6)
UNDERSTANDING THE RECORDS
Types of records:
There are several types of records. Within each type, the information contained can
range from clear, detailed and complete, to poor
and spotty. The book
cited above, (i) "A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Italian
Ancestors" gives
examples of Civil Records in Italian, with translations to English.
CENSUS RECORDS were recorded in Italian, and may give information on land
ownership, other property, etc. Generally they don't give genealogic information,
but may help to confirm the identity of an individual found in other records.
CIVIL RECORDS (Registri Stato Civile) were recorded in Italian, and can include Birth (Atti di Nascita) , Marriage (Atti
di Matrimoni), or Death (Atti di Morte)
records. Older records (before about
1870) were handwritten, while more
recent ones were on a pre-printed form (called "boilerplate"), with the names, dates, and other pertinent information
written in the approprate space.
CHURCH RECORDS (Registri
Ecclesiastici) were recorded
(generally handwritten) in
Italian or Latin. These include Baptismal (Battesime) Marriage (Matrimoni)
Confirmation (Cresime) and Death (Morti) records.
INDICES can be invaluable time-savers when looking for an individual whose birth
date (or other important date) is uncertain. .In many cases, each of the
above types of records have a separate Index of the names in the actual record.
The names can be quickly found in the Index, which will indicate the page or
number to see, for the full record.
It should be noted
that these records were not in the familiar form of the Birth Certificates
or Marriage Certificates that are issued today in America. The records
were original documentation of events, kept in a ledger in the town hall or
the church rectory appropriate to the event.
The
participants were not given a "certificate". If a person needed proof
of his birth (or marriage, etc.) for some later activity, he was issued an
extract (estratto) of the record. These extracts gave only the
important details: for example, for a birth, they give the birth date and
the name of the child and its parents' names, without giving
occupations, ages, or an address, as are often given in the original record.
Many American children of immigrants have what they call "Birth
Certificates" or "Marriage Certificates" for their parents, but are
actually extracts. Therefore, much more information may be available
in the original records.
6A) CENSUS RECORDS (To be
added later)
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6B) CIVIL RECORDS
.
Civil Birth Records (Atti di Nascita), in their most complete form, give the following
information:
Town and Province; year, hour and date of
record (not necessarily the same as date of birth); registrar's name and title; name, age,
birthplace and occupation of the informant or declarant (usually the father); name of
declarant's father and whether living or dead at the time of the birth; the year, hour and
date of birth; given and maiden name and occupation of the child's mother (as well as the
name of the mother's father and whether he was living or dead); address where the birth
took place; sex and name of the infant; and the names, ages, occupations, and hometowns of
two witnesses to the registration.
If the declarant was not the father, the names
of both the declarant (sometimes an aunt or a midwife) and the father are given.
The above facts are undersigned by the
registrar (the town mayor, or a councilman or other
official), and by those present who know how to write. Usually, there was a
statement included at the end of the record saying it was signed only by the registrar,
the others not knowing how to sign.
A complete birth record can be
invaluable, because it not only gives information about the child, but from the ages of
the parents and grandparents, their birth years can be estimated. Below is an
example of a typical birth record, in its original form
(click it to enlarge
it), then transcribed in Italian and then translated into English. The
birth information is on the right. On the left is the record number, the child's
name, and (sometimes) Margin Notes, which were
added to the record at some time later than the birth. There will be more about Margin Notes later. Information in black
is "boilerplate", while blue
shows the hand-written entries. Note
that in the example, the record date is April
27, but the actual birth date was given as
April 26.
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Numero 158
Coniglio GaetanoA 1 Dicembre 1912
sposo Alessi Rosa
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L’anno
milleottocento ottantanove, addi ventisette di Aprile,
a ore anti meridiane diece e minuti ___, nella Casa comunale.
Avanti di me Vaccari Pasquale Segretario
delegato con atto del Sindaco del ventiquattro aprile milleottocentoottandotto,
debitamante approvato, Uffiziale dello Stato Civile del Comune di Serradifalco e comparso Gaetano Coniglio, di anni cinquantatre, solfaio domiciliatio in Serradifalco, il quale mi ha
dichiarato che alle ore po
meridiane cinque e minuti ___, del di ventisei del corrente mese, nella casa posta in via Migliore al numero diece, da Carmela Calabrese sua moglie, casalinga, seco lui convivente e nato un bambino di sesso mascolino che igli mi presenta e a cui da il nome di Gaetano.
