Note on Birth Record?

[eholmes]

Hi,

Can anyone parse the marginal notes on the birth records for my great grandfather and one of his brothers? Stanislao is their father, Giuseppe their mother. The only other thing I can recognize is a reference to number 36, but I have no idea what that means. Is it odd for "Signor" to be in quotations? I do believe Stanislao moved to the US about ten years before his children, so perhaps this refers to that? Thank you for any help or guesses as to what this might mean.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/eh.s ... s/john.JPG
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/eh.s ... carmen.JPG

[erudita74]

The notation reads that with an act of 14th of Sept 1889 (act #36), marriage was celebrated between Stanislao Costa and Giuseppa Mignuolo (currently the surname is spelled Mignolo) in this town of Cervinara. You didn't post the entire birth records, but I believe the two sons were born prior to this marriage date. The marriage of their parents in 1889 recognized them as their own sons and legitimized their births. Signori is a plural title meaning Mr and Mrs.

[eholmes]

Thank you so much! This explains some mysteries and gives me new ones to solve. There were at least five children born prior to this marriage with a gap of about 8 years between the first two and the last three. I haven't started to decipher the birth records yet but this context will really help. Thanks again!

[erudita74]

You're very welcome. More than likely, Stanislao and Giuseppa had had a church marriage before any of their children were born. After the unification of Italy, the civil state did not recognize church marriages, which is why these children were only legitimized in the eyes of the civil law when the parents had a civil ceremony in 1889.
Erudita

[eholmes]

This is very interesting, I had no idea that the church marriages weren't recognized by the state. I'm finally sitting down to examine the rest of these records and the mother's name is not listed outside of the marginal note. Your comment on another post helped me figure that out, thank you so much for your posts!