Witnesses to a Baptism (and more help please)

[sacesta]

Today, I found the record of baptism for my 2nd great grandfather, Rocco Aceste, son of the foundling Benedetto. (I wish the FHC stayed open longer hours.)

Here, I have a record that is legible and in good condition. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could decipher the Latin for me as this would help me to better understand some of the other records I have already found or may find later.

It appears that this Rocco was not named after his paternal grandfather, as he was born 12 years after his parents were married and Benedetto (his father) is of unknown parents. But this does seem to corroborate the belief that the foundling Benedetto is, in fact, my 3rd great grandfather.

Of particular interest to me is the bottom section, which I believe states the witnesses to the baptism. One name is Antonina Mirabella who I think is a relative on the mother's side. The marriage record of Benedetto Aceste and Antonina Sciorttino below shows a Mirabella as the bride's mother, although I have been unable to decipher her first name.

I'm not sure about the date on this record either, It appears to me to be the 10th of February, 1939 but that word after decima (septima/September?) leaves me stumped.

Thanks, as always, for your help.

Steve

[erudita74]

Dated Feb 17, 1839 (decima septima)

Rocco Maria Aceste was born this morning and baptized on the same day. He was the son of Benedetto Aceste and Antonina Sciortino. His godfather was Pietro Tristaino, the son of Mariano (Tristaino) and ? Saladino. The godmother was Francesca Milana, the wife of Rocco Tristaino; the daughter of deceased Vincenzo (Milana) and living Antonina Mirabella.

Sorry, Steve, but I'm having trouble deciphering the first name of Saladino.

Erudita

[sacesta]

Wow! Thanks so much Erudita! I never would have been able to get all of that from this document. Maybe one day after I've looked at many more of them…

Looking at Saladino's first name, I thought at first it began with an S and an A, but now I think the first letter may be a B.

Anyway, what grabbed my interest at the bottom was the name Mirabella. I recalled seeing that surname before on the marriage document of Benedetto Aceste (this Rocco's father) and Antonina Sciorttino.

Thanks again!

Steve

[erudita74]

Steve
I'm having some issues with the marriage record.

Dated June 24, 1827. Banns of marriage were on the 3rd, 10th, and 14th of June and resulted in no impediments to the marriage. The groom was Benedetto Aceste, son of unknown parents. The bride was Antonina Sciorttino, the daughter of deceased Francesco (Sciorttino) and Margherita Mirabella.

It looks to me that after the bride's parents' names, there is an abbreviation for the town in which they lived, but I can't figure out what the abbreviation stands for. Also am having trouble deciphering the names of the witnesses.

Erudita

[sacesta]

Margherita Mirabella! Ok, thanks.

I think I have about as much information as I need from this document. I'm hoping that some of these collateral names may help me to discover who Benedetto Aceste, the foundling's ancestors were.

[sacesta]

Also, on the date, I think decima septa is the 17th (of February).

Edit - hah! I just reread your first post and saw that you had already provided me with the correct date.

Thanks!

[erudita74]

No problem Steve. I also gave you the correct spelling of the date in Latin.

I remember seeing Margherita Mirabella in another of your records. Hope I've deciphered her first name correctly. I would like to decipher the rest of the info, even if it doesn't interest you. As to finding the ancestors of Benedetto, I hate to say that I think you're on a futile journey, but then you never know. Sometimes we do get unexpected surprises from these records.

Erudita

[frankcsr]

Can you tell me what town you are talking about because the name Mirabella sounds familiar. I think that I have seen it in Ali Superiori, Sicily

[erudita74]

These records are from Calatafimi in Trapani Province, Sicily

Erudita

[sacesta]

Erudita,

I had posted Benedetto's marriage record on a different thread several weeks ago when I first found the record. I think it's the same document that you recall. I remember, you mined a lot of information for me on it the first time around.

I really appreciate all the help you've given me these past several weeks. I've been studying Italian for a couple of years now and have been doing well with the civil records that I found available online for my paternal grandmother's line from Montevago. But all of these church records for my paternal Aceste line originate at the Chiesa Cattolica di San Silvestri Papa in Calatafimi and civil records for Calatafimi have not been photographed yet.

