GEN-ITALIAN-L Archives

From: "bobbybats" <>
Subject: Reading Sicilian Birth Records by Frank Arduini
Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2001 00:36:56 GMT

While not the most productive records for establishing
genealogical relationships, the birth records will often be
our first point of connection with the old world. If we are
lucky, we will have the birthdays of our immigrant ancestors
already in hand, and that will guide us to the records we
need. Yet in many (if not most cases) what we believe to be
grandma's birth date will not even be right.
It is very common to discover that an ancestor might have
had his or her birth date wrong by a couple days, or a
couple of years. And that error can cause a lot of problems.
Most difficult will the problem of several people with the
same name, born very near the same time. How do you
determine which is the right one?

The parent's names should be available on your immigrant
ancestor's American death record. If that is unavailable,
pay attention to the names of your ancestor's children, as
Italians will normally name their oldest children after the
grandparents.

But if all you have is a birthday to work off of, a decent
rule of thumb is that "two out of three" is close enough.
The month of birth is far more reliable than either year or
day. So if you find a birth record with the right month and
day but wrong year, or the right month and year but wrong
day, I generally assume that there is a good likelihood you
have located the right birth record. But you still have to
be careful, not all genealogists would agree this is true.

There are always other subtle hints to help increase your
level of confidence, such as the patterns of family names,
professions, and addresses (when available). It also helps
if you're dealing with a smaller family, as the possibility
of duplicate names is lower. Be sure to note when a
connection is only assumed rather than proven.

Now you only have to read the document.

This is a transcribed example of the birth record of my
great-great grandfather from the 1832 vital records of the
City of Monreale, Provincia di Palermo. The Sicilian birth
records are divided vertically into two separate records. On
the left hand side of the page is the "Atto di Nascita" or
record of birth. On the right side is the baptismal record
for the same child. In this example we'll look only at the
left side, or actual birth record. We'll cover the Baptismal
Record separately.

In this example italic text represents handwritten script,
while non-italic represents the typeset, preprinted forms
used to record these births. The numbers in red or green are
not in the original document, but links to explanations of
that part of the form. Let's take a look...


- ----------------------------------------------------------
--------------------

ATTO DI NASCITA
- ----------------------------------------------------------
--------------------
Numero d'ordine due cento quattordici (1)
L'anno 18 trentadue il di
ventisette del mese di Luglio
alle ore quattordici (2)
avanti di Noi Gio. Vincenzo Seggio Sind. Pret.
ed Uffiziale dello Stato Civile (3) del Comune di
Monreale (4) distretto di Palermo (5)
Valle di Palermo (6) e comparso
Tommaso Pizzo (7) di anni
trenta (8) di professione giardiniero (9)
domiciliato in questa comune
a Santo Rocco (10) il quale ci ha
presentato un maschio (11) secondoche
abbiamo ocularmente riconosciuto, ed he di-
chiarato che lo stesso e' nato da Giuseppa
Maria Alario sua moglie (12) di anni
venti (13) domiciliata come
sopra condetto di Pizzo suo marito (14)
e da esso lui dichiarante (15)
di anni come sopra di professione come
sopra domiciliato come sopra
nel giorno ieri ventisei del mese di
Luglio anno sudetto alle ore
venti (16) nella casa di propria
abitazione dei suddetti jugali
di Pizzo ed Alario (17)
Lo stesso ha inoltre dichiarato di dare
al neonato il nome di Benedetto (18)



- ----------------------------------------------------------
--------------------

La presentazione e' dichiarazione anzi-
detta si e' fatta alla presenza di (19) Mr'o
Antonino Florio di anni sessantasei di
professione calzolaio regnicolo
domiciliato in questa Comune
e di (20) Mr'o Salvatore Curcio di anni
trentacinque di professione calzolaio
regnicolo domiciliato come
sopra, piano di San Castrenze
Testimonj intervenuti
al presente atto, e da esso Signor
dichiarnate prodotti
Il presente atto, che abbiamo firmato
all' nopo e' stato inscritto sopra i due re-
gistri, letto al dichiarante, ed ai testimonj,
ed indi nel giorno, mese, ed anno come
sopra, firmato da noi, dal dichiarante a
cai testimonj.
(21)
Gio. Vincenzo Seggio, Sin. Pre.
Tommaso Pizzo
Mr'o Antonino Florio
Salvadore Curcio




- ----------------------------------------------------------
--------------------

Reading the Atto di Nascita

(1) Numero d'Ordine: First off is the "numero d'ordine" or
official record number. Each January 1st the new volume was
started with the number "1," and numbering was continued
until the end of the year, at which time a new volume was
opened, and the numbering began again. This number will bear
no relation to the page number, as a single birth record was
generally two pages long. In this example, the "numero
d'ordine" is "Two Hundred and Fourteen."

(2) Record Date: The first date you encounter is the date
on which this record was physically written. This date can
often be several days after the actual birth date, depending
on the practices of that particular town. Dates are always
recorded with the year first, followed by the day, the
month, and hour . Hours are recorded according to a
twenty-four hour clock in which 1 AM would be "alle ore uno"
and 1 PM would be "alle ore tredici (thirteen)". So in this
case, the record was recorded on L'anno 18trentadue (In the
year 1832) di ventisette (the twenty-seventh) del mese di
Luglio (of the month of July) alle ore quattordici (at the
hour of fourteen o'clock, or two o'clock PM).

