ATTI DI MATRIMONIO IN REGGIO DI CALABRIA

[mezzogiorno62]

tough one. looking for 2 marriages in reggio calabria (comune) time frame 1809-1837. nothing here in this time period is indexed unfortunately. 1. atto di matrimonio for antonino labate and grazia ieraca ca.1809-1827 2. atto di matrimonio for paolo labate and maria politano ca.1819-1837. i'm using these time frames as their children,who married in reggio in 1859, were born ca.1827 (paolo labate son of antonino and grazia) and 1837 (fortunata labate daughter of paolo and maria politano). i allowed nearly 20 years of time prior to each birth. somecouples had many children over a great span of years. also very confusing as there are so many labates, especially paolos. apparently paolo labate was a very common name in reggio calabria. but these are all different paolo labates. any help in finding these marriages most appreciated.

[Primo Mattino]

All the marriages of Reggio from 1809-1865 are indexed on my website. (by the way, untill 1864 it was just Reggio and not Reggio Calabria).
You will encouter the surnames Labate also as Labbate, L'Abate, L'Abbate, Abate, Abbate and Ieracà as Jeracà, Jiracà, Ijracà, Jracà, and Iracà.

[mezzogiorno62]

thanks very much. most appreciated. i'm just going through these films on www.antenati. this should make the search much easier. i did find both marriages. antonino labate & grazia ieraca nov.1817 and paolo labate & maria politano nov.1826. i went to www.antenati to view the originals. the 1826 marriage i found but the 1817 marriage appears to only be indexes with no documents. confusing.

[mezzogiorno62]

checked the www,antenati site for the nov.1817 marriage in reggio di calabria for antonino labate & grazia ieraca. that year appears to only contain indexes but no actual records. do the actual records exist? makes no sense. i also checked family search and found nothing there. i need to go to the original record. any help most appreciated.

[Primo Mattino]

The French imposed the registry office in 1808 and started it in 1809. Between 1810 and 1818 they were beaten back several times and in those years the registry office was not kept. In Reggio in particular, they thought they were getting rid of those French capers, but when the Ancien Regime returned, they thought the registry office was not a bad idea at all and continued it. Bad luck for the municipalities that stopped, because they had to make up for the lost years in 1824 with the help of the parish registers and all municipalities that had missing years between 1809 and 1818 had to complete the civil status with the data from the parish registers. The data is called the Lista Suppletoria. If you want to see the acts for these years, you have to search the parish registers. I also indexed them as far as they are still present and they are also on my website. It's a lot of searching, but that's the nice thing about genealogy.

[mezzogiorno62]

been doing this for 20 years. at 72 time is running out. the long tedious searching is a thing of the past. fun and interesting years ago. now more about doing it as quickly as possible to preserve for the future generations. lots online today. not back in the day. the family search films were it. that and letter writing to archives and parishes. now much more is available. so theres no actual civil entry for the 1817 time period other than the index? as this is 200 years ago theres no possible way to know what parish the marriage was in. i've found over the years parish records,while the only source for records before civil registration,often are even harder to decipher than the civil records,and often contain less genealogical information. in 20 years i've only been able,through countless letter writing and even sending donations,to obtain only 1 parish record. an 1803 marriage record from lapio in avellino. sent to me by the parish priest. and its virtually illegible. many have tried and failed to decipher it. not simple translate but actually decipher. faded and almost totally unreadable. thats why,over the years,i don't put as much effort into parish records. problem is,if you want to extend your search beyond civil registration,1809 on the mainland and1820 in sicily,theres nothing else. my problem was big age gaps. regarding my paternal italian ancestors. my grandmother was born in barcellona pg messina in 1883. ignoti genitori. major problem. it appears her wetnurse and caregiver was possibly her birth mother,as no marriage seems to have existed for the nurse and her husband. if the parents werent married the child was written off as being of unknown parents. the mother was born in gualtieri sicamino/soccorso in 1847 and the "husband" was born in palermo in 1851. and these are only possible parents. if there had been a legitimate marriage i might have been able to go back at least another generation. my paternal grandfather was born in luogosano avellino,a very tiny comune,in 1870. his father was born there in 1815 and his mother in 1830. they married there in 1852. see the big gaps? these are only my great grandparents,and theyre born 200 years ago. their parents,my 2nd greats,were all born before civil registration. so the most i could get besides my grandparents birth records was the births of my grandmothers possible parents,with no marriage,and the births of my grandfathers parents,with the marriage and their deaths. little more beyond that.

