Magistro -- a Name or a Title?

[ciaramike]

I've been wading through Sicilian church records in pursuit of my family's history and I'm not very good at either Latin or Italian.
In baptismal records, I frequently encounter 'Magistro' at the start of the father's given name (i.e. 'Magistro Petro Cracchiolo'). Sometimes it is spelled out as 'Magistro", more frequently it is abbreviated as 'Mro.' I don't recall it ever appearing as the child's given name.
Is this part of the father's name or is it the father's title?
Thanks for your consideration.
Mike Ciaramitaro
Michigan, USA

[maestra36]

Hello and welcome to the forum-

Magistro can be a surname, but in this case, it is a title meaning master or expert of one's trade, or it can even mean teacher.

I assume the church document to which you are referring is in Latin. In Italian the word would be maestro (referring to a male) or maestra (like me, referring to a female), although there is an Italian word magistero which refers to teaching.

Peg

[ciaramike]

Thank you for the explanation.
Mike C.

[defilip1]

I've been working on the same problem. And, being relatively ignorant , came up with mro = magistro (Latin) from: http://www.archive.org/stream/recordint ... t_djvu.txt

Does this simply mean "master" as in a polite salutation for someone just one notch above "regular guy"?

Furthermore, these baptismal documents are a mixture of Latin, "Italian" (no such country as Italy exists at that point, 1786 in my case) and, for lack of a better term, Sicilian. The preponderance seems to be Italian.

Cheers, all, Louis

[johnnyonthespot]

Actually, the name "Italia" has been used to describe the entire peninsula as far back as the time of the Roman conquests ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy ).

As a unified political entity, the Kingdom of Italy came into being in 1861.

[defilip1]

In addition, I have a number of companion problems that I have not yet figured out. In one matrimonial document I have been working on, there is what looks like "gndo" or something to that effect, as in "fig.^o di Mro' Antonino e della gnd^o Anna Sutera". I read this as "son of Master Antonino and of the XXX Anna Sutera". I'm guessing this could be a polite title of some kind, like mistress or loyal spouse or something? Does anyone have some thoughts here. For notation I use "^" to indicate a superscript.

Cheers all, Louis

[johnnyonthespot]

I think that is a lower-case Q, not a g.

Not sure how much that might help.

[defilip1]

Thanks Carmine. Concerning the "q" vs. the "g" I had the same thought. At other points on the same page it is clearly a "g". Of course "clearly" is a relative term .

And thank you also for the comment on "Italia". There is, of course, cultural overlap. However, it has been my opinion that since Sicily is not part of the peninsula and has sometimes had, and sometimes had not, been politically part of "the boot" its language has tended to evolve somewhat separately. For example, my Grandfather, who spoke only Sicilian, hardly understood any Italian. His son-in-law, my father, who spoke about 5 languages, (Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French and English) plus the Genovese and Sicilian dialects would often get frustrated at this.

In the year in question, 1786, Sicily was the Kingdom of Sicily; Spanish House of Bourbon, under the rule of Ferdinand III [1751–1825; r. 1759–1816 = Ferdinand VI, King of Spain; King of Sicily; (as Ferdinand III) 6 October 1759 – 8 December 1816]

Cheers all, Louis

[wldspirit]

For future reference, this may help with Latin abbreviations:

TuttoGenealogia

[apiapibij]

qnd& is the abbreviation of the Latin word quondam which means "fu" in Italian and "late" in English. So: the late Anna Sutera

[defilip1]

Terrific. Absolutely terrific. Thanks so much: apiapibij, wldspirit and Carmine! I've been looking around for the answer for weeks. And, I will definitely check out the reference. I've had a few references but they have not been as helpful as I would have liked. Cheers all, Louis