The Search for our Ancestry (LVIII)

Reading Between the Lines

By Angelo Coniglio

Dear readers: I have enjoyed writing for Il Regno for the past five years, and I hope I have in some way helped you to connect with your ancestors. The time has come for me to lay aside my writing tools; this will be my last column. Many of my columns have dealt with researching original Sicilian/Italian church and civil records. For most of our ancestors, who weren’t noble, rich, or famous; who were illiterate and therefore couldn’t record family history, those records are the only bits and pieces of their lives that have been passed on for posterity.  Here is one of those records, my father Gaetano Coniglio’s record of birth. With a little imagination, we can put ‘flesh’ on the document’s bare bones.

In Serradifalco, Sicily, on Friday, 26 April 1889, the sun rose at 5:04 AM and set at 6:39 PM.

But my grandfather, Gaetano Coniglio the elder, never saw it rise or set, because he was down in the bowels of Stincone, one of the local sulfur mines, working to earn a meager living for his wife Maria Carmela Calabrese and their family.
 
Maria Carmela had borne him eight children, but Raimondo, the eldest, had left for Argentina, and three others had died in infancy, including little Leonardo, three years earlier.

Gaetano had entered the mine long before sunrise, and as the hour approached eight in the evening, he packed his gear and made the long, slippery climb out of the mine. He trod on footholds barely carved in the rock, slippery from the sweat of the labors of the carusi, the mine-boys who toiled all day, carrying the raw sulfur to the furnace outside the mine.

The moon was new, and invisible, but even so, as he left the black mouth of the mine, the starlit sky shone like dawn by comparison.  His cumpari, pick-men like himself, were the brothers Vincenzo and Salvatore Barile.  They accompanied him as he walked the three miles to his humble home at Via Migliore number ten.  Like them, he was virtually exhausted, but his thoughts were about Maria Carmela.  She was in her final days of pregnancy, and it had not been an easy one.  He knew that his only daughter, thirteen-year-old Maria, would not only be tenderly caring for her mother, but also would have a bowl of hot minestrone ready for him when he arrived, perhaps even with a shred of the lamb they had relished on Easter, the previous Sunday.

But as he approached the corner of Via Roma and Via Migliore, he saw Maria anxiously pacing there.  When she spied him, she ran to him, shouting "Papà, Papà, sa veni, sa veni, lu bambinu arrivà!" (Papa, Papa, come sir, come sir, the baby boy has arrived!)

He and his friends hurried into the building, scattering the family livestock kept on the ground floor - two hens, a rooster and one remaining lamb. Gaetano rushed upstairs to the living quarters to see Maria Carmela calmly suckling a red-cheeked, black-haired cherub.  A stoic who did not often show his emotions, Gaetano laid a tender hand on his wife's cheek and muttered "Ha fattu beni, cara."  (You've done well, dear.)

Carmela took the praise demurely, and jokingly responded "Unn'ha statu? Era natu a li cincu. Iddu già sapi parlari!" (Where have you been?  He was born at five o'clock.  He already knows how to speak!).

The rest of the evening, into the early hours, was spent by Gaetano and his friends 'Cenzinu and Turiddu in an alcove of the living area, made somewhat festive by the decorations and baskets of palms that Gaetano had woven two weeks earlier to celebrate Easter.   The cumpari nursed a small skin of wine that Turiddu had magically produced from his pack, while Gaetano sang the praises of his new son, not omitting the fact that he had fathered the child at age fifty-three!  Home-made bread dipped in the wine helped to sustain their revelry, as his friends cried "Tanuzzu, tu puru ha fattu beni!"  (Gaetano, you, too, have done well!)

The night deepened, and they realized they must return to the mine that morning: each found a warm spot on the floor and napped as best he could, while Maria tended to the needs of her mother and her new baby brother.

As Saturday morning approached, the men shook themselves awake, grabbed crusts of bread and their packs, and began the walk back to Stincone.  Dawn was staining the sky, and they approached the mine with trepidation.  The mine owner was Mastru Licalsi. They called him 'Mashu Babbu', 'Master Dummy'.  He was standing arms akimbo in the mine's entranceway, and he berated them for being late, threatening that he would dock them for the lost time.

Emboldened by his new fatherhood (and perhaps by last night's wine), Gaetano retorted "Go ahead, and while you're at it, you can dock me for a half-day, because this morning, I'm taking my son to the municipiu to have his birth registered!"
  
Before Mashu Babbu could sputter a response, 'Cenzinu and Turiddu piped up "You can dock us, too, because we're going as his witnesses!"  And they turned on their heels and trudged back into town.

So it was that at ten that morning, 27 April 1889, 'Cenzinu and Turiddu, with Gaetano gingerly cradling his baby boy, took the short walk to the town hall on Via Duca di Serradifalco.
 
Gaetano presented the child for Town Secretary Pasquale Vaccari to see, while a clerk recorded the details:

"Your name?" - - "Gaetano Coniglio" 

"Age?" - - Gaetano, with obvious pride, replied "Fifty-three!" 

"Occupation? - - "Sulfur miner." 

"Date and time of the birth?" - - "The twenty-sixth of this month, at five in the afternoon." 

"Address?" - - "Via Migliore number ten." 

"Mother of the child?" - - "Carmela [her common name] Calabrese, my wife." 

"What do you name the child?"

There was a rigid naming convention in Sicily, requiring the first and second child of each gender to be named after their respective grandparents.  This tradition had already been met with Gaetano's earlier children, so he responded "I'm not likely to have any more sons. I'll give him my own name, and the name of my grandfather: Gaetano."

