How to deal with second family surname?

[MiriamA]

Many of my Venetian ancestors have a second family surname to distinguish them among the branches of their large families. What is the correct way to identify the second surname on genealogy? Should it be included as a suffix or as part of the surname? It seems to me that the second surname is not part of their civil name. I checked Trafford Cole's Italian Genealogical Records and I did not find a clear way to do it. Please advise.

[Tessa78]

These links may provide some insight...

Second Surnames, or Sub-Surnames
http://web.archive.org/web/200602160433 ... nchor40492

Fourteenth Century Venetian Names
(look at the second example under "Name Construction"
http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/venice14/

T.

[maestra36]

T
Thanks for the above links. I also have a problem with the use of double surnames in my one Sicilian town which is Castell'Umberto in Messina Province Sicily. Unfortunately the above articles don't explain the usage in this town. Sometimes in a record you will find Varrica Monastra, and in another record for the same person, the surnames are reversed. One of the surnames is not the maiden name of the person's mother or grandmother, which I thought might be a possibility. I have written to both the town official in the anagrafe office there, who was nice enough to extract from his registers a lot of information for me which was not on microfilm (the films for that town only started in the mid 1860s) but his registers started in 1820. I even wrote to the library there months ago and never received a response concerning this question. Someone in that town, or area of Sicily, must know the reason for the double surname. Everyone there, however, does not have two surnames, and the town itself is small-only about 3500 inhabitants.

[Tessa78]

Peg,

Wonder if it had something to do with the early invasions and settlements. Maybe the "invaders" wanted to keep a link to their origins and included a sub-surname for this purpose...

Hope Peter sees this post and offers some insight

T.

[maestra36]

Thanks for your thoughts, T. Luckily the town only had three rolls of microfilmed records, but it was certainly confusing going through them. Maybe Peter will have some ideas.
Peg

[maestra36]

T,
I also meant to tell you that this morning I noticed on the town's official website that even its mayor has a double surname, so now I am toying with the idea of sending him an email to see if he can offer an explanation.
Peg

[Tessa78]

Peg,

Great idea! Go for it

T.

[MiriamA]

Thank you for all the comments and links! If more information of this subject surface, please share.

[trevisan2]

If your using a genealogy program, the way you deal with the "detto" name or knick name to the surname is to place the detto name in the

aka or knick name field of the software.

I have seen where the nick name often changes with every child or genearations.
For instance. I have a surname PELLIZZON the aka name is Pillon or Prizzon. Following the generations down through the 1700's the surnames are inter changed from Pellizzon, Pellizon, Pilon or Prizzon. I can become a confusing problem.
Regards,
Trevisan2

[MiriamA]

Trevisan 2,

Thank you for your reply.

Would it be correct to use the Detto portion of the surname as a suffix? Many of my Italian ancestors started to use the Brazilian version of their names when they arrived in Brazil. Should I use the AKA field for the Brazilian version of their names?
Cordially,

Miriam

[trevisan2]

On the Detto aka nick name on deceased ancestors. The detto name goes in the NICK NAME field of the software.

If you have family member in Brazil that have incorporated the detto name as part of their surname and that is their legal surname that they were born with, then you would write in the surname name field, the name that the priest wrote as their surname.

Perhaps, in the notes section of the software, would be a place to explain the changing or additions to the surname.

regards,
Trevisan2