If you’re lucky, your Italian civil records will be
indexed. But there are ways of working
with indexes to make them more effective in helping you research.
First, let’s review a few facts about indexes. These may not apply to all areas of Italy
but they are pretty similar.
There are times when records are not indexed at all. Even if some years are indexed in your town,
there is no guarantee every year was indexed.
The index pages may be in the front or back of each book and thus they
get handled the most and are most easily destroyed.
And as with all records recorded by human beings, there
are mistakes in the index. Sometimes a
record is not included in the index.
Sometimes it is listed under the wrong letter. Sometimes it is listed under the wrong name. Remember that the index was created after
the entire year was complete and was a clerical job and, like all of us, they
may become more sloppy and careless as they become bored with this menial task.
So what should we look out for when using indexes? It depends on the task. Here are a few tasks and some tips on how to
use the indexes most effectively:
FINDING THE BIRTH RECORD OF AN INDIVIDUAL
If you
know the date of birth, finding the right record does not always require use of
the index since the records are in sequential order. If you do not know the date of birth but you know the year,
search the appropriate year, and if you don’t find it there, search the year
before it. Generally the ages from
death records are not very accurate but ages from marriage records are much
more accurate. But it is not enough
that you find the birth record of Palmo Abbinante son of Antonio Abbinante and
Francesca De Francesco. You have to
determine that it is indeed the RIGHT Palmo.
This Palmo could have died and a younger Palmo, the one that married and
had children, is the correct Palmo. So
you should look for a marriage annotation on the birth record, indicating that
THIS Palmo is the one that married. If
no marriage annotation exists, then you need to find the younger siblings of
Palmo to make sure there are no other Palmos in this family.
FINDING THE BIRTH RECORDS OF ALL CHILDREN IN A FAMILY
This can
be difficult, time consuming, and very necessary. The index may be in first name order, and you have to look for
all first names that have the same surname and parents. The index may not list parents at all so you
have to dig through every birth of an Abbinante to see which ones belong to a
single set of parents. Also be careful
to look for twins and even triplets, especially if using an index sorted by
first name. If you find one child of
the couple, you should go to that record and then check the records both before
and after it to make sure that you found the twin or triplets. You also have to check for possible multiple
births in a single year, such as a January birth and December birth for the
same parents. So you have to continue
to check a first-name index for other children born at a different time of
year. If you are searching the
post-1866 records for all children of a couple, you will have to go through
each record of that surname for the year.
I would suggest keeping a log of each record of the name and the date
and the parents, so that when you decide to search for your grand-uncle’s
children with the same surname, you won’t have to repeat all of your work. Just go back to the log. It is also good to create a log for the
years that are not indexed so you don’t have to search hundreds of records for
that surname again.
If you
suddenly find a long period with no kids for a young couple, then it is
possible that either the father or mother died, or the father or mother
emigrated to America or elsewhere. You
should check the death records to find the father or mother. If you don’t find them, try to find the
father (usually) in the passenger list records. If you don’t find this, just keep checking for children in the
birth records until the mother is well past 40. I have documented cases of children born to 48, 49 and even 50
year old mothers.
FINDING THE DEATH RECORD OF AN INDIVIDUAL
This is
especially difficult if you have no idea when the person died. You have to search each year’s index, year
after year. It is important to find
other information that narrows down the year of death, such as marriage records
of the children. These will list one or
both parents as “fu” indicating that as of the date of the marriage, this
parent was deceased. Save this
information to narrow down how many years of death records you have to search
through. Also, keep in mind that the
person may have remarried and the death record will list them as the spouse of
someone else, so always know the parents’ names of the person you are looking
for in the death records, if possible.
The indici decennale can be very helpful in reducing the number of years
you have to search. Also, since you
already know the name of the person, it is easier to find just the “Francesco
Abbinante” records, and you don’t have to find all the other Abbinantes the way
you do when searching for children in the birth record indexes.
FINDING THE MARRIAGE RECORD OF A GROOM
Since
the marriage indexes are almost always sorted by the groom’s surname, or by the
first letter of his surname, finding his marriage is usually a matter of
figuring out the year of the marriage.
You will have to search each year of the index for the marriage. It is best to find the children first and
then search for the marriage of their parents starting with the year of the
birth of the first child, and working backward. If you don’t know the bride’s name then you must know the names
of the parents of the groom in order to determine that you have the right
Francesco Abbinante as a groom. But it
is very rare for a marriage to occur after children have been born to a couple
in Italy. (If the birth record of one
of the children mentions illegitimacy or “naturale” then it is likely the
marriage occurred after that child’s birth.)
In some cases the couple married in a church wedding (which you won’t
know about unless you have access to church records) and if there was a battle
between the church and state regarding the legality of marriages, the civil
marriage might not have occurred until much later, after children have been
born. And as always, it is more
frequent that the wedding took place in the town of residence of the bride, or
more importantly, the bride’s father.
So if you can’t find a marriage and you have searched a 20-year period,
chances are that the marriage occurred in another town.
FINDING THE MARRIAGE RECORD OF A BRIDE
If you
don’t know the groom’s surname, finding the marriage record of a bride will be
very difficult. Since indexes are
almost always sorted by the groom’s surname, you must know the name of the
groom in order to find the bride’s name next to his, or underneath his. If you are looking for the marriage of a
bride because she is the daughter of a couple you are related to, then you may
have to search through the entire index to determine if this girl (or any girl
with her surname) was married that year.
In pre-1866 indexes, the parents’ names are listed with each bride and
groom so it is easier to determine if the bride is from the right family.
FINDING A SECOND OR THIRD MARRIAGE
This is
no different than finding a first marriage, except for how you determine the
year. In this case, remarriages usually
occur very quickly after the death of the previous spouse. Sometimes 3-6 months is the accepted time
between widowhood and remarriage, especially if there are young children in the
family that need to be provided for.
The delay can be longer if the spouse that died was not in Italy at the
time and it took a long time to get word back to the widow in Italy. The delay can also be longer if both bride
and groom are much older and their children are all married or moved away.
CONCLUSION
We are lucky to have indexes. The larger the town, the luckier we are! Sometimes indexes are not even necessary when the town is so small that only 5 marriages occur each year. But for the rest of us, it helps to understand how the indexes work so we can spend less time looking and more time finding!
© 2002 Daniel
E. Niemiec – may
not be reproduced or republished without written consent except for personal
scholarship