Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

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jllaf
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Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by jllaf »

I found the baptismal record for my great grandmother from 1861 in Ferrandina, Basilicata. It says "figli de' conjugi" which I believe means "from the conjugation of", meaning parents, and then gives her mother's name, but no father's name. Instead, it says "projetta la nutricia". Does this mean instead of her mother, what's listed is the name of a wet nurse? How common was this? Is this the end of the line for me to trace this part of my family?

Thank you

John

LaFianza/Pucciarella/Pucciarelli/Avoria
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maestra36
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by maestra36 »

The word proietta (the i is sometimes written as a j in the records) is a female abandoned child. Is there any way you could upload a copy of the record to the forum for us to look at it. I have never seen an abandoned child's record written the way you are describing.

Child abandonment in Italy was a very common occurrence which had been going on for centuries. Most of us, unfortunately, have at least one ancestor who was abandoned as an infant and do then hit a dead end in researching that particular line back in time. My paternal grandfather was abandoned as a 1 day old, but was then reclaimed by his supposed natural parents when he was 2 years and 10 months old (an uncommon occurrence to be reclaimed), and both of his parents, as well, were abandoned when they were a day old Their names were invented by the town official and no one else in their town had their surnames.

See if you can upload a copy of the record.
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jllaf
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by jllaf »

I will be very happy to upload the file but do not know how - not a technical computer person. Can I send you an e-mail???

Thanks,

John
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Tessa78
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by Tessa78 »

Hello John,

You can upload the file to this forum using www.imageshack.com
Many have found it fairly simple to use. :-)
No need to register or anything...

Use the link above, click browse to find your file on your computer.
Click upload ...
Then copy the "Direct Code" link and paste it in your post!

T.
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jllaf
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by jllaf »

Here's the doc (I hope).

I have a loose translation but would appreciate an exact one if you don't mind.

Many thanks,

John

http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/5691/petraglia2.pdf
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liviomoreno
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by liviomoreno »

Maria Filomena was a foundling (=Projetta) and was grown (la nutrice è) by Leonarda Petraglia. Parent's name are unknown.

This is the translation

Ferrandina, the 29th of September 1861, at 6:00pm.
Fedele Bitonti, Mayor and Civil State Officer of this town, notifies the Parish priest of the church Santa Croce, that today at 6:00pm he has inscribed the birth act of Maria Filomena Pronio (sp?), foundling, born the 28th of this month at 4:00 am, the nurse is Leonarda Petraglia.
The writer, while submitting this document to the parish priest of Santa Croce,asks that the document be returned with a note indicating the day the bay girl was baptized, in order to adhere to the law.
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by adelfio »

Livio is the town the wetnurse lived Corleto Perticara and if would there be anymore info in atti divesi records.
Marty A
Researching Trabia, Palermo surnames Adelfio, Bondi, Butera, Scardino,Rinella, Scardamaglia

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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by liviomoreno »

Where did you read Corleto Perticara?

The nurse, Leonarda Petraglia, lived in Ferrandina, in a place called xxxxx del Purgatorio. (There is a Church with this name in Ferrandina).
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by maestra36 »

could the capital V with the possible attached "e" up in the air be an abbreviation for the word viale?
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by jllaf »

A few questions:

I have learned that the local mayor would give a fictitious name to foundlings. The name given to my great-grandmother is "Filomena Pronia/Provia/Pronio/Provio". What is the translation of the surname?

If I went to Ferrandina and visited the church listed on the document, is it possible they would have a separate record and possibly more information?

It's odd that I found this record at all because I was looking for data on my grandfather's side from his home town in Ferrandina, but Filomena is actually my grandmother's mother, and the family she would have married into later were from Potenza. Did people move around back then and was it likely that she could have traveled the 77km from Fernandina to Potenza?

Since Leonarda is named as "brides mother" on Filomena's marriage cert in NYC, is it likely that Leonarda would have raised her all the way to adulthood?