(3) Uffiziale dello Stato Civile... The first person's name
you will encounter is the name of the Official of Vital
Statistics who is preparing this record. In this case it is
Gio. (Giovanni) Vincenzo Seggio, the "Sindaco Pretore" or
"Mayor Magistrate." It is Giovanni's handwriting you will be
required to decipher to read this record.

(4) Comune di... This is the Comune (town) in which the
birth has taken place. In this case the comune of Monreale.

(5) ...distretto... This is the District within which
Monreale was recognized as residing in 1832, the District of
Palermo. 19th century districts do not really map well to
modern day provinces, and any effort to make them do so will
be frustrating at best.

(6) Valle di... Under the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
(which was ruled from Naples) Sicily really only had three
provinces; Mazara in the west, Demona in the north east, and
Noto in the south east. Another way of dividing it was by
drawing lines along the three major mountain ridges, and
thinking in terms of the three major valleys that sat
between them. The northern most of these valleys was the
Valle di Palermo. Monreale was within this valley. In later
years the blank for "valle" will be replaced with one for
"provincia." But these will still be different from the
modern provinces of Sicily.

(7) ...e' comparso... A comparsa is "an appearance," and
the name which follows the phrase e' comparso is that of the
person who has traveled to the town hall and "appeared" to
report the birth. Normally (as in this case) this person
will be the father, Tommaso Pizzo. But sometimes it will be
the midwife (levatrice) who delivered the child, or in rare
events a close relative. If it is not the father, you will
find the father's name, age and profession a little further
down in the form.

(8) ...di anni... This is Tommaso's age (30), and usually
this is fairly reliable within a year or two. The age of the
person reporting is at least more reliable than the other
ages on this form, as the other ages often represent a
general guess by the reporter. Consider the ages on this
form as good ballpark figures.

(9) ...di professione... This is Tommaso's profession. He
is a "giardiniero" or gardener. If this profession reads
"levatrice" (midwife) you can be certain that this is not
the father reporting the birth.

(10) ...domiciliato... This here is where Tommaso lives;
Monreale in the neighborhood of Santa Rocca. Sometimes, the
residence will only say "questa comune" (meaning "this
town"). Other times (as here) the record will be more
explicit and name the city section or street on which the
person lives, a valuable clue for later on when you are
trying to assemble families, or better yet, trying to visit
the place of your ancestor's birth.

(11) ...ha presentato un... Here you will find the sex of
the baby. Pay close attention to this, because handwritten
names can often be ambiguous. In this case the baby is a
"maschio" or male, as opposed to "femina" or female.

(12) ...nato da... This phrase means "there was born to..."
and is followed by the name of the mother, Giuseppa Maria
Alario "sua moglie" (meaning, his [Tommaso's] wife). Italian
records always refer to women by their maiden names.

(13) ...di anni... This is the mother's age. Giuseppa was
"venti," about twenty.

(14) ...domiciliata... This is where the mother lived. She
lived " come sopra ," meaning "as above," i.e. "at the same
place as her husband."

(15) ...esso lui dichiarante... If the father is not the
person reporting the birth, this is where you will find his
name, age, profession and domicile. In this case, since the
father was reporting the birth, the blanks for name, age and
profession have been filled in with the "ditto" words " come
sopra " indicating that the information has already been
recorded above in the " comparso " section of the record.

(16) ...nel giorno... Here, the second date encountered on
the record, is the actual birth date of the child, July, 26,
1832 at 8 o'clock PM. The year says " sudetto " which is
another "ditto" word meaning the "same year as this
document." The hour is again measured by twenty-four hours,
i.e. 8 o'clock PM is " alle ore venti " or twenty, while 8
o'clock AM would be " otto ."

(17) ...nella casa... Here is the location of the birth, in
this case in the house of the family Pizzo and Alario, i.e.
the parent's house.

(18) ...il nome di... Here is the name given to the "
neonato " (new baby boy), in this case Benedetto. In some
years, this will be found in the same order, but on the top
of the second page.

Let's turn that page.

(19) ...alla presenza di... Here we find the first of two
additional witnesses attesting to the birth. These witnesses
can often be close friends or family members, but this is
normally not true. In fact, in many Sicilian towns certain
men would hang out at the town hall specifically in the hope
of making a few lire by witnessing such documents. They'd
witness for anybody, even total strangers.

The first of these two witnesses is Maestro Antonino Florio.
The title "Maestro" indicates that he was a Master
craftsman, recognized as an expert by his community. As in
the case of the parents above, his name is followed by his
age (66), profession ( calzolaio or shoe maker) and where he
lives ("in questo comune" i.e. "this town" meaning
Monreale).

(20) The second witness is Maestro Salvatore Curcio, also a
Master shoemaker. He is 35 years old, and also lives in
Monreale, in the neighborhood called the "piano di San
Castrenze".

(21) The only other interesting or important part of this
birth record are the signatures at the very bottom. While
most of the people whose names appear on these documents
will be illiterate, in this case, all the principles (i.e.
the father and both witnesses) were able to sign their own
names. This means of course that on this document I have a
copy of the signature of my 3rd great grandfather in his own
hand. A bonus if there ever was one.

All birth records close with the signature of the Official,
and Giovanni's is the first of the four signatures on this
record. If the witnesses are illiterate he will indicate
that he is also signing for the those witnesses who "non
sapere scrivere," or "cannot write."

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