The name Aceste is an uncommon name and it seems like every record I've found for an Aceste is related in some way. Granted, I have not perused through all of the countless of records from Calatafimi, but have instead been going in with information I know about certain ancestors and I've been very successful at finding the records I've been looking for. A couple of the women at the local FHC are a bit envious of my "beginner's luck". One of them is researching records from Poland/Russia written in Cyrillic (sp?). I'm glad I don't have to do that!

Anyway, back to the name Aceste - Maybe I'm being hard-headed, but I'm hoping that if I can find information about Benedetto's siblings maybe I can find his parents through them? If not, because the Aceste name seems rather rare, maybe I can find Benedetto's grandparents through his cousins. I don't know. I'm relatively new at this. I don't want to admit it either, but you're probably right, I may have hit a dead end

Thanks again for all the help.

Steve

[erudita74]

Steve
I see that you had posted the marriage record previously, and that I didn't get the witnesses' names that time either. In state civil records, witnesses in marriage records were normally produced by the couple getting married, but that is not necessarily the case in church records. Even godparents in baptism records may not have been relatives or selected by the parents. I've seen pages where all of the infants on a single page had the same godparents, even though the godparents bore no relation to the infants, and the infants had no relation to each other. In one of the churches in my husband's ancestry though, the relationship of the godparent(s) to the infant was actually stated in the record, so no guess work there, which was so nice.

I really hope you have luck with Benedetto's ancestry. I don't want to discourage you -just trying to be realistic from my many years of researching these records.

You are really doing well finding people in these records, despite being a newbie. I studied Italian in college (4 semesters) and then hadn't used it in many many many years, until I started doing this research. As to Latin, I studied it for two years in high school, but I won't admit to my age in open forum. You can just imagine how long ago that was. The problem with the church records is that there is no standard format for them. The priests wrote as much or as little as they wanted. Also the abbreviations make deciphering them so very difficult. That's why I'm trying to decipher more of the info in your records, as it helps me with my own research as well.

Erudita

[erudita74]

The surname of the first witness is Vultaggio (looks like it only has one "g" in the Latin record). The first name of the other witness is Giuseppe, which is the easy part. The next name looks like Senia, and then there is another surname, I believe. So it could be a double surname, or the second part could just be a middle name, and the last part the surname.

Anyway, I'm putting this record aside for now.

Erudita

[PippoM]

Dated Feb 17, 1839 (decima septima)

Sorry, Steve, but I'm having trouble deciphering the first name of Saladino.

Erudita

I'd say it's "Palma"

[erudita74]

Pippo
I was thinking the same thing about Palma, even yesterday, and was just looking to see if the first name even exists in that town, which I see it does. Even though the Pal was clear to me, I just kept seeing nue as the ending.

Anyway, can you tell the names of the witnesses in the marriage record? I am completely stuck on the first name of the first witness (I just keep thinking of the Italian first name Anselmo-but the A in Aceste is not formed the same way as the beginning of this name which may be St). I'm also stuck on the middle and last part of Giuseppe's name. The last part may be Ponzo. I actually see Porrea but that is not a Sicilian surname.

Erudita

[sacesta]

For what my opinion is worth, I think the two of you may be correct about the first letter of Saladino's first name being a P. If you look at the beginning P in Silvestri Papa (the church name) on the 3rd line, it looks very similar.

I'm challenged with these Latin records on several levels - This one happens to be written cleanly with little bleed-through from the other side of the page, but the abbreviations, the declensions, my unfamiliarity with the language (and proper names), and the various styles of letter formation all compound to stump me.

In some records, the same letters are formed differently - I've seen in one record where a capital A appears both as typewritten block letter with flourishes and in a cursive rounded style similar to the letter O.

The embedded letter L in this record almost looks like a double-L, with it's ascending and descending vertical strokes. But then, when I think about how we write a lower-case cursive L in America today, it looks like a tall loop, also with ascending and descending vertical lines.

I thought if I could decipher this record, being more legible than most records I've acquired I could use it as a guide to help me decipher other records.

No matter what your motive for wanting to decipher this, I really do appreciate your help!

Steve