is this a name or a title?

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carubia
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is this a name or a title?

Post by carubia »

Here, on the right-hand side, is a marriage record from Ribera in 1891. The 27-year-old groom is "Borsellino Marchese Dima" from Cattolica Eraclea. I'm trying to figure out if Marchese (="Marquis" in English) was his title or part of his name, and if the latter, his surname or his given name.

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/T ... ,349497401

His father was Baron Giovanni Borsellino and his mother was a baroness. I have seen a number of records for this family and the surname is always Borsellino (or earlier Borzellino) and never in combination with Marchese, which is also a normal surname for the area. In the groom's birth record he is Dima Giuseppe Borsellino. So Marchese doesn't seem to be part of his name. But if it were a title, shouldn't it have preceded his surname, as the word Barone precedes his father's in the same record? Moreover, Marchese was a higher title than Barone. Was he promoted already at that age (his father was deceased)?

One further potential clue is that there is a Via Marchese Borsellino in Cattolica Eraclea as well as a Palazzo del Marchese Borsellino, which dates from 1774. Was it named after his ancestor? Were they both barons and marquesses? Did he adopt the name Marchese because of the association with the place? Anyone have any ideas?
carubia
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Master
Posts: 1110
Joined: 25 Jan 2011, 12:13
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: is this a name or a title?

Post by carubia »

I think I found the answer; it appears that they were both barons and marquesses:

http://www.cilibertoribera.it/indexFAMI ... RIBERA.htm

"FAMIGLIA BORSELLINO...
Famiglia di Cattolica Eraclea, possedette cinque ottave parti del feudo di Giardinello, del quale ne troviamo, all’abolizione della feudalità, investito un Gaspare Borzellino a 10 aprile 1808. Egli stesso era stato nel 1802 proconservatore della detta terra di Cattolica e con privilegio dato a 20 settembre esecutoriato a 22 settembre 1812 veniva insignito del titolo di marchese.....Un ramo di questa stessa famiglia Borsellino di Cattolica, nella persona di Gaspare, venne insignito del titolo di marchese, come si è detto sopra. Il nipote di questi, il dottore don Gaspare Borsellino, si sposava con la riberese donna Giuseppa Montalbano, mentre il marchese Dima, si sposava, sempre a Ribera, con Marietta Parlapiano."

That Gaspare Borzellino was the grandfather of the groom on this marriage cert, the aforementioned Dima. We can see that his wife was actually Maria Concetta Beatrice, not Marietta.

It's interesting that his father was only called Barone. Was that interchangeable with Marchese? Or perhaps his father had an older brother who was the marquis, but died without an heir.
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