marriage in messina province

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mezzogiorno62
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marriage in messina province

Post by mezzogiorno62 »

i've been searching many years,both using the lds films and writing literally hundreds of letters to various comunes in the province of messina,with no results.looking for a marriage for francesco landino and maria bonarrigo.they were residents of barcellona pozzo di gotto,although neither was born there.francesco was born in palermo in 1851 and maria was born in gualtieri sicamino in 1847,their 1st child,salvatore,was born in 1872 and a daughter mattia was born in 1880,both in barcellona.my paternal grandmother,maria costante,was their adoptive daughter(maria bonarrigo was her wetnurse)and born in 1883 also in barcellona.i checked palermo,as well as barcellona and gualtieri,not to mention many other comunes in this area for this marriage record(probably ca.1867-1872 considering the grooms age and the birth of their first child)with no results.i have the birth of son salvatore.no mention of a marriage date/place.i've done it all.are there any research options i'm missing here?
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by Italysearcher »

Are you getting no response or negative response? It is possible they never registered their marriage at City Hall but were married in the church. Unlikely in this area but possible. Did they emigrate? If not, the the comune may have some other type of record that would give you a clue but this would be asked by phoning them, not writing.
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by mezzogiorno62 »

plenty of replies.just nothing found anywhere.checked with the parish of s.sebastiano in barcellona.no response after several tries.maria the wife emigrated to boston in 1902 with her"adoptive daughter"my paternal grandmother.she died 10 days later,and her death record in boston notes her as married,meaning her husband,francesco,was still living.to the best of my knowledge,he never immigrated.thats odd as her passenger record she was coming to boston to live with her son(salvatore the oldest born in 1872).as i said,i think i covered everything.
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by adelfio »

John with Francesco Landino being age 20 and Maria Bonarrigo age 23 at the time of Salvatore Landino's birth Ann might be right possible they never registered their marriage at City Hall but were married in the church.................
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR BIRTH RECORD
record-image (475).jpg
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Re: marriage in messina province

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RIGHT.I WROTE S.SEBASTIANO IN BARCELLONA SEVERAL TIMES WITH NO RESPONSE.BEYOND THAT I WOULDN'T KNOW WHERE TO START.AS I SAID,CONSIDERING THEIR AGES(FRANCESCO WAS 20 AND MARIA ACTUALLY 24)IF THERE WERE A MARRIAGE,IT WOULD PROBABLY BEEN NO MORE THAN A YEAR OR TWO BEFORE SALVATORES BIRTH IN 1872.THEN,EVEN THOUGH MARIA IS REFERRED TO AS FRANCESCO'S WIFE,ITS POSSIBLE THEY NEVER FORMALLY MARRIED.
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Re: marriage in messina province

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They could have run away together to a different town and simply presented themselves as married. I doubt they would have had to prove it by producing a marriage certificate. In those years being pregnant and not married presented BIG problems if you wanted to keep your child. A child born to an unwed mother was usually forcibly removed and sent to the orphanage where it usually died. Is it possible that they weren't free to marry. If they were related within the 3rd degree the priest wouldn't have married them except by permission from the Bishop.
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by liviomoreno »

Italysearcher wrote:... A child born to an unwed mother was usually forcibly removed and sent to the orphanage where it usually died. Is it possible that they weren't free to marry.
Where did you read it?

I've seen hundreds or birth record where the father declared that the baby was the result of his affair with an unwed woman that did not want to be named.
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Re: marriage in messina province

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most likely no relation as francesco was from palermo and maria was from messina.i've been working this for years.hit probably a dozen or more comunes in the area.contacted the parish in barcellona pg as well as the diocese in messina.no response from them.and the marriage,if there was one,isnt found in any of the surrounding comuni near barcellona pg.it occurred in neither the brides comune of gualtieri sicamino nor the grooms comune of palermo,which arent even close.hence the readson why i believe no relationship.and i'm well aware of ignoti genitori-unknown parents.that was my paternal grandmother,whom maria was wetnurse to.this couple were the surrogate parents to my grandmother.theres a book called"sacrificed for honor"by david kertzer on this subject.been there done that.at the end of the day,the only conclusion i can come to is that(a)they simply never married,or(b)they married in the church but not civilly.very frustrating after 15 years of research
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by adelfio »

How did you come up with their parish being S.Sebastiano?