[Primo Mattino]

We're peers so I know what you mean. On the other hand, I realize that what we do will never end anyway and therefore I don't think about reaching the end goal. When I started digitizing the parish registers of the area where I live a little more than 10 years ago, after 4 heart attacks, I never thought about completing it. Now that it is almost ready until about 1820 (the time when the registry office is reasonably complete and effective), I am planning to start indexing the notary protocols. I made a rough calculation about how long it will take to index all 6438 protocols that are in the Reggio Calabria state archives and I arrived at approximately 160 years (if no one come in to help me). However, I will not be discouraged by that. But to the point.
In my index of the year 1817 I mention the parish where the marriage took place. If the relevant register still exists, you can find the marriage in the index at the relevant parish at http://www.benvanrijswijk.com/fontigenealogiche.htm. On the website of the diocese of Reggio Calabria and Bova http://www.archiviodiocesanoreggiobova. ... rocchiali/ you can find the photo of the corresponding deed. The deed can be difficult to read, that was one of the reasons for making the indexes, but nothing else can be done about it and yes the content is very often not as complete as that of civil status certificates.
I know that the situation in Sicily (especially Messina) is not that easy. Apart from the registers of one parish, everything is still in the parishes there. Actually like the situation in Reggio Calabria was before I started there. In the meantime the situation has completely changed with us and most parishes have donated their registers to the archive, mainly thanks to our hyper active and always restless director Pia Mazzitelli. In Messina someone like her and my little person is needed to go to all the parishes and to fotograph everything there is and to persuade the pastors to donate their registers to the archive. Unfortunately I cannot do that (then I have to sail to Messina every time and I cannot do that. I have a wife too, you know) but who knows someone will do that in the future.
I sympathize with the problems you are experiencing.

[mezzogiorno62]

much better in the small comunes. my grandmother was from barcellona not far from messina. fairly large city. on the other hand my grandfather was from luogosano,a virtual hamlet,in avellino not far from naples. i had fair luck there. my main problem was hitting the 1809 dead end with civil records after only getting back to my great grandfather. even one set of my 2nd greats married in 1803 before the registration. my grandfathers paternal grandparents. the other set,my grandfathers grandparents on his mothers side,married in 1827. civil record. i would think someone would have done with these tiny comunes what you and hugh tornabene did. you did much of reggio calabria. hugh did palermo. vast areas of population. yet by contrast these tiny comunes in avellino could much more easily have been indexed for births,marriages,and deaths. townsof 1000 and less. guess someone there has to show the same initiative.

[rlw254]

I indexed the Montefredane (Avellino) civil registration alone and let me tell you it is still a lot of work for small towns. Population here hovered around 1500-2000 and I had to spread it out over about two years. It's one thing if someone has all their time to devote to the project, but as a hobby it is still quite an undertaking.

[mezzogiorno62]

true. i did all my research years ago when i was still working. now i have the time but its all done. the few record gaps in my italian genealogy are mainly due to missing records. i did my mothers french canadian lines at that time as well. started out with my grandparents. they were born here. their parents in quebec canada. theres an actual library here called the american french genealogical society. devoted to this. at the time they were the only source here that had the drouin film collection,which covers all births,marriages,and deaths in quebec from the foundings in 1608 up to the 1940s or so. i filmed records there. now this database is on ancestry. and its searchable. enter a name or place and it automatically pulls up the information. not that easy when i started. in quebec all the original records were the catholic ones. the province got second copies and filmed them. this was 80 years ago. so basically civil records are copies of church records. theres a set of volumes called the red drouins and the blue drouins. just marriages but compiled from the marriages in the films. red drouins cover roughly 1608-1760 which was france lost canada to great britain. blue drouins cover 1760 up to 1935. 4 books of red marriages. over 50 for the blue as the population exploded after the british conquest. you frame your genealogy from the marriages. generation after generation going back. and like in italy married women kept their maiden names. children took the fathers surname. actually you can see the french influence in both canada and italy. the records look similiar at times. few differences. one is that in an act the subjects are not listed by age as in italy,but as "majeur" of age or"mineur" under 21 i believe. once you have all the marriages working back to the beginning,there are several other published works and databases where you can fill in births and deaths. the french were some of the best record keepers. they love genealogy. all kinds of repertoires covering complete families. i was able to go back 12 or so generations,from my great grandparents,and back into france,with even a few scattered families mixed in from england,belgium,switzerland,and spain. but 99% french. compare my 200 odd french charts to my 1 chart for my italian side. any time i get frustrated with the italians i go back to the french. one side barely scrapes back 200 years. the other over 400. other than a few dedicated archivists like yourself,few italians seem to have the passion of the french canadians. and whats surprising is the french are a relatively small group compared to the italians. but i love both sides equally. just more frustrated with my italians lol.