Filling in the ‘Gaps’
By Angelo Coniglio
Often in our research of Sicilian or Italian ancestors, we find that though records do generally exist for our ancestral town and historical period of interest. But the specific record for a person or date that we are most interested in, is missing. Examples abound, some of which are reviewed below
Civil records that don’t extend back far enough: In the northern city-states, duchies and principalities of the Apennine Peninsula, prior to the existence of any nation called ‘Italy’, civil records of birth, marriage and death (nati, matrimoni, and morti) were initiated in the Napoleonic era, some as early as circa 1805. In mainland Sicily, from Abruzzo and Naples to Calabria, civil records began around 1815, and on insular Sicily, they began uniformly in 1820. Before those dates, our recourse is to ecclesiastical (church) records, which were basically records of the administration of the sacraments: baptism (battesimi); chrismation or confirmation (cresime); marriages (matrimoni); and extreme unction administered at death (morti).
Unfortunately, in some cases church records are missing for several years (or more) just prior to the start of civil record-keeping. A case study is in order. My grandfather Gaetano Coniglio was born in 1836 in Serradifalco in the Kingdom of Sicily, on the island of Sicily. On his civil birth record, his father Raimondo Coniglio’s age was given as 30, meaning that his approximate birth year was 1805 – 1806; and his mother’s name was given as Maria Messina, age 24 (born in about 1812). Both births occurred before the advent of civil records. Church records exist for Serradifalco, but there is a gap in them from 1790 to 1820, so there are no baptism records for my years of interest. How could I extend my tree to ancestors prior to my great-grandparents? Well, even though their birth or baptism records are missing, records of marriage or death usually give the names of the parents of the espoused or the deceased. My grandfather was born in 1836, so there was good reason to believe that his parents were married after the start of civil records in 1820.
So I started with 1836 and worked backwards until I found the 1830 record of the civil ‘Promise to Marry’ (Promessa) of Raimondo Coniglio and Maria Messina. It is not strictly a marriage record, but a marriage contract. But it gives the ages, occupations and birthplaces of the prospective bride and groom as well as the names of the parents of both. It also shows whether their parents were living or deceased at the time of the marriage. Thus, I added a full generation of ancestors to my ‘pedigree’, or family tree. If the civil records had been missing, I could (and did) search for the church marriage record. Though not as detailed as the marriage contract, it gives the names of the parents of my great-grandparents.
What if my ancestry had been such that my great-grandparents had been married before the start of civil record-keeping, or if both the civil and church marriage records were missing or unavailable? That’s where morti (death records) come in. My great-grandparents both were living in 1836 at the time of my grandfather’s birth. I could search civil and church death records starting with 1836 and moving forward, but they might have lived to be eighty or older, meaning I could have to go through fifty or more years of records. We can usually estimate someone’s birth or marriage year, but folks die at random, making death dates more difficult. Here, we can use records of other people; specifically, the children of those we are researching. My grandfather was not the only child of Raimondo and Maria. Some ‘sideways genealogy’ revealed at least nine other children. One, Mario, was born in 1851. Another, Antonio, was married in September 1857. That record states that his father Raimondo was deceased on that date.
That shortened the time span in which I had to search for Raimondo’s death records: between 1851 and September 1857. I found his civil death record, dated 3 February, 1857. It states that his father was the late Gaetano Coniglio, his mother was the late Giuseppa Montalto, and that his wife was the living Maria Messina. These names had been given in the previously discovered marriage record, but if that record had been unavailable, this death record would have served to properly identify them. I followed the same process to find Maria Messina’s death record, which similarly confirmed the names of her parents and spouse.
You can see the records discussed above, in original form and translated, by starting at my grandfather’s page at http://bit.ly/Gaetano1836. To see his ancestors’ records, click on the ‘up arrow’ in the upper left corner.
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 him at genealogytips@aol.com
