Italian Orphans

[gminfla]

Several of my Italian ancestors were orphans. On their records birth/marriage/death), the parents were listed as "genitori ignoti". Is there any way to find out who the parents were or if they were placed in an orphanage, or adopted?

[liviomoreno]

I thought that an orphan is when one or both parents are dead. "Genitori ignoti" means that the parents are unknown and that the child was abandoned.

[erudita74]

Livio
The U.S. Dept of Citizenship and Immigration considers a child to be an orphan, not only if both parents are dead, but also if a child has been deserted or abandoned. I do think though that the Italian phrase "genitori ignoti" means that the child was abandoned and that the parents were unknown.

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/glossary/orphan

To answer the poster's question, going with the assumption that the parents were unknown, or that the child was abandoned, the answer would be only if the child was then recognized by the natural parents at some point in his/her life. Very few abandoned children, however, were. The recognition info might appear in the margin of the child's birth act, which would be a description of the infant's abandonment. An abandoned child would have been assigned to a wetnurse, by a town official, as infants in those days were breastfed. Some women who had given birth to a child out of wedlock did come forward and ask to serve as the child's wetnurse, as this was a ploy to get a town to pay out a stipend for the women's service as a wetnurse. However, it is very difficult to prove that this same woman was the child's natural mother. So tracking down the natural parents of a child with unknown parentage is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove. Plus, even when "so-called" natural parents did come forward to claim a previously abandoned child, that does not mean that they were, in fact, the natural parents. There was no DNA at that time to prove maternity or paternity. All the town official (normally the town notary) had was the word of the people who appeared at the town hall to reclaim the child. They would have to describe the items left with the child, when it was abandoned, as the town had kept a record of such items. They would also have to bring with them witnesses who could attest to their identities. So, more than likely they were the natural parents, but it is also possible that one of the parties was not. So a woman who had married in the interim might claim that her husband was the natural father when, in fact, she may have had the child out of wedlock before her marriage to him. If she was a poor peasant who worked in the fields of some rich landowner, she may have been violated by that rich estate owner, or even by a male member of his own family. So, in the absence of DNA, it's a hard case to prove.

Erudita

[liviomoreno]

Livio
The U.S. Dept of Citizenship and Immigration considers a child to be an orphan, not only if both parents are dead, but also if a child has been deserted or abandoned. I do think though that the Italian phrase "genitori ignoti" means that the child was abandoned and that the parents were unknown.

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/glossary/orphan
...

Erudita

Thanks, btw I'm surprised that a government Dept is able to change the definition of a word. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines an orphan as:
1 : a child deprived by death of one or usually both parents He became an orphan when his parents died in a car accident.
2 : a young animal that has lost its mother feeding calves that are orphans
3 : one deprived of some protection or advantage orphans of the storm refugee orphans of the war
4 : a first line (as of a paragraph) separated from its related text and appearing at the bottom of a printed page or column
Also the Oxford Dictionary and Cambridge Dictionary confirm the same definition.

[erudita74]

Livio
I'm as surprised as you are that a govt agency could alter the meaning of the word "orphan." I actually only discovered it this morning, after I read your reply. I'm a second generation American and have always been taught the meanings that you list from the dictionaries.
Erudita

[peonygirl]

So, let me see if I understand the delineations. If both parents died, orphan. If one parent is alive and taking care of the child, but the mother is unknown, is the child considered an orphan? Or just a motherless child?

Just wondering.....
PG

[liviomoreno]

I would say a motherless child.