Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Understanding the Records

The civil birth record abstracted below was very typical for this time period and offered few surprises. It was on a pre-printed form with the appropriate information filled in. 

The father’s age was given but not the mother’s. They do not outright state this family lived in a hamlet, as often seen when this is the case. However, it is intimated when they give a street name and not a house number. Homes in a hamlet were often not numbered.

 Birth Record of Santo Tricarico

"Number Sixty-four
Santo Tricarico

Santo’s birth was reported to the town hall in San Martino di Finita on 16 October 1886 at 10:00 a.m. Reporting his birth was his father, Pietro Tricarico. Pietro was twenty-six years old [born about 1860], a farm laborer, and resident of San Martino.

He declared that the male child he was presenting was born on the 13th of the current month in his home on Via Santa Maria [house number blank]. The child’s mother was Rosaria Corno, his legitimate wife, with whom he resided. Rosaria was noted to be a seamstress.

The child was given the name Santo. The witnesses to the presentation and declaration were: Pietro Lombardo, age sixty, and an onion seller as well as Domenico Pazzia, age sixty, and a farm laborer. Both of the witnesses resided in this town.

Pietro Tricarico was literate and signed at the bottom of the record. Both of the witnesses were illiterate."[1]





[1] San Martino di Finita, Cosenza Province, Italy, “Registro di Atti di Nascita [Register of Acts of Birth], 1886”: record 64, birth record of Santo Tricarico; FamilySearch microfilm #1,640,602.

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