"Have you brought witnesses to this registration?" - - "Yes, my friends Vincenzo and Salvatore Barile. They're sulfur miners, too."

"Can any of you write?" - - "If we could write, would we be sulfur miners?"

It may not have happened in exactly that way, but who can say it didn't?  The clerk wrote down only the names and dates as reported by my grandfather.  The ‘meat’ of the story comes from my heart.

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 www.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.

The Search for our Ancestry (LVII)

Names, Names, Names

By Angelo Coniglio

Over the past few years, several of my columns have dealt with the importance of our ancestors’ names, when researching their important records to extend our family trees. Because I continually receive questions about Sicilian and Italian given names, surnames, nicknames, ‘maiden’ names and so on, I’ll recap, with some details I’ve more recently learned about each of those types.

I’ll begin with the earliest presentation of names, those in sacramental church records, made before the time that ‘civil’ record-keeping began in Sicily and the northern duchies and civil states of the Apennine peninsula (that is, before the early 1800’s). The sacraments involved were baptism, chrismation (confirmation), marriage and extreme unction. Because extreme unction is the sacrament administered just preceding death, these latter church records are termed ‘death records.’ The earliest church records (as early as the 15th century), and in many cases those to this day, were written in the official church language, Latin. Here are points to remember about names in Latin records:

‘Given’, or ‘first’ names are usually different than they are in the Italian language. The Latin for Giovanni is Joannes; for Felice it’s Felix; for Orazio, it’s Horatio; for Vincenza it’s Vincentia; Grazia is Gratia, and so on. This is more the case for masculine names, where virtually all have differences between Latin and Italian. Many feminine names are the same in Latin and Italian: Maria, Angela, Rosa, etc.

Surnames or family names are usually the same in Latin as in Italian.

Given names vary with the usage of the name in the record. A marriage record for Antonio Russo, son of Angelo, e. g., would list Antonius and Angelus (the declarative forms) in the margin, but the actual record would say the groom was ‘filius Angeli’, where ‘filius’ means ‘son’ and ‘Angeli’ means ‘of Angelus’.  The ‘i’ ending on a masculine name that normally ends in ‘us’ is the ‘genitive’ form, carrying the meaning ‘of’ or ‘from’. For feminine names ending in ‘a’, the genitive ending is ‘æ’, usually handwritten to look like an uppercase ‘E’. So ‘filius Mariæ’ means ‘son of Maria’; ‘filius Rosæ’ means ‘son of Rosa’, etc.

A potentially confusing aspect of Latin names is that in many cases, they are different from the corresponding Italian names, but the same as the eventual ‘Americanized’ name. The Italian name ‘Giuseppe’ is ‘Joseph’ in church Latin; ‘Michele’ is ‘Michael’ in Latin; ‘Felice’ is ‘Felix’ in Latin; and ‘Elisabetta’ is ‘Elisabeth’ in Latin. See my web page at http://bit.ly/LatinGivenNames

Once civil records were kept for births, marriages and deaths, they were written in the official language of the region. Even though there was no nation known as ‘Italy’ prior to 1861, the official language was Italian. Many descendants of immigrants knew their nannu or nanna only by the short family-used versions of their Sicilian/Italian given names. A brief list of these follows. For more, see http://bit.ly/ShortenedSicilianNames

It’s important to search original records using the correct ‘proper’ name, as shortened names were never ‘official’. Also, often the diminutive forms of many feminine names were used by families. Angelina, Rosina, Concettina (little Angela, little Rosa, etc.) would be Angela, Rosa and so on in official records. Be open-minded. Don’t say “That “Angela” can’t be my grandmother, her name was Angeline.”  

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 www.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.

The Search for our Ancestry (LVI)

A Flood of On-Line Records

By Angelo Coniglio

A belief of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (‘LDS’ or ‘Mormon’) is that reunion with family and ancestors in the afterlife is possible if those ancestors are properly identified and included in one’s ‘family tree’. This has led the church to find and record documents from all over the world, including birth, baptism, marriage and death records, as well as other ‘vital statistics.’ These documents were photographed or photocopied and reproduced in miniaturized form on microfiche or microfilm. A microfiche is a small (4 in. by 5 in.) sheet of celluloid that can hold many miniaturized images. A microfilm is similar, with the images on a roll of celluloid film. The microfilms have ‘still’ images of records, not motion pictures. Both 16 millimeter and 35 millimeter film was used. A magnifying viewer is required for both fiches and films, and usually such viewers are dual-purpose. 

Eventually, microfiches were phased out, and microfilm was the main resource for researching the records compiled by the LDS. These were available for rental to anyone (including non-Mormons) for a small charge, and once they were shipped to local Mormon Family History Centers (FHCs) they were viewable there for free, to any patron. The microfilms are organized by city or town of origin, then by civil or ecclesiastic records, then by year and type. The research approach was to determine one’s ancestral town, then order the microfilm for that town for the year(s) of interest and the type of record to be searched (civil birth, marriage or death, church baptism, etc.).

In recent years, the LDS church began uploading images of the records held on microfilm to its on-line site, www.familysearch.org and currently, all but a .few Sicilian and Italian records are available, to one degree or another, on line. This was done because of the ephemeral nature of microfilm: it won’t last forever. Before further discussing online images, the terms involved should be understood:

Digitizing is the process of scanning an image (whether from a sheet of paper or from a microfilm) and reproducing it in electronic format that can be stored on a computer, viewed, transmitted, etc. When you scan a photo that was made ‘the old-fashioned way’ with photographic film and printed on paper, and store that image on your computer or post it on Facebook, etc, you are ‘digitizing’ that photo. The LDS has on microfilm over 3.5 billion images of individual records that had to be digitized.

