wives.

Given the short life expectancies and the hazards of childbearing, it wouldn't have been that unusual for a man to have two wives in succession die young and then marry a third one...I know of two ancestors in the US who married for the third time because their first two wives had died (one in the late 18th century, the other in the early 20th century). That may be a more mundane explanation of the name Tremoglie but I would guess more likely.

Sicily is beautiful. I've been to Siracusa and Palermo.