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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by mezzogiorno62 »

francesco and maria had both salvatore(1872)and mattia(1880)in barcellona pg.and as francesco was only 20 and maria 24 at the birth of salvatore in 1872,and probably hadnt been married long before,i would guess that if they only married in the church and not civilly,it would be s.sebastiano.although there are many other churches in barcellona,a fairly large comune,theres no way to know which of the others it could be.too many.this is why i wrote to the diocese of messina for help,with no responses.i'm only going by s.sebastiano as my paternal grandmother was baptized there in 1883.no mention made of francesco or maria in that record.no idea what ever happened to francesco,as he seems to have dissappeared from the scene as of 1880..in the record for the birth of mattia,his whereabouts are noted as unknown.but i know maria bonarrigo continued to reside in barcellona until 1902,when she left there with my grandmother for boston,where she died 10 days after her arrival there.i have the passenger record for their arrival and the death record of maria bonarrigo.francesco is never mentioned after the 1880 birth of his daughter,other than as the husband of the deceased maria at the time of her death.
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by Italysearcher »

Livio, This was stated in a book called Sacrificed for Honour. I agree that this did not appear to happen in the former Regno delle due sicilie despite it being approved by law, however it appears to have been very common in North Italy.
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by liviomoreno »

Italysearcher wrote:Livio, This was stated in a book called Sacrificed for Honour. I agree that this did not appear to happen in the former Regno delle due sicilie despite it being approved by law, however it appears to have been very common in North Italy.
I tend to disagree :roll:
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by mezzogiorno62 »

i've run into ignoti genitori quite frequently in sicily.it seems rampant there.my paternal grandmother was ignoti genitori.her adoptive mothers mother was ignoti padre.my grandfathers lines in avellino(campania region) had none.i find that the poorer the area the higher the percentage of illegitimate births.and the south,below rome and especially in sicily,was impoverished compared to the more affluent north.the north,by comparison,was like the land of wealth.and the social stigma against illegitimacy was much stronger in the more backwards superstitious south.the south was more like the middle east or north africa rather than a part of united italy.so sociological issues as well as economic ones were in play.
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by MaurizioPerrone »

Italysearcher wrote:Livio, This was stated in a book called Sacrificed for Honour. I agree that this did not appear to happen in the former Regno delle due sicilie despite it being approved by law, however it appears to have been very common in North Italy.
With no disrespect to the author, this book makes some broad generalizations. It suggests a very harsh version of the phenomenon of the illegitimate baby.

To your earlier statement that a "child born to an unwed mother was usually forcibly removed and sent to the orphanage where it usually died. Is it possible that they weren't free to marry …" I might comment that this was not true in the area of my family 25 km north of Savona. Our illegitimate babies often stayed with the mother (who sometime in some cases marries the father, or not), or were abandoned on the doorstep of the neighbor or in a neighboring town. In my the time of my grandmother, the origin of the baby was often known by the olders in the town, even if only spoken in a whisper. Or as Livio say, there were times when the father would make the declaration, even when the mother did not. And then there were many babies who came to the town from the ospizio in Savona and lived until they were adult with a family in the town, to help on the farm or in the house. There are many scenarios, but my point is, at least in the area of my family, the situation of the illegitimate baby was not the terrible event with babies taken by force and horrible disgrace and babies dying alone in some far off place.

My grandmother was a trovatella (in my area we say "venturina") who was given to the married sister of her mother, and raised in the house of the aunt and uncle. but always she knew her own mother, who lived in the same town. there were many, many situation like this in my town.

Sure, maybe sometime and in some other place these things would happen that are very harsh to the baby and the mother, but in my area, most of the time it was not this way.
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Re: marriage in messina province

Post by mezzogiorno62 »

i've found in my research that ignoti genitori was rampant in sicily in particular.my paternal grandmother was born in barcellona,a fairly large comune in messina in 1883.ignoti genitori.but her case was not one of being farmed out or totally abandoned.no ruota or wheel.she was virtually adopted by her wetnurse,considering her mother in every sense of the word,and accompanying her to america.but as i scanned the births in this area,i find ignoti genitori extremely common.not so in my paternal grandfather's birthplace in avellino,slightly to the north,in campania,he was born in luogosano,a tiny village,in 1870.no incidents of ignoti genitori in his lines,or in the various other birth records i scanned.my conclusions are that:illegitimacy was much rarer in the more affluent north,and when it did occur,was much less harshly dealt with than the southern regions.more superstitions and social taboos there than in northern italy.also,the wheel or total abandonment were just a small percentage of how illegitimacy was dealt with.just wish there were alternate records available that would have revealed the natural parents of these children,who were probably stigmatized with the facts of their birth-and would have broken the code of silence that prevents us from discovering our ancestors.what a shame that social moors have caused such confusion in the name of honor.
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