Once a microfilm film and its records are digitized, the images can be made available on line. These images, obviously, are in Italian, and researching them is no different in principle than scrolling through a microfilm. Image enhancement does make some of the records clearer than those on the original microfilm. To make searches less difficult, the LDS is in the process of ‘indexing’ these on-line images.

Indexing requires a person (in this case one of many volunteers) to view an image of each record and to enter summarized information in a predetermined format that can then be ‘searched’ by users. For example, from a detailed birth record, the indexer might record the birth date and place, the child’s name and the names of its parents. Then a researcher (you) can go to the desired town’s records on the familysearch site and enter, say, the child’s name to see the transcribed information, in English, often with a link to the image of the actual original record.

Using indexed material may make it easier to find information, but I recommend that even if indexed, you should always view the original record if possible. There are at least two reasons for this: 1) only bare-bones information is indexed. The summary of a birth, for example, won’t give the father’s age or occupation, nor the street address where the child was born, nor other facts that may be seen only on the original record; and 2) the indexed record is a secondary record. Someone has read the original and entered information as he/she interpreted it. Dates, names and places may be incorrect, because of the unfamiliarity of the indexer with the original language or handwriting. Often these errors mean that when you search by name, the record can’t be found, only because the indexer has misspelled the name.

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 www.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.

The Search for our Ancestry (LV)

I Know Nothing

By Angelo Coniglio

In previous columns, I have discussed general approaches for finding ancestral information. I want to take a different tack, using a case study. I see innumerable remarks in my email and in response to my genealogy columns that go something like this. “I know nothing but my father’s name. He said he was born in Sicily. Can you help me find my ancestry?” 

My usual response is “I’m sure you know more about your father. When was he born? Where did he live? What was his occupation? What were the names of his siblings, in order of age?” The reader responded: “My father’s name was Calogero Montante. He was born in about 1913 in Sicily and lived in Rochester, New York in the 1940’s, marrying my mother Marie. He was the eldest, and his siblings, were Leonard, Raymond, and Carmela. He worked in a glass factory. But I know nothing about his ancestry.”

That’s not a lot of information, but neither is it “nothing.” Start with the most recent information, wary of misspellings. I looked for the Montante surname in the 1940 U.S. Census for Rochester, on Ancestry.com, familysearch.org and other venues. In the census, taken on 1 April 1940, I found a Calogero ‘Montanti’, age at last birthday 50, born in ‘Italy.’ That’s the right name, but he would have been born in about 1890, not 1913. However, in addition to his wife Rose, the census lists children Leonard, Raymond and Carmela. The sons were born in Pennsylvania, and the daughter in New York State. This looked like the right family. A son Calogero wasn’t listed, but being the eldest, he may have lived elsewhere in 1940.

In the U. S., “Charles” is commonly used for “Calogero.” I searched the 1940 census for “Charles Montante” and found one, born in ‘Italy’, age 27 (born about 1913), a mechanic in a glass factory, with a wife Marie and two children, at a different address from the other ‘Montanti’ family. I then searched for the family in the 1930 Census, and found “Charlie” Montante, age 40, with wife Rose and children “Charles,” age 17, Leonard, Raymond and Carmela. The 1940 Census gives no immigration information; while 1930’s states that “Charlie” Sr. immigrated in 1913 and had been naturalized. 

Continuing back in time, and since the censuses said some of the children were born in Pennsylvania, I searched the 1920 U.S. Census for that state. I found a Charley ‘Muntanti’, age 30, an alien born in ‘Italy,’ living in Pittston, PA with wife ‘Rosy’ and sons ‘Charles’, Leonardo and Raimondo. So the elder Calogero immigrated in about 1913, and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen sometime between 1920 and 1930. None of the censuses gave any birthplace details except ‘Italy,’ (‘Italy’ included Sicily). Usually no town or city is named, unless the immigrant was from a major city like Rome. Now, one of two approaches might work. Knowing that Calogero Sr. was naturalized between 1920 and 1930, we could search for his naturalization records. These would give his date and place of birth, date of immigration, the ship’s name, his U.S. address, and the names and birth dates of his family members. Such records are not that easy to find, but may be held at a County Clerk’s or local court office.

Another avenue is to search for the ship’s passenger manifest of Calogero Sr. Records are available on-line on familysearch.org, Ancestry.com, and ellisisland.org. I searched, and found a record for Calogero Montante, emigrating on the SS Berlin in May 1913 at age 24, traveling to his brother Antonio in Pittston. The name of the closest relative left behind was Calogero’s wife Rosa Latona, in the town of Occhibanna, Sicily. It also gave Occhibanna as Calogero’s last place of residence and birthplace.

Knowing the critical piece of information, the ancestral town, the next step was to find Calogero Montante Sr.’s birth record. Records for many towns are available on Ancestry.com, familysearch.org & on the official Italian ‘Ancestors’ site at http://bit.ly/ItalianRecordsPortal. 1890 is the approximate year indicated by Calogero Sr.’s age in the census and passenger manifest. His name wasn’t in the 1890 birth index for Occhibanna, so I checked 1889. He was born on 26 April 1889, confirming the report in the 1 April 1940 census: “50 at his last birthday.” The birth record gives his father’s name and age, his mother’s name, and a margin note stating that Calogero married Rosa Latona in 1912. Starting with this information, earlier records were located that extended the reader’s family tree back to the early 1800’s with the names of many of his g-g-g-g grandparents, back to the early 1700’s. All from ‘nothing.’ 

