Church Baptism Records
 |
| 1889 baptism record of Gaetano Coniglio |
By Angelo Coniglio
Early baptism records of Italian and Sicilian churches are not as detailed as civil birth records. Before the early 1800’s civil birth records were not kept, and even afterwards, civil records may have been lost to natural or man-caused disasters like earthquakes and war. In these cases, baptism records may provide valuable information. Even when civil birth records exist, I like to augment them with other corroboration, and baptism records can provide this “back-up”.
“The church” meant the Roman Catholic church, and the overwhelming majority of Italians were of that faith. The language of the church was Latin. Though later records were kept on pre-printed forms with fill-in blanks, earlier records were completely handwritten. The quality of the records depends on locality and the education and ability of the cleric who recorded them. Sometimes priests were not well-educated; their handwriting can be excruciatingly difficult to read, and their “Latin” may be classic and correct, or a mixture of Latin and Italian with contractions and abbreviations. Further, paper and ink were scarce, and records were generally in small script, jammed together to conserve those valuable commodities.
What we call “baptismal certificates” were not used in those days in Italy and Sicily. The baptisms in each year were recorded sequentially in a permanent register or ledger. Use of indices was not as common nor as organized as for civil records. Every few years (as many as ten or more), the clerical scribe, usually the parish priest, might go over the records, number the pages sequentially, and make a rough alphabetical list of names with corresponding pages where the records appeared. Because of the age of these records, often the edges and corners are now worn and ragged, so that the numbering is hard to read at best, and at worst, eroded away. In some cases the records must be searched page by page. Records for some towns are available on Mormon microfilms that can be rented for viewing at a local FamilySearch Center or even on-line. In most cases they are kept in individual churches, parish centers, or diocesan headquarters, and must be accessed by mail or personal visits.
Early baptism records were more “free-form” than Napoleonic civil records, but they were similar across Italy and Sicily. The date was given; the name of the priest; the parents of the child; the child’s gender and given name; and the names of the godparents and their relationship to each other. Sometimes, only one godparent was named, usually of the same gender as the child. Godparents might be relatives of the infant. If a birth date was given, it normally wasn’t as an actual date, but in reference to a child born “today” or “yesterday”. Abbreviations included “f” for filius or filia (son or daughter); “Sac” for Sacerdote (Priest); and “Pp” for Patrini (Godparents). Given names were in Latin: “Phillipus” for Filippo, “Vincentius” for Vincenzo, etc. Possessive forms of names were used: “Domenici” means “of Domenico”; “Rosae” means “of Rosa”. The surname of the father is not given, as it is the same as the child’s.
Below is a transcription of a typical baptism record, that of my father, Gaetano Coniglio. The original was completely handwritten. The baptism was recorded in Latin, while the margin note on the right is in Italian. “Sp.” is the Italian abbreviation for “Sposò” (Married), and “912” is the Italian abbreviation for the year 1912. An English translation follows. The original record is at http://bit.ly/1889BaptismRecord. The civil marriage date given on my father’s birth record (from my December 2013 column) is different than the date indicated below, because according to local law and custom, a marriage performed only in church was considered illegitimate, as were any offspring, by civil authorities. The couple also had to be married in a civil ceremony, usually within a day of the church wedding.
Coniglio is the author of the book The Lady of the Wheel, inspired by his Sicilian research. Order the paperback or the Kindle version at http://bit.ly/SicilianStory. Coniglio’s web page at http://bit.ly/AFCGen has helpul hints on genealogic research. If you have genealogy questions, or would like him to lecture to your club or group, e-mail genealogytips@aol.com.
