Why so many more names on the maternal side?
When our Italian and Portuguese ancestors traveled from their home lands in the late 1800s, they were leaving remote villages where families either stayed in place or only traveled to the nearest town to find a spouse.  This section of our tree splits into four segments and travels to three villages where it doesn't go much farther.  The other side navigates throughout historic New England, Nova Scotia, England, Scotland, and a small segment of  lands in Ireland and Wales.