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 www.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

The Search for our Ancestry (LIV)

Finding Living Relatives

By Angelo Coniglio

Frequently, readers make requests like the one below, with minimal information about the ancestors they wish to research. In these cases, it’s impossible to give detailed answers, but the general process is addressed in my answer, applicable for anyone searching for their ancestry and for living relatives in Sicily or Italy.

Q: I expect one day to take my daughters to Sicily, in hopes that I may find living relatives of my family. I would love to take my girls to the place where their family history originated. Is there any advice that you may give me?  I have a search started but I have come to a dead end. Where do I go from here?  

I would also love to put people’s names to the faces in my parents’ photo albums. I have gotten just so far and am at a dead end on photos, as well. I think I have come across something in Sicilian records, but I'm not sure if what I have is correct. How do you know if what you even have is the right thing? 

A: Without knowing more details (names, dates, places), or where your "dead ends" occur, or what your research skills are, it's difficult for me to give you any specific advice. When you ask "Where do I go from here?" what I need to know, is where is "here"?  How far have you gotten? 

If your goal is to find living relatives in Sicily, there are two major things you must do.

1) Determine the exact town from which your ancestors came; and

2) build as complete a family tree as possible, identifying not only your direct ancestors, but their siblings and the descendants of their siblings (that is, their collateral relatives).

These two efforts are intertwined, and to some extent, one depends on the other. Family photos are wonderful to have, but they don't provide much help in genealogical research. Further, very few of our ancestors in the 1800s had the means to be photographed. Here's how to proceed. I'll use your paternal side as an example, but the same process should be followed for your maternal side.

Find your father in the 1940 U. S. Census. If he was born after 1940, find his father in the 1940 census. To find censuses, you can search on-line on Ancestry.com or the free Mormon site familysearch.org. Federal censuses were done every ten years, and some states also had periodic censuses. Keep working back to earlier censuses until you find your ancestor listed with his parents, and so on, until you find a census that indicates when the earliest immigrants came to the U.S. Unless the immigrant came from a large city like Rome, the censuses give only limited information about origins, like ‘Italy’ or ‘Italy South’.

Search passenger ship manifests for the immigrants, using the information developed from the censuses. These manifests are available on line on several venues, for example ellisisland.org, familysearch.org and Ancestry.com. Passenger manifests often gave the name of the town in Sicily where the immigrants lived or were born. If that fails, try to find family records that indicate the town, or go to the county clerk in the place in the U.S. where they lived, and inquire about their naturalization papers. If found, those papers should name the town of origin.

Once the ancestral town is known, using the resources of the Mormon church, in on-line sites or at a physical Family History Center (FHC), find the microfilms or on-line venues that have birth, marriage and death records for that town, and begin searching for the records of your ancestors. This must be a step-by-step process; find one generation at a time, then find the records for that person's parents, then his or her parents, etc. As you find information, record it and develop a 'family tree'. Include siblings if you can find them, for each ancestor. The best way to build a tree is by entering the data in a computer program that will organize the information and allow you to print family tree charts, list of descendants or collateral relatives of your ancestors, and so on. Such programs are available to be ordered on-line for $30 or so and downloaded to your PC. It is possible to ‘build’ family trees on on-line venues such as Ancestry.com, familysearch, MyHeritage, etc. but I STRONGLY urge you to build and maintain your primary tree off-line on your PC, where it is completely under your control. If you’re not computer-literate, your local Mormon FHC has charts and forms on which you can manually record your tree and family information.

When you have completed the family tree as far as possible, and knowing the ancestral town, when you visit Sicily you can go to the town's municipio (town hall) and parish rectory and ask if they know of any families with the surnames in your tree. These may not be the surnames of your father or mother, because some of your ancestors' female relatives would have descendants with other surnames; - they're still your relatives. You can also check local telephone directories for familiar surnames. Once you meet the potential relatives, show them your family tree. If they recognize someone in it as their ancestor, you will have found a living relative!

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 helpful 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

The Search for our Ancestry (LIII)

Fathers and Mothers

By Angelo Coniglio

As early as 1805, Atti di Nascite, or Civil Records of Birth, were recorded for births of all children in the Kingdom of Sicily (lu Regnu, in Sicilian), which ranged from Abruzzo and Napoli on the Apennine Peninsula to Messina and Palermo on insular Sicily. These were called Napoleonic records because they adhered to the format prescribed by Napoleon’s Civil Code, and were adopted even in states where Napoleon did not rule. They were also instituted at about the same time in the peninsula’s northern duchies and principalities, but were less uniform there because of the varying political authorities.

By 1820, the Kingdom of Sicily had become The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but still comprised all the territory of the original Regnu. In that year, the entire nation adopted uniform, preprinted forms for the civil registration of all births, marriage contracts and deaths. These forms were in use until 1866.  The civil birth forms recorded the vital birth information on the left, and on the right acknowledged a report from the local parish, saying that the child had been baptized. The civil marriage documents were not ‘marriage records’ as such, but gave the vital details of the betrothed, again with a section on the right, noting when the marriage actually took place at the church. The actual marriage record was produced and retained by the church.

Due in part to the political upheaval of the ‘unification’, civil records from 1867 through 1874 were completely handwritten. In 1875, shorter pre-printed forms were introduced. Both the handwritten and new pre-printed forms generally followed the Napoleonic format.  However, something went missing.  The ‘unification’ resulted in a schism between the new civil authorities and the church. Church properties were appropriated and disbursed among civil jurisdictions or private venture capitalists. Civil records now made no mention of the church or sacraments.

