I have some questions about a couple things I have been finding in baptism records from Caltanissetta, Sicily, from the early 1800s.
- I keep seeing phrases similar to "die quo s.a" right before the parents names, where in other documents it says "heri" or "hodie". Does this phrase say when the child was born?
-As I get into the 1790's I am finding a lot of baptisms for more than one child at a time. I always thought that the babies were baptized within a day or two of birth. I was thinking maybe twins, but one family did it 4 times. Does anyone know why they might have done it this way?
-I have also seen where there are two names in the margin and indexed for a record, but it seems there is a third name in the body of the record. I've seen this twice for the same family. Is there a reason why that would happen?
Here is a link with an example of all three things (upper right corner, surname D'Alia)
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... Y-DTF9-BLD
Thanks for any help!
Baptism Record Questions
Re: Baptism Record Questions
"die quo supra" (the word "supra" is abbreviated in this record) means "day as above." So, in the record you reference, the date of the birth was March 13, 1793.
heri means yesterday
hodie means today
I've never seen the same infant baptized as many as four times. The only thing that comes to mind is that, if an infant was in imminent danger of dying, the infant may have been baptized by the midwife, who had been authorized by the Catholic Church to do so, and then again by the parish priest. We would need to see examples of the records to which you are referring to know why there would have been multiple baptisms for the same infant.
Concerning there being more names in the body of a record than in the index-one of my husband's ancestors had three names in the body of his baptism record but, in the index, the priest indexed each of the names under its initial letter. The ancestor was Gaspare Baldassare Melchiorre (that's the Italian version of his Latin name). In the index under the letter G is Gaspare plus his surname, under B in just Baldassare plus his surname, and under M is just Melchiorre plus his surname. When the Council of Trent in the mid 1500s dictated to the local parishes that they were to keep registers or records of vital events in their parishes, such as births, marriages, and deaths, it did not dictate what format those records or registers had to take. So the content and format were left to the discretion of the local priest. This is the reason why some church records contain more details than others. Also there aren't always indices.
Erudita
heri means yesterday
hodie means today
I've never seen the same infant baptized as many as four times. The only thing that comes to mind is that, if an infant was in imminent danger of dying, the infant may have been baptized by the midwife, who had been authorized by the Catholic Church to do so, and then again by the parish priest. We would need to see examples of the records to which you are referring to know why there would have been multiple baptisms for the same infant.
Concerning there being more names in the body of a record than in the index-one of my husband's ancestors had three names in the body of his baptism record but, in the index, the priest indexed each of the names under its initial letter. The ancestor was Gaspare Baldassare Melchiorre (that's the Italian version of his Latin name). In the index under the letter G is Gaspare plus his surname, under B in just Baldassare plus his surname, and under M is just Melchiorre plus his surname. When the Council of Trent in the mid 1500s dictated to the local parishes that they were to keep registers or records of vital events in their parishes, such as births, marriages, and deaths, it did not dictate what format those records or registers had to take. So the content and format were left to the discretion of the local priest. This is the reason why some church records contain more details than others. Also there aren't always indices.
Erudita
Re: Baptism Record Questions
Thank you for your response. I thought that s.a might stand for supra but I wasn't totally sure.
My second question might have been a little confusing, what I was trying to ask is about more than one child being baptized at the same time. The baptism I provided is an example of this showing both Antonina and Gaetana. But I spoke with someone at my local FHC with Italian research experience and she thinks that it is just one person with Gaetana and Pasqualina being middle names. I didn't really think about that because of the "et" between the names and both Antonina D'Alia and Gaetana D'Alia being in the index.
My second question might have been a little confusing, what I was trying to ask is about more than one child being baptized at the same time. The baptism I provided is an example of this showing both Antonina and Gaetana. But I spoke with someone at my local FHC with Italian research experience and she thinks that it is just one person with Gaetana and Pasqualina being middle names. I didn't really think about that because of the "et" between the names and both Antonina D'Alia and Gaetana D'Alia being in the index.
Re: Baptism Record Questions
I'm far from being a Latin expert, since it's been many many years since I formally studied the language. For me though, it's not about guess work as to whether the record is about one child, or multiple children, based on the fact that there are multiple names given. You need to look at the endings of specific words in the document, as they can indicate the sex of the person being baptized, or whether only one or more than one person is being baptized.