A quanto sopra e a questo atto sono presenti quali testimoni Barile Vincenzo di anni trenta, solfaio,
e Barile Salvatore, di anni trentasei, solfaio.
Letto il presente atto agli intervenuti si e da me sottoscritte solamente, avendo li
stessi detto di non sapere sottoscrivere.
P. Vaccari |
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Number 158
Gaetano Coniglio
On 1 December 1912
married
Rosa Alessi |
In
the year 1889, on April 27, at 10:00 o'clock AM, in the Public Office.
Before me, Pasquale Vaccari, Secretary delegated by act of the Mayor on 24
April 1888, duly approved, Official of Public Records of the Community of Serradifalco,
appeared Gaetano Coniglio, age 53, a sulfur miner living
in Serradifalco, who has declared to me that at 5:00 o'clock PM, on day 26 of the current month, in the house at via Migliore number10, by Carmela
Calabrese, his wife, a homemaker, according to him,
living with him, was born a baby boy who was presented for me to see, and who was given the name Gaetano.
Present, and witnesses to the above statement, and to this record, are Vincenzo Barile age 30, a sulfur miner, and Salvatore
Barile, age 36, a sulfur miner, both residents of this community.
The present act was read to
those in attendance but is signed only by me, the informant and witnesses having said that
they don't know how to sign.
P. Vaccari |
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Civil
Marriage Records (Atti di Matrimoni) can be confusing. Often there are records of the "solemn
promise to marry", and/or actual records of the wedding. Also, many
couples were first married at the local church, and later (sometimes days later) they were married in the town hall in a civil ceremony, which
legitimized their future children. For this reason, civil marriage records
often had a different date for a marriage than the church marriage records (see below).
Civil marriage records
give the date of the event (in the civil setting), and the spouses'
names, age, and occupation, as well as their "condition": celibe
(previously unmarried male), nubile (previuosly unmarried
female), vedovo (widower) or vedova (widow). If
the person was previously married, the name of the deceased spouse
is given. Also given are the names of the newlyweds' parents
and whether they were living or deceased at the time of their
children's marriage. Occasionally the ages and occupations of the
parents might be given, and in some cases even the names of the
parents' fathers. The records also often give the names of witnesses
to the marriage. These witness could be relatives, providing
further information about the family. Sometimes an enumeration
of supporting documents is given: birth records, death records of
previous spouses, etc.
Copies or extracts of
these supporting ancillary records, called Allegati,
(Attachments) may be available. They vary in their
completeness and usefulness from town to town. In their best
form, they may have handwritten copies of original birth or death
records, or at least extracts.
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Civil Death Records (Atti
di Morte), at
best, give
the name, age and occupation of the deceased, and name of the
deceased's spouse or father, as well as the place of death (but I've
rarely seen a cause of death given!), the name(s), age and address of
those reporting the death, of witness(es) to
the death record and of the clerk or registrar.
If the decedent was a widow or
widower, the name of his/her deceased spouse is given. |
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6C) CHURCH RECORDS
Church
records generally are less detailed than civil records. Often only
the ages of the principles (baptized, confrmed, married or deceased) are
given; thos eof their relatives or sponsors are not.
.
Church Baptismal Records (Battesime) were often in Latin. They are generally handwritten, but follow a
relatively standard form that gives: the year, date, and hour of the record; the priest's
name and title; the time and day of the baptism; the father and his father's name; the
mother and her father's name; the child's sex and name; and the names of the child's
godparents and their relationship to each other.
Below is an example of a typical baptismal
record, a trancription and a translation. The names are Latin versions and may not
be spelled exactly as the actual Italian name. Rather than giving an
actual date of the baptism, often the record says "hodie" (today) or "heri" (yesterday), and the baptism date must be calculated
from the record date. Again, the record contains Margin Notes. Notice that the church record's margin note
gives November 30, 1912 for the marriage date
of Gaetano and Rosa, while the civil record's margin note gives their marriage date as December 1, 1912. This
record gives no birth date, however, some baptism records state
"today I baptized an infant born yesterday", etc., from which the
birth date may be deduced.
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Alessi Rosa
295Sp. il 30 Nov. 1912 con Coniglio Gaetano fu Gaet. |
Die 10 Settembre 1893 Ego Sac.