In the most general case, newborn infants were presented for civil registration by the child’s father, to a Town’s Uffiziale dello Stato Civile (Official of the Civil Status). The father would give his name, occupation, and street address, as well as the gender of the child, and state that the child was born of himself and his wife [Name and Surname], and he would state the name that the child was given. In some cases, a midwife or female relative would present the child and give the name of the mother and that of the father, explaining why he could not attend. For certain births, the midwife (or even the mother herself) would present a child, give its mother’s name, and state that the father was ‘ignoto’ (unknown) or ‘incerto’ (uncertain!). In the latter cases, the child kept the mother’s surname.

There were numerous cases in which a midwife or receiver of foundlings would present a child and say that it was found on a doorstep or in the town’s foundling wheel, and that both parents were unknown. Such children were given concocted names, often with a fanciful given name, and a surname meaning ‘castoff’ or ‘foundling’.

And then there were cases where a man would present a child and say that it was born of ‘suo unione naturale con una donna, non minore, non maritata, non parenti, ne affine con lui nei gradi che ostano al riconoscimento, che non consente essere nominata’ (his unwed union with a woman, not a minor, unmarried, not a relative and without consanguinity that would proscribe such union, who does not wish to be identified). What? The father of the child was known, but not the mother?

Having a child out of wedlock was a ‘vergogna’, a disgrace, not only to the woman, but to her family. Having her name officially recorded would magnify that disgrace. Obviously, the man knew who his child’s mother was, as did the whole town, probably, but she was not officially shamed. It may be that in some cases, these were simply reports of children born out of wedlock, where a man protected the honor of his paramour by not naming her.

However, just as likely was this situation: a couple married in church but did not have a civil ceremony. Civil authorities did not recognize church marriages. They were illegitimate, as were any children born to the couple, and those children were so reported in the civil birth records. Again, the mother was not named, to protect her ‘official’ identity. There were scattered instances of feisty women who probably said ‘damn the torpedoes’ and not only appeared at their child’s registration, but had their names recorded, most likely thinking “I was married in church, so there!”  But for her children to qualify to inherit property, or for her to eventually be named on the children’s marriage records or passports, she would have to, at some point, marry in a civil ceremony. That would record the children’s names and dates of birth, and declare them legitimate, by power of the civil marriage.

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 helpful 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

The Search for our Ancestry (LII)

‘Birth Certificates’ – NOT!!

By Angelo Coniglio

I have written about this subject before, but as more and more descendants of Sicilian and Italian immigrants strive to identify their roots, I see increasing requests for their ancestors’ “birth certificates”. And I can’t say it often enough or clearly enough: in the 1800’s and early 1900’s, Sicilian and Italian families did not receive birth certificates when their children were born!

On the day of a child’s birth, or a day or two later, the child’s father (‘il dichiarante’, the declarant or informant) or his representative physically carried the newborn to the ‘Casa Comunale’, the Town Hall, and presented it to a village official who was authorized to act as the ‘Uffiziale dello Stato Civile’ (Official of the Civil Status) of the town. This official might be the ‘Sindaco’ (mayor), ‘Assessore’ (Councilman), ‘Segratario Comunale’ (Town Secretary) or another elected or appointed official.  That official took the informant’s declaration before two ‘testimonii’ (witnesses) and had it recorded by a clerk in two large registers of ‘Atti di Nascite’ (Records of Birth). Of these identical registers, one was kept (to this day) in the ‘Anagrafe’ or town Registry Office, and one was sent to the ‘Tribunale’, the Magistrate of the Province in which the town is located. This second copy was then filed permanently in the Provincial Archives.

Years later, if the child or his family needed proof of his birth (say for a marriage) they would go to the Town Hall and ask for the information. The clerk would look up the Birth Record and copy key information from it onto an ‘Estratto Certificato dello Atto di Nascita’: a Certified Extract of the Record of Birth. When uninformed descendants ask for a ‘birth certificate’, often this extract is what they receive. Translated, an example reads thusly:

Certified Extract of  the Record of Birth
From the 1873 Register of Births, Part 1, Record 195
Surname: Aquilina     Given Name: Gaetano        
Date of Birth: 23 August 1873
Father: Calogero Aquilina
Mother: Concetta Lombardo
Issued this day, 1 April 1897 in Serradifalco
by Luigi Antonio Saito, Town Secretary, Official of the Civil Status

Now, here’s a complete translation of the actual Atto di Nascita:

Record 195
Gaetano Aquilina
Year 1873, day 23 of the month of August at hour 15:00 Italian Time in the Town Hall. Before me, Antonio Prizzi, Secretary of the Town of Serradifalco, Environs and Province of Caltanissetta, delegated to fulfill the function of Official of the Civil Status for the records of birth and of death by the Mayor of this Town, by act of 18 March of this year; has appeared Calogero Aquilina (son of the late Pasquale), age forty-six years, occupation sulfur miner, domiciled in Serradifalco, who has presented to me an infant of masculine sex who he declared was born at hour 17:00 Italian Time yesterday, of his wife Concetta Lombardo, daughter of the living Giuseppe, according to the declarant domiciled in their home located in this Town of Serradifalco at Via Crucillà number 9, to which son he gave the name of Gaetano.