If you look through this group of records, some have infante or infantem-which is singular-one infant (actually the word infans in Latin referred to one who cannot or was not yet able to speak). We do not see the form infantes (the "s" at the end would make the word plural). So if the record read "baptizavi infantes," then the priest would have baptized more than one infant in the record. Also look at the word for "born." We see natus/natum in some records; nata/natam in others. The first two are masculine singular; the second two are female singular. So they refer to only one male or one female. Not multiple infants.
In some 25 years or more of reading these records, I have never personally seen a Latin church baptism record written for multiple children of the same family. That does not, however, mean that such records don't exist. One of the factors leading to early infant mortality, which is often neglected in the literature on the subject, is the contribution made by taking a newborn infant out in the dead of winter, or extreme weather related elements, to have it baptized at a local church. When the Council of Trent in the mid 1500s dictated that baptism should take place either on the day of the birth or shortly thereafter, it did not take this factor into consideration. Some areas in Italy, particularly in the north, were extremely remote and geographically isolated. and families in these areas didn't have regular access to a church, which may have been some two or three kilometers away from their homes. Since attempts at bundling up infants to protect them from the extreme weather had failed and resulted in a high rate of infant mortality, even when parents had taken every necessary precaution to protect them from the extreme cold, some parents started delaying having their children baptized. Some even did so until they already had subsequent children. So then you might find children of the same parents, of varying ages, being baptized simultaneously. But, as I stated, even though I have read that this did happen, I personally have never seen a single baptism record for multiple children of the same parents. If the priest wrote a single baptism record for a set of twins, the word "geminus" for "twin" should appear somewhere in the text of the record, or the record should indicate that the two infants were born on the same day.
As to indexes or marginal notes-these were sometimes added after the fact (even years later) by a person other than the priest or his cleric who wrote the original baptism record. Again, as I mentioned in my earlier reply, there was no specific format for these church records. Even within a single parish, you see variations in the content of the records, marginal notes, or indexes-sometimes even during the same time frame.
Possibly some other volunteer on the forum has more to add to what I have said but I hope my thoughts clarify some things for you.
Erudita
If you look through this group of records, some have infante or infantem-which is singular-one infant (actually the word infans in Latin referred to one who cannot or was not yet able to speak). We do not see the form infantes (the "s" at the end would make the word plural). So if the record read "baptizavi infantes," then the priest would have baptized more than one infant in the record. Also look at the word for "born." We see natus/natum in some records; nata/natam in others. The first two are masculine singular; the second two are female singular. So they refer to only one male or one female. Not multiple infants.
In some 25 years or more of reading these records, I have never personally seen a Latin church baptism record written for multiple children of the same family. That does not, however, mean that such records don't exist. One of the factors leading to early infant mortality, which is often neglected in the literature on the subject, is the contribution made by taking a newborn infant out in the dead of winter, or extreme weather related elements, to have it baptized at a local church. When the Council of Trent in the mid 1500s dictated that baptism should take place either on the day of the birth or shortly thereafter, it did not take this factor into consideration. Some areas in Italy, particularly in the north, were extremely remote and geographically isolated. and families in these areas didn't have regular access to a church, which may have been some two or three kilometers away from their homes. Since attempts at bundling up infants to protect them from the extreme weather had failed and resulted in a high rate of infant mortality, even when parents had taken every necessary precaution to protect them from the extreme cold, some parents started delaying having their children baptized. Some even did so until they already had subsequent children. So then you might find children of the same parents, of varying ages, being baptized simultaneously. But, as I stated, even though I have read that this did happen, I personally have never seen a single baptism record for multiple children of the same parents. If the priest wrote a single baptism record for a set of twins, the word "geminus" for "twin" should appear somewhere in the text of the record, or the record should indicate that the two infants were born on the same day.
As to indexes or marginal notes-these were sometimes added after the fact (even years later) by a person other than the priest or his cleric who wrote the original baptism record. Again, as I mentioned in my earlier reply, there was no specific format for these church records. Even within a single parish, you see variations in the content of the records, marginal notes, or indexes-sometimes even during the same time frame.
Possibly some other volunteer on the forum has more to add to what I have said but I hope my thoughts clarify some things for you.
Erudita
Re: Baptism Record Questions
Thank you very much for your input. You make an excellent point about pluralization in the record. I honestly didn't think about that but it makes total sense!
Thanks again for your help.
Thanks again for your help.
Re: Baptism Record Questions
You're very welcome.
Erudita
Erudita