Michael Montante Terranova, c.s. baptizavi infantam hodie hora 9 natam ab Leonardo Alessi
et Concepta Abate cui impositum fuit nomen Rosa. Patrini fuere Modestus Alessi et Rosaria Tabbone Conjuges. |
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Rosa Alessi
295Married 30 November 1912 to Gaetano Coniglio son of the late Gaetano Coniglio |
September 10,1893 I, Priest Michele
Montante Terranova, High Chaplain, today at 9 :00 hours baptized an infant, daughter of
Leonardo Alessi and Concetta Abate, and to whom the name given was Rosa. Godparents were Modesto Alessi and
Rosaria Tabbone, husband and wife. |
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Church Marriage
Records (Matrimoni)
Church marriage records
give the date of the ceremony, the names and sometimes the ages of
the spouses, their parents' names and
whether the parents
were living or deceased at the time of their children's marriage.
Ancillary records may include publicazione (banns) which the
church posted in advance of the marriage to assure that the
betrtrothed were not otherwise encumbered. Care must be taken
to recognize that the dates of the banns are not
wedding dates. Church records from some towns have the added
information of a family tree, to show the proper degree of
separation between prospective spouses. Second cousins were
allowed to marry, but first cousins required special dispensation.
These charts were rudimentary, and did not give birth dates for the
ancestors, but did show names and relationships. In any event,
an ancestral tree, even a simple one, certainly extends one's
knowledge of the family.
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Church Confirmation Records (Cresime)
Confirmation records
usually
give the name of the confirmed party, his/her parents, the name of the
sponsor of the confirmation, and the priest involved. Often
no ages are given, and
the only date is the date of the ceremony. But confirmations were usually performed
when the child was an early teen-ager, so an approximate birth date can be
determined, as
well as secondary proof of the parents' names.
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Church Death Records (Morti)
Church death records also give limited
information, but can be helpful. At their most complete, they give the name
and age of the deceased; the names and status (whether living
or dead) of the parents of the
deceased; and the name of the spouse, if any. Cause of death is
given
only in rare cases.
Below is the church record of death of my
grandfather, Gaetano Coniglio. The entire page from the ledger
is shown. The title of the page is LIBER MORTUORUM 'Book of
Deaths'. At the upper left is the page number, 79. In
the left margin are record numbers for each decedent, along with
the name of the deceased and the first name of his/her father.
Only the first name of the father is given in the margin, since
since both men and women kept their birth surname throughout their
lives, so including the
father's last name in the margin would have been redundant.
My grandfather's death record is the last
on the page, N. 169. Click
the document to enlarge it.
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LIBER MORTUORUM
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N.
169.
Coniglio
Cajetanus
Raimondi |
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Anno Domini Millesimo Nongentesimo
10
Die
11
Mensis
Oct.
Coniglio Cajetanus f. def.
Raimondi et
Mariae
Messina. Viduus
M. Carmelae
Calabrese
aetatis suae
74.
In communione
S. Matris Ecclesiae
animam Deo reddidit,
cuius corpus
sepultum est
in Coemetario communi. Confessario probato confessus
die
santissimoque
Viatico refectus
sacri Olei unctione ro-
boratus
per
die
In quorum fidem --- Ego
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The abbreviations above are: |
f. ~ filius
(son)
def. ~ defuncti
(the late)
M. ~ Maria
S. ~
Sanctis
(Holy) |
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BOOK OF DEATHS
======== |
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N.
169.
Gaetano
Coniglio
of
Raimondo |
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Year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred
10
Day
11
Month
October
Gaetano Coniglio son of the late
Raimondo and
Maria Messina. Widower of Maria
Carmela
Calabrese
his age
74.
whose soul returned
to God
in kinship with Holy Mother Church
, and whose
body is entombed
in the communal Cemetery.
He
was confessed
by a qualified confessor on day
and
was
sent on his sacred
Journey refreshed and
strengthened by holy
anointing Oils
by
on day
According to which faith --- I
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.
Although the last lines were left blank, it can be assumed that the
sacrament of Extreme Unction was given, since the words refectus
and roboratus
were completed by hand.
.
The priest did not
bother to fill in his own name.
.
My great-grandfather's name was Raimondo. The
form Raimondi is Latin for 'of Raimondo'.
.
Similarly,
Mariae and Carmelae are the possessive
forms of Maria and Carmela. .
The record not only gives the date of
death, but names my grandfather's parents and wife, and indicates
that they had died before he did. Searches for their
death records may therefore be limited to dates before October 11,
1910. |
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6D) INDICES
.