This declaration was made in the presence of Sebastiano Valenti (son of the late Vincenzo), age 28 years, and of Calogero Diforti (son of the late Moise) age 30 years; both sulfur miners residing in this Town, witnesses chosen by the declarant, and after having been read this record, inscribed on two original registers, it is signed only by me, the declarant and the witnesses having said that they don't know how to write.
[signed] Antonio Prizzi

Note that the extract not only leaves out many important details, it gives the wrong date of birth! The birth was reported on 23 August 1873, but the record itself states that the birth was ‘yesterday’, or 22 August 1873’. The clerk who filled out the extract made a common mistake and assumed the birth date was the same as the record date. The extract is a secondary record, the Atto di Nascita is a primary record and gives the correct date.  The moral: don’t settle for an extract!  

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 helpful 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

The Search for our Ancestry (LI)

Missing Records – Continued

By Angelo Coniglio

Here are a few more examples of dealing with Sicilian and Italian records with data gaps.

Missing years in original civil records. These gaps may exist for several reasons. The records that have been microfilmed by the Mormon church were usually copied at the archives of the province in which the town of interest is located. When these documents were originally recorded, a clerk made hand-copied duplicates, one of which remained in the town’s permanent register, while the other was sent to the provincial ‘tribunale’ or magistrate’s office, and later placed in the provincial archives. Portions of these copies in the provincial capital may then have been damaged, lost or destroyed due to civil unrest or natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes.

In such cases, there are some options for filling in the gaps. Because the provincial records are duplicates, the original records in the town ‘Anagrafe’ (registry offices) may still be complete. This would require that you write to the town, visit it, or have a representative do so. If you choose to write, surface mail is generally more successful than email. Mailing addresses for most municipalities can be found on line. Be as specific as possible about the records you seek, and if you want the full, detailed civil record of birth, marriage or death, ask for a ‘copia integrale’ (verbatim copy), otherwise, you’re likely to receive an ‘estratto certificato’ (certified extract) which, though officially confirming an event, bears much less information than the full ‘Atto di Nascita/Matrimonio/Morte’ (Record of Birth, Marriage or Death).

It’s also advisable to include a check or other instrument of payment. “How much?” is a common question. My advice is to send whatever amount you are willing to lose if your request is never answered. $25 or $30 is a reasonable amount. Remember that municipal offices are often under-funded and short-staffed, and their primary mission doesn’t include doing genealogy for foreigners. 

Missing data in one venue, not in another. When records were made available on LDS microfilm, that required them to be viewed at the Mormon data center in Salt Lake City or by their rental for viewing at local Mormon FamilySearch Centers. Now, however, virtually all Sicilian and Italian records are available for free on familysearch.org; many are also on the free Italian ‘Antenati’ (Ancestors) archives site antenati.san.beniculturali.it/?q=gallery; limited records are also available on the subscription site Ancestry.com.  

The years of record and the towns included in these on-line venues vary with the sites and the towns and eras represented. Some carry records only after 1865 and before 1911; some have records from 1820 and as recent as 1940; some cover only selected towns, some cover many more. You may be fortunate to find, say, 1866 – 1910 civil records for your town on Ancestry.com, but the 1895 death records are missing. This may be simply the result of omissions by the computer indexer and may be included on other venues. Look on familysearch.org or on the ‘Antenati’ site, and you may find them. Also, the familysearch.org and ‘Antenati’ images are generally clearer than on Ancestry.com or even on the original microfilms, so if a record exists, but is illegible on one venue, it may be more readable on another.

Non-existent civil records. In some cases, due to disastrous events, civil activities either were not recorded or the records were lost, sometimes shortly after their creation. One or more years of record may be missing, never to be found, and they may be missing from both the town registry and the provincial archives. However, though less detailed than civil records, church records may exist for the period that’s missing from the civil record. Microfilms were made of church records for many towns, and these, too may be available on internet venues. If your ancestor’s 1832 civil birth record doesn’t exist, try to locate the ecclesiastical record of his/her baptism, which will usually also indicate the date of birth. Marriages and deaths were also recorded by the church. As with civil records, if the record you seek isn’t on-line, you’ll have to request it by mail or in person. In this case, however, you must contact church, parish or diocesan authorities, not the civil offices. 

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 helpful 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

The Search for our Ancestry (L)

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

The Search for our Ancestry (XLIX)

Being A Good ‘DNA Relative’

By Angelo Coniglio

AncestryDNA recently announced that over two million folks have had their DNA tested on that venue. The numbers of participants in the testing venues 23andMe and FTdna and others also continue to grow, as well as the transfers of raw DNA data to the GEDmatch.com site. 

Many participants in DNA testing do so to expand their family tree and the knowledge of their ancestors. That was my main reason for having had my DNA tested. There are many exceptions. Some need to find out critical health information that may help them understand their propensity for a given hereditary medical condition or disease. Some may be adopted, or children of unknown fathers, and want to know their biological families. And some want no more from DNA testing than to know general information about their ethnic heritage: for example, do they have Amerind or Jewish, or French ancestors?  In these latter cases, DNA testees may be protective of their identity and wary of making information about their own heritage generally available.

But of those who have tested primarily to increase their knowledge of family do themselves a great disservice by being chary of the facts they make known in their respective DNA testing venues. Here’s why.

Many participants in DNA testing have the mistaken belief that the results of a single DNA test, their own, will somehow provide a complete family tree with names and dates of birth, death, etc. of direct ancestors and collateral relatives. This is never the result, at least not from the person’s DNA test in and of itself. The value of genealogical DNA testing is in its ability to match DNA between two or more participants, give an estimate of the general relationship between them, and make it possible to collaborate with relatives designated as ‘DNA matches’ (relatives, a portion of whose DNA matches portions of your DNA).

