Requesting Translation for Birth Record Surname: Orientale

[DebiHarbuck]

Tricia, wow! I cannot wait to hear how your family reacts to all you are learning about your shared history. What a great week you are having!

[TriciaFierro]

Well if it weren't for you locating that one birth record I never would have thought to browse all of those Roccanova indexes and files! So thank you, thank you!

I wish I could find similar indexes for Rosciano and Montecalvo Irpino. Then I would really be on a roll!

It has really been a great week! I was able to go back 2 generations from my great-grandfather on one side, located the place of birth and residency of another great-grandfather, found that my great-great grandmother on that side was abandoned and found very interesting info on the travels of another great-grandfather whom I believe used a different first name when traveling. In fact, the name he used was the same name as one of his son's on his naturalization papers, Pompilio. The only problem is, guess who Pomilio was on his documents? My grandfather Paul! LOL! He was NEVER called Pompilio! So so interesting!

thanks for your help...I will be leaving for a week of vacation next week but plan to visit some family that will be very excited to hear all that I've found.

now, where do I sign up to do this for a living? LOL! I love it!
- Tricia

[maestra36]

Hi Tricia
About the book, just go to www.amazon.com and search the title. You will see a summary of the book and some reviews. Then you can decide if it interests you. I don't know if a local book store will carry it, but they might.

About Fortunata's death record. I doubt there will be any mention of Stella in it. First of all, in all the years I have searched these state civil records, and in all the towns my research has taken me, I have only seen one death record which named the children of the deceased and all of the deceased's wives. He had three. So I doubt Fortunata's death record will yield any info about Stella, but if you come across it, you could still look at the info in it. When I discovered that my paternal grandfather was a foundling, and the name of the woman who found him behind the door of her house, I also looked for records for her. I found her marriage record and the birth and death records of her children. I was basically driven by my father's first name and why he was named as he had been. My situation is a little different than yours. My grandfather's natural parents married 6 weeks after they abandoned him and came back to reclaim him when he was 2 years and 10 months. Just because an abandoned infant was reclaimed by the parents, however, doesn't mean he ever lived with them. So I have no way of knowing whether he did or not. But, the interesting thing is that my dad was the oldest son and wasn't named for my grandfather's dad. Instead he was named for the father-in-law or one of the sons of the balia or wetnurse who found him and in whose custody he was, at least for the first few years. Those were the only Giovanni's. One son had died, but I never found if the second Giovanni had. He was about the same age as my grandfather, so maybe they remained close friends, if he was alive, or maybe the grandfather was like a grandfather to mine. I'll never know, but the name Giovanni had to have come from this family, as my grandfather's father who reclaimed him was a Vincenzo and he didn't name any of his sons that.

I don't know if Sphyllis can skip a generation. You'll have to do more research about the disease yourself.

Anyway, I'm happy to have contributed another piece to the puzzle. The subject of abandoned children is very interesting. Another book which is very interesting is also by David I Kertzer and it's called Sacrificed for Honor: Italian Infant Abandonment and the Politics of Reproductive Control. That book is out of print, as far as I know, but there are used copies around if you search the internet. Amalia's Tale though is very easy reading. Based on a true story.

Hope I've answered all of your questions.

Peg

[DebiHarbuck]

Tricia, I am so happy to have been able to pay-it-forward. Just a month ago (if that long) someone here - either Peg or Tessa, I think - told me how to locate those records at Ancestry. And then I spent a weekend asking them to translate, one after another after another.

Peg, that's an amazing story about your grandfather's family. And I second the thank-yous for the book recommendations. (Do we have a thread for that? "Where can I find a good book about ____?")

[maestra36]

Hi Debi
I don't think we have a thread about "where can I find a good book about..." Could be an interesting thread. T and I are always throwing out book titles, if you follow some of our replies to posters. I just love David I Kertzer's books. He is a Professor at Brown U in Rhode Island. He is the son of a Jewish Rabbi but was one of the first researchers allowed in the Vatican archives when they were opened to researchers. He has written some very interesting books on all kinds of Italian related subjects. Another of my favorites of his is The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. It has no bearing though on our genealogy research. It is based on a true story. If the treatment of the Jews in Italy is of interest to you, then the book would be. I am just interested in everything related to Italian history.
Peg

[DebiHarbuck]

Well, I'm definitely making a note of his name. And I think it would make a great thread. My interest in history in general was the beginning of my interest in genealogy (oh, so many years ago!) and it's hard for me to separate the two.

[maestra36]

Debi
My older son told me he would never look at the documents, but would read about the family history, if it were in story form. So I started to write a book over a year ago. That's when my interest in Italian history really took off. In the beginning, and I think this is the case with most of us, we are just interested in names and dates and getting back as many generations as we can. But then it comes to a point when you realize that, to really understand who your ancestors were, you need to study them in historical context. So, after all the years that the subject of history didn't interest me, now I read whatever I can get my hands on concerning it.
Peg

[TriciaFierro]

Peg and Debi,

That would make a great thread on here...I agree! I am an avid reader and to your point Peg I don't know if I would have been as interested in reading about abandoned children had I not discovered that my own great-great-grandmother had been. Now I am very eager to learn about those children and the circumstances surrounding their situations and lives. I find it so interesting that my father's (age 68 now) recollection of his great-grandmother Stella was of her being very queen-like in the sense that everyone came right to her when they arrived in her home and she sat regally in her chair awaiting her grandchildren to come to her. He remembers her in long white robes or dresses and large gold hoop earrings. It sounds to me as if she was almost regal in her presentation of herself. Interesting considering her very humble beginnings. And I agree that we cannot truly know our ancestors if we don't understand them in their historical context.

Another interesting bit of information on Stella that I believe I may have spoken about in another thread was that she was called "The Purple Lady". Yes, it's true as funny as it sounds. The family story is that she was given Iodine at some point and it turned her skin purple. Now, in the old pictures being that they are in black and white, she does look so dark that she looks black. I have read stories online of people's skin turning dark purple from being given Iodine so I don't know what the actual story is there. considering the intolerance of the era I suggested to my father that maybe she was in fact black and the story was made up and then hearing she was abandoned made me wonder again if that was possible, but all of her 8 children were born white and those that I knew were actually fair-skinned. Isn't that fasicinating? Have you ever heard of such a thing?

[lbernard3]

Tricia-

I just wanted to add to this line of responses that I was researching a member of my family that was an abandoned child, too. Some of the same people who helped you, helped me translate and solve the puzzle.

But even more interesting in your translation it mentions:

Witnesses were Eduardo Marotta, the son of deceased Carlo, age 53, and Vincenzo Robilotta, the son of deceased Giuseppe, age 65. Both were landowners living here.

My g-grandmother's last name was Robilotta and she was from Gallicchio-about 8 mi. from Rocconova, and one of her "adopted" brother's (Giuseppe Canada-the abandoned one from above) descendents married a Mariotta here in the states.

I think it is interesting how many of these family names are linked so closely over time and space.

I don't know if it means anything, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

-Lou