I found one other record in the US that contains the name "Leonarda Petraglia". She is listed as the mother of the groom (Domenico Laraia) on a separate marriage cert in NYC. Because there is a groom's father's name (Paolo) listed can we assume that Domenico is the natural son of Leonarda and not adopted? There is a separate Laraia connection to my grandmother's side that I am reasearching, so I know that these two Leonardas are one and the same.

Thanks again,

John
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by maestra36 »

John
If no one else answers your questions first, I am going to try to do so, but I am doing each question as a separate post, because I have a great deal to say. In answer to the translations of the surnames-

As far as I can tell, there are no specific translations of the possible surname(s) assigned to your ancestor by the town official, although the surname Pronio might come from the Italian word prono, or proni in the plural, which means "being in a prone position or laying on one's stomach." Sometimes surnames assigned to abandoned children reflect their "abandoned" status-such as a surname given to a child that my one great grandfather found roaming the streets in his Sicilian town. The child was given the surname "Celato," which in Italian means "hidden." In the case of my own paternal grandfather who was a foundling, I found that the town official was simply varying the spelling of surnames of the children whose birth records were in Part II of the year in which he was born. All had surnames started with the letter V, and the first few letters following the initial letter were the same, and then he varied the endings of each surname, so that no two were alike.The surnames had no translation in English. Sometimes surnames like Trovati, or Trovatelli, or Esposito, were common in towns, but these all indicated the child's status as being a foundling, so a lot of towns started shying from such surnames
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by maestra36 »

As to getting a church record-

Church records, as a rule, seem to have less information than the state civil records. At least the ones I have seen have. I would expect the baptism record to read that the child was of unknown parents. The name of the wetnurse would probably not appear. There would be a godparent(s) name or names, but you might find that the same godparent, especially the godmother, served as godmother for all of children whose baptism records are on the same page from the parish's book of baptisms. Often the godmother was the midwife who had delivered the infant.
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by maestra36 »

As to people moving around-I actually found it was quite common for males to move from one town to another. Men often had to travel to other towns for work and, as a result, were sometimes away from their families for long periods of time. Women, however, were more protected and didn't, as a rule, travel to other towns, at least not alone. If a woman was pregnant, however, the family might make arrangements for her to leave her native town and live with a midwife in another town, until the time when she would then give birth. A family though would have had to have had some financial means to do this. Most of the peasant families did not.

The midwife, in such a case, would then make arrangements for the newborn child of the unwed mother to be abandoned. She would be the one who would bring the infant to the local convent, or local institution, which took in foundlings. Most often, however, women abandoned a child in their native towns. Some towns had established convents or other institutions which had a “wheel,â€
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by jllaf »

Many thanks. As you suggested, it's looking like my grandmother's father would have traveled down to Ferrandina from Potenza and met my grandmother's mother there and not the other way around. Makes sense.

You are a wealth of knowledge and generous with your time for which I am most grateful.

John
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Re: Birth Record - "Projetta la nutricia"

Post by maestra36 »

John,
Here's the last bit of info on your last question-

Your last question is the most difficult to answer. On my own paternal grandfather’s NYC marriage record from 1913, he listed the first name of his father as Giovanni, which at the time made sense to me, as my dad was John and his oldest son. However, I already mentioned in one of my posts above that this grandfather was a foundling. Now his natural parents did reclaim him when he was almost 3. He had been given to a wetnurse when he was abandoned at a day old. But the man who married his mother 6 weeks after his birth, and came forward with her and attested to the town notary that he was the natural father, was not named Giovanni. The only Giovanni I could find was the father-in-law of his wetnurse and several sons born her, who also had been given the name Giovanni. So, quite frankly, I am not that trusting concerning the veracity of the information on these NYC marriage records. Obviously, as an Italian immigrant, he did not have to prove who his real parents were. It may have been a clerical error on the part of NYC, but it’s too suspicious in my case. In your case, the natural mother may have been the wetnurse who raised your ancestor. Or the groom may just have just established a special bond with her and considered her his mother, even if she never formally adopted him. The man listed as his father may or may not have been. It’s impossible to say.
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