Primary Records
By Angelo Coniglio
Passports, death certificates, headstones or military records may give a birth date for your ancestor. But all of these are secondary records of the birth. That is, they were made on documents or items created well after a child’s birth, sometimes decades later. Censuses and passenger manifests often give a person’s age, from which a birth year can be calculated. These too are secondary records of birth.
A primary record is one made at, or shortly after, the event it documents. The Italian and Sicilian church and civil records I have discussed are primary records. A person’s birth record put in the town’s permanent register as his father reported the birth, is a primary record. The birth date on the person’s tombstone is a ‘secondary record’: the date was told to someone who inscribed it on the stone, with no absolute proof on the stone that the date is correct. A marriage record from the time of the marriage is a primary record of the marriage; if it gives birth dates, the marriage record is a secondary record of birth.
One source of images of primary records is the Mormon Church, which has made microfilm copies of the original records of hundreds of towns and parishes. They are photocopies of the records, and as such carry the same weight for genealogy purposes. (Unless specifically noted, I am referring to records used for genealogical research. Records needed for legal purposes usually require some type of certification from the original issuing authority.) Microfilms must be rented for viewing at a local Mormon FamilySearch Center (FSC), and for covered towns usually have civil records from 1820 through 1910. The free site https://familysearch.org/ has on-line records for many towns, as does the subscription site Ancestry.com, but generally only for the years between 1866 and 1910. If the information you want is not available on microfilm or on-line, you may have to contact the towns or churches by phone, mail, e-mail, or even by personal visits; or by having a friend or paid representative do so.
Most Italian and Sicilian comuni, or towns, have an Anagrafe (Registry Office) in the Municipio (Town Hall) or nearby. There, the Registri, or Registers, of civil records dating back to the early 1800s are kept, and are available for perusal by the public. Accessibility varies by town. Some will provide photocopies of the records, or allow you to take photos with your own camera. Others do not, and you may have to hand-copy the desired information. For certified proof of a birth (for a fee) the town clerk will provide a stamped estratto certificato, or certified extract. If you are interested in records for genealogical purposes, it’s important to recognize that while it is a legal document, an extract is a derivative record that gives minimum detail: name and birth date of the child and the name of its parents. The actual document, bound in the register, usually gives much more information about the child and its family, and should be copied, even if by hand.
It could be argued that church baptism records are not primary records of birth. Their purpose was religious, recording an important sacrament. But before civil records were kept, the church was often the closest thing to a civil authority, and the only record indicating the existence of a new life was the baptismal record. As with civil records, no “certificate” was given out: the administering of the sacrament was recorded in a register. This gave the date of the baptism and often noted when the child had been born. Besides naming the child, its parents and godparents, and the presiding priest, no other information was given. When the baptism record gave the date of birth, especially before civil records were kept, I consider it to be a primary record of birth. Before the early 1800s, infant mortality was great, and it was church policy to baptize newborns as soon as possible. A baptism record may not prove your ancestor’s exact date of birth, but it does prove that he or she was born, probably within a week of the baptism date.
Church record sources are more variable than civil sources. For some towns, they are on Mormon microfilm, often starting in the 1500’s or 1600’s. In most cases they are kept in individual churches, parish centers, or diocesan headquarters, and must be accessed by phone, mail, or personal visits.
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