Civil or
church records of every form may have Indices. These are tabulations of the acts that were
recorded over some period of time, generally a calendar year. There is much
variation in the indices, depending on the type of basic record, the historical period,
the dedication and neatness of the clerk, etc.
Indices are generally at the beginning
or end of the year's records, but may be reproduced in the middle of a year. A
typical index in a birth record will have all the names of children born in a given year
arranged alphabetically by last name, with an associated record number and/or page number.
Find the person's name, read the associated page and record number (in Italian, "Pagina"
and "Numero d'ordine"), and go to that page and number to read the
actual record.
Sometimes the index will have only
the name of the infant; sometimes it has both parents' names and the child's birth date.
Sometimes, unfortunately, it will be alphabetized by first name, not helpful
if you don't know it and must look at every name in the index! You may have to do
that also if the index is not alphabetized, but just a sequential chronological list of
the entries in the actual record.
Indices often use shorthand
espressions. Giuseppe may be shortened to "Gpe", Vincenzo to
"Vo", Maria to "Ma", etc. If the surname ("cognomen"
in Italian) is a compound name like Lo Guasto, Di Giugno, or D'Amico, it may be listed in
the index as Guasto, Giugno, or Amico. Or, the full name may be spelled out, but
Di Giugno and Lo Guasto may be listed with names starting with "G" and D'Amico
with names starting with "A". |
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6E) MARGIN NOTES
.
Civil or
church records of every form may have Margin
Notes. These are generally notes that a
clerk has added to a record, some time after the record was originally written.
These may include information about marriage, death, or other events involving the
individual for whom the record was originally made.
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| 6F) OTHER POINTS 6F i) Parents' status: Some information can be extracted
from simple sources if key words are noted.
For example, if a record says the mother of a
child is
"Angela Digiugno di
Leonardo" that means she is the
daughter of Leonardo Digiugno, who was living at the time the birth was recorded. If it says "Maria Digiugno fu Leonardo" it signifies she is the daughter of Leonardo Digiugno, who
was deceased at the time of the record.
6F ii) Relationships: If the declarant at a
birth registration is not the father, the record may say something like "Rosa Digiugno, zia del neonato", that is,
"Rosa Digiugno, aunt of the newborn".
This tells you that "Rosa" is the father or mother's sister, and
you can add another name to the family tree.
Since godparents are often relatives of the
baptized child, information about godparents in baptismal records can help trace lineage
and relationships beyond those of the child. The same is true of witnesses to birth
or death records.
6F iii) Naming conventions: Knowing the country of origin's
conventions or rules for naming children can help find or associate people. In Italy
and much of Europe, a couple's first male child was named after the father's father.
The first girl was named after the father's mother; the second son was named after
the mother's father; the second daughter was named after the mother's mother.
Later children were often named after more
distant ancestors, or after aunts and uncles. Sons were infrequently named for their
own father, and when they were, it was usually after the "conventional" names
were "used up", or when the husband died before his wife gave birth. Then
the child was often named for his late father.
A similar and intriguing custom appears to
have been for widowers to name their first daughter with their second wife after their
deceased first wife!
Knowing these customs can help you to confirm
that a certain individual is indeed the grandson of another, since his first name is the
same, etc. The naming convention sometimes produced maddening numbers of cousins
with exactly the same first and last names. But it also kept names "in
the family", so that you can become familiarized with a set of names that are common
within your family, and recognize the names of relatives more easily.
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7) OTHER RESEARCHERS
Thousands of amateur and professional genealogists and researchers have websites. A
new researcher should use the resources of the World Wide Web as much as possible.
Learn how to do "Yahoo!"
or "Google"
searches. Search for a name, a town or a genealogical phrase and often dozens
(sometimes hundreds) of potentially helpful sites come up. Some of these are what I
call "index" or "summary" sites: they may not have information
themselves, but can point you to other sites that do.
Many of the sites you find will be
commercial, that is, they will sell you information for a price. The Mormon
Family History Centers often have computer rooms where users can access the most
popular of these sites for free, allowing you to search for and obtain information on the
census, death records, newspaper obituaries, etc. Try them at the FHC, and
then decide if the price the sites ask is worth it, before you register and pay for
access.
A good example of an "index
site" for Italy is
"Mimi's", which lists Italian and Sicilian towns and sites that
have information on the vital records of those towns.
MORE TO COME
(Last
revision:
29 October 2009 ~ if you have questions,
contact: Angelo F. Coniglio,
GenealogyTips@aol.com) |