Different venues use different techniques to make this possible. AncestryDNA shows the general ethnicity that it has calculated for any person who is a ‘match’. If that person has a family tree on Ancestry.com, and if the tree is ‘Public’ (viewable by others), the tree and a separate list of participants are available to view. 23andMe doesn’t utilize family trees, but it allows users to include in their ‘profile’ information like numerous ancestral surnames, towns of origin, and current residence. It provides ‘chromosome mapping’, a chart that shows which portions of your DNA matches others’. ftDNA utilizes features similar to those of 23andMe, plus it allows family trees to be posted. ftDNA also offers ‘projects’ like the ‘Sicily Project’; groups that can share posts regarding their ancestry. GEDmatch is not a testing site, but collects ‘raw data’ from users of the other venues and puts them all in one data base, enlarging the pool of ‘DNA relatives’. It too, provides chromosome mapping, even more detailed than that of the other venues, allowing graphical comparison of DNA with everyone in the system who has a match with you. It also allows uploading of your family tree. 

The ideal interaction between ‘DNA relatives’ in any of the testing venues would be: You see a ‘match’ and go to his/her profile.  It shows the person’s ancestral town(s), a list of ancestral surnames, and/or a pedigree chart (family tree) of direct ancestors. You see names, dates or places that are familiar to you, possibly even some that are in your own tree.  You contact the ‘relative’ privately through the message system of the venue, or in the case of GEDmatch, by using the email address that the ‘match’ has provided. The person responds and you compare notes, family memories, etc. to develop the ‘paper’ relationship you have with him/her.

The problems with this seemingly straightforward approach are many: 1) your ‘matches’ don’t provide any ancestral town or surnames in their profiles; 2) they don’t have a family tree on-line; or 3) if they do, it’s not ‘public’; or 4) if their tree is public, a great many of its members are marked ‘private’, reducing your ability to recognize known relatives; or 5) whether they have a full profile and tree or virtually none, they don’t respond to your invitation to discuss your relationship. The result can be dozens of relatives who match DNA with you, but whom you will never get to know, and they will miss out on all the information you may have on their ancestors.

So, if you have had your DNA tested for genealogical reasons be a good ‘DNA relative’. To increase your chances of finding voluminous family information that you did not previously have, take my advice: upload your family tree to the DNA venue and make it public; include your ancestral villages and surnames in your profile, and most important of all, RESPOND when contacted by someone whose DNA matches yours.

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

The Search for our Ancestry (XLVIII)

Translation Hints

By Angelo Coniglio                                                    

Beginning researchers often assume that all Sicilian and Italian records repose with ‘the church’, and ask how churches can be contacted for the records.  But there were and are two separate sets of records generally available: 1) church, or canonical, sacramental records; and 2) civil records of life events.  Perhaps it’s obvious that church records are kept in churches and parish or diocesan archives, but civil records are not. Rather, they are permanently stored in the towns of origin, with duplicates at provincial centers. Church records, some available as early as the 1300’s, record the administration of sacraments: battesime (baptisms), cresime (chrismation or confirmation), matrimoni (marriages), and morti (extreme unction). Civil records, instituted in the early 1800’s, by order of or inspired by Napoleon’s ‘civil code’, give dates and details of nati (births), pubblicazioni or notificazioni (marriage banns of proposed marriages), matrimoni (marriages), cittadinanzi (changes of address), and morti (deaths).

Marriage records show perhaps the greatest differences between church and civil records and their transformation over the decades, as well as insight to church/state politics and their effect on the public. Before the early 1800’s, there were no civil records, since the church held both spiritual and worldly authority. Early church marriage records were written in Latin, as were all records of sacraments. The records were kept in sequential church registers. Each clerk had his own methods, but usually there was an index covering ten to twenty years, before each set of records. These indices would generally be roughly alphabetical by the first letter of the groom’s surname.  But sometimes they were alphabetical by the first letter of the groom’s given name, and you must remember the Latin forms of the names: Aloysius for Luigi, Joseph for Giuseppe, Hieronymus for Giralomo, Philillipus for Filippo, etc.

No marriage ‘certificates’ or ‘licenses’ were given to the participants. Church marriage records gave the date of the marriage and reported the dates of three consecutive feast-day masses at which the proposed marriage had been publicized. Then the title and name of the officiating priest was given, followed by the name of the groom, his father, his mother and whether they were living or dead at the time of the record. Next, the same information for the bride. If either betrothed was previously widowed, that was noted. Normally, the town of the marriage was not specifically mentioned, but rendered as ‘here’ or ‘this land’, unless one of the principals was from another town, which would be listed. The record gave the names of one or two witnesses to the sacrament and stated that the couple pledged their troth and were joined in marriage before the holy church. Although some men might be called ‘Magister’ (Master) or ‘Dominus’ (Don), no ages, occupations, or detailed residences were noted.

When civil record-keeping was started in the early 1800’s, a record that was instituted then, and remained in use until after 1860, was the Atto Della Solenne Promessa di Celebrare il Matrimonio (Record of the Solemn Promise to Celebrate Matrimony), or what we would call a ‘Civil Marriage Contract’.  Though some call this a ‘marriage record’ it is not. These documents, in Italian, are ‘split’ records, where facts about the participants are listed on the left. On the right is a notation that the actual marriage, as reported by the pastor, took place in church on a given date. The date of the ‘Promise’ may be a day or two before the marriage date. The contract was filed in the permanent civil registry of the town (the Anagrafe). The marriage record, as before, was kept by the church and was the official, binding document.

