Gianquinto and Piacentino of Cagliari

[aledeniz]

I am researching on the Gianquinto of Trapani.

My largest tree at the moment starts from a mid-XVIII century couple, Antonio Gianquinto and Lucia Piacentino. Antonio Gianquinto, the father of Lucia Piacentino, and a number of their children were renowned salter masters, very successful businessmen who build a number of salt pans in western Sicily. One of the children of the couple, Giuseppe Gianquinto, was one of the last bourgeois to be ennobled in the Kingdom of Sicily, he was risen as "Barone di Isola Zavorra" from the name of one of the salt pans he built.

The surname geographical barycentre is certainly Trapani, in Sicily, but interestingly, I have noticed a couple of Gianquinto also in Cagliari, in Sardinia.

The Sardinian Gianquinto are quite rare, so I suspect some Gianquinto from Trapani may have migrated in Sardinia at some point in the late XVIII century - early XIX century.

Today I found out that a number of master salters were hired by the king of Sardinia in the second half of the XVIII century, to build and improve the salt pans around Cagliari. Two specific names were recorded as their leaders: Ignazio Piacentino in the 1770s and Alberto Gianquinto from 1781. The two surnames obviously caught my attention.

I don't have much experience of online genealogical resources for Sardinia. Unfortunately I haven't really found much about Cagliari neither on FamilySearch (there are the civil registers post 1866) nor on Antenati Italiani (nothing!).

Are there any online record for Cagliari, civil or church, from 1770 to 1866?

Does anyone have references for the Gianquinto and Piacentino families in Cagliari from 1770 to 1886?

[Italysearcher]

Sardinia did not keep civil records until 1866 so you will need to access parish records for the time period you need.

[adelfio]

Welcome to IG website
Do you have their marriage record or death records in the civil records can you leave a link to your tree

Marty

[aledeniz]

Sardinia did not keep civil records until 1866 so you will need to access parish records for the time period you need.

Thanks Ann, not a great news, but very good to know that.

[aledeniz]

Welcome to IG website

Thanks Adelfio!

Do you have their marriage record or death records in the civil records can you leave a link to your tree

I have found a few records of the Gianquinto from Cagliari, none from the Piacentino. One of the Gianquinto from Cagliari, from the maternal side but with a double surname, was one of the main juridical authors of the XIX century, widely translated across Europe, the Prof. Giovanni de Gioannis Gianquinto. He died in Pisa in 1883, I found the death record, he was a very prolific author, a few of his books are still available on Amazon.

His mother was Grazia Gianquinto.

About the Gianquinto in general, I have tens, if not hundreds, of names and sources, I have created profiles on FamilySearch for most of the ones I found so far (and I had various degree of success to copy those on Geni, Ancestry and WikiTree). The family is definitively from Western Sicily, specifically from Trapani (*). The largest tree starting couple was living in the San Pietro district in the middle of the XVIII century, which has been a bit of an issue because it is the only parish of Trapani whose records have not been digitalised so far. This is Antonio's profile.

I wonder if the Alberto Gianquinto who set up the salt pans industry in Cagliari in the 1780s may be this, which I strongly suspect to be another son of Antonio and Lucia (one of their grandchildren was called Alberto, who had at least an older brother called Giuseppe, like the uncle baron, who was likely the elder of Antonio's & Lucia's brats). I am not too worried about the connection of this Alberto with Antonio & Lucia, I may just need a few solid days rummaging through the San Pietro's records in the diocesan archive of Trapani on of the next times I will visit Sicily (I am based in London, UK). What I suspect I may not find easy is to connect the Gianquinto of Cagliari with the Gianquinto of Trapani.

I have a number of yet unconnected trees from Trapani all across the XIX century, but I expect to be able to connect those to the main tree using the digitalised records on FamilySearch.

My account doesn't seem to have the privilege to embed images, this is the largest tree so far, I have used colour coding to identify the branches of the 4 children of the starting couple. The tree is far from complete, I do literally know of tens leaves I haven't yet added, especially from sub-branches of members who moved in the States, but it should give an idea.

(*) My research has confirmed so far my initial conjecture that the not rare but uncommon Gianquinto surname is the western Sicilian version of the more common Giaquinta (east Sicily and Crotone), Iaquinta (rest of Calabria), Giaquinto or Iaquinto (Campania) surnames. E.g. there is a sizeable Gianquinto family from the neighbouring Castellammare del Golfo which bears no relation whatsoever with the Gianquinto from Trapani. I tracked down their ancestors, Antonio Giaquinta and Ippolita Messina, in Crotone. When one of their children married in Castellammare a few days after the birth of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the priest changed his surname in Gianquinto, while his siblings kept the original Giaquinta in Crotone. I have encountered another couple of surname "translations" from Naples to Trapani. I haven't been able to prove as yet another potential conjecture, the relation between the Gianquinto and the rarer Gianquinteri, of which I have found a number of instances in the church records from Trapani.

[aledeniz]

I haven't done much progress on the Sardinian side, but serendipitously (a post on a Facebook genealogy group) this evening I was able to do quite a lot of progress, 5 generations, on their Sicilian ancestors.
On Geneanet there is a tree, from Francisco Andragnes, reporting Lucia Piacentino, her ancestors, her siblings, and her siblings' descendants. It is also reporting Alberto Gianquinto as her son.

[panchitoar]

I'm happy my research was useful to you

Francisco

[Misty007]

I wish to contact aledeniz in regard to the research on the Gianquinto and Piacentino families of Trapani. I descend from both names and have started much research on these families.