The four-page civil marriage promise used from about 1820 – 1860 has much more detail than the church marriage record. It gives the date of the contract and of the marriage; the name, age, occupation, birthplace and residence of the groom; his parents’ names and status (living or dead); and the same information for the bride. Often the ages of the parents, if living, were also given. In addition to the names of two witnesses to the contract, the record lists all the documents in the Allegati, or ‘attachments’ to the civil matrimonial file, typically: the birth record of the groom and the bride; the death records of parents of the betrothed; death records of any previous spouses of the bride or groom; and copies of the marriage banns. Those records are held in a separate file, but sometimes the list gives actual dates of births, deaths, etc. and names of the principals. The signatures of any attendees at the contract registration who knew how to write (a relatively rare occurrence) are at the bottom of the marriage promise.

Then came the creation of a nation that did not exist before 1860: The Kingdom of Italy, which unified former northern city-states and duchies. It subsumed Sicilian lands and their records, from Abruzzo and Napoli south to Messina and Palermo, while breaking the hold of the church over the administration of law. Church holdings were taken over by the state, and church marriages were no longer recognized as ‘legitimate’. In 1875, this led to new Atti di Matrimonio (Civil Records of Marriage) with no mention of the church, and the requirement that whether they were married in church or not, a couple had to be wed in a civil ceremony for the marriage and any children resulting from it to be legitimate.

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

The Search for our Ancestry (XLVII)

Spelling Bee

By Angelo Coniglio

Researchers of Sicilian and Italian genealogy are blessed by the wealth of original records of birth, baptism, marriage and death that may be found for many ancestral towns, on microfilm or on line. Often those original records may have misspellings, or valid variations of given names or surnames. In many cases, misspellings by English-speaking clerks went unrecognized by illiterate immigrants, and the misspelled name became the ‘official’ name of the person and his descendants. In today’s computer-centric records, errors in spelling are often due to mis-reading and mis-transcription; for example, by enumerators on original censuses. And when using search engines on sites like ellisisland.org, familysearch.org or Ancestry.com, spelling mistakes by indexers can make searches maddeningly difficult.     

I can’t possibly cover every spelling error by every clerk or indexer, but I’ll address some common ones here.  The names initially given below are the names as they would have been spelled on original records in ‘the old country’.  When I spell something phonetically, I am using English phonetics.

GIUSEPPE (joo-SEHPP-ee) and GIUSEPPA (joo-SEHPP-uh) are the masculine and feminine forms of the English the given name Joseph. These are very likely the most misspelled names of any. If you knew your ancestor as Joseph or Josephine, their passenger manifests would probably list them as Giuseppe or Giuseppa (Giuseppina, a diminutive form of Giuseppa, led to the English version, Josephine). The ‘I-U’ in these names is notoriously transposed in many on-line search engines as ‘U-I’.  If you have no luck with the proper spellings, try ‘Guiseppe’ and ‘Guiseppa’. Note that these are not valid variations, but misspellings of the names. Another error is the spelling of Giuseppe as ‘Giuseppi’ or ‘Guiseppi’.

The surnames GIUDICE (JOO-dih-chee) or Lo GIUDICE literally mean ‘judge’ or ‘the judge’.  ‘Guidice’ or ‘Lo Guidice’ have no meaning, but try those spellings if the correct ones don’t lead to success.

The surname TAGLIAFERRO means ‘cuts iron’, but often was pronounced and spelled ‘Taliaferro’ and even ‘Tolliver’.  The name may be given on an original U. S. Census as ‘Tolliver’, but if the individual is Sicilian or Italian, the name on the passenger manifest and ancestral town records would be Tagliaferro.

CASTELLO is a surname meaning ‘castle’.  But pronounced in the Italian language it is ‘kah-STELL-oh’, so it may be misspelled ‘Costello’ on American censuses.

IPPOLITO, IANNELLO, IACONO and other surnames beginning with an upper-case ‘I’ may confuse indexers to no end. This is because the script ‘I’ is mistaken for a ‘T’ or a ‘J’, or a ‘G’, etc.  Researchers of Italian descent will immediately recognize that ‘Tppolito’, ‘Jppolito’, ‘Gppolito’ and so on, are unpronounceable and non-existent Sicilian or Italian surnames, but you will find them indexed that way! Also, names like Iannello and Iacono often were spelled phonetically by census enumerators, and became forevermore ‘Yannello’ and ‘Yacono’.

MARCELLO is an interesting surname. It’s properly pronounced ‘mar-TCHEHLL-oh’ (‘cello’ as in the name of the stringed instrument), so many enumerators thought it should be spelled ‘Marcello’. But ‘Marchello’ is pronounced ‘mar-KELL-oh’ in Italian, so many with the surname Marcello became known as Markello.  

BONGIOVANNI, CALANDRA, and LANZA all contain the letter ‘N’. Written in cursive, a lower-case ‘n’, in certain handwriting, looks like a lower-case ‘u’, so these surnames get transcribed as ‘Bougiovanni’, ‘Calaudra’ and ‘Lauza’. Really!! If your surname has the letter ‘n’ in it, try replacing one or more of them with the letter ‘u’ and search again!

These are but a few of the many naming errors that are encountered by genealogists. Try to familiarize yourself with valid Sicilian and Italian surnames. If there’s a doubt, go to http://www.cognomix.it/mappe-dei-cognomi-italiani which is a site that shows modern-day distributions of the selected surname (‘cognome’ in Italian). For spellings and English versions of given names, see my page at http://bit.ly/SicilianNames 

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