RE:PALERMO DEATH INDEXES 1856-65

[mezzogiorno62]

LOOKING IN THE PALERMO DEATH INDEXES 1856-65 (WWW.ANTENATI@BENICULTURALI.IT) FOR A DEATH IN JULY 1865 FOR ROSALIA MANCUSO WIFE OF SALVATORE LANDINO. THE ENTRY SHOULD INCLUDE THE SEZIONE(SECTION)OF PALERMO THE DEATH OCCURRED IN. THEN I CAN GO TO THE ORIGINAL RECORD. ACCORDING TO THE SETUP,THE INDEX RUNS A-Z. BUT WHEN I'M GOING THROUGH THE INDEX IT DOESN'T RUN IN STRAIGHT ALPHABETICAL ORDER. IT JUMPS ALL AROUND ALPHABETICALLY. EXACTLY HOW DO I FIND THE ENTRY,WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE COMPLETE INDEX,IF THERES NO STRAIGHT ALPHABETICAL ORDER?

[parkergambino]

I've also experienced some "out-of-sequence" (OOS) problems with the Palermo 10-year indexes posted on Antenati. So it is worthy to at least document this problem to alert others. I will use my particular example here as a partial guide.

It starts with the somewhat convoluted organization of the site, needing to go through several levels of clicking before reaching the actual document images. In my case, once reaching the level of the 1846-1855 Morti Index:

1. the next level down divides into two sections (my term): A-I and L-Z (this is one ADDITIONAL level that you don't see in the 1856-1865 index, which has it all contained in a single A-Z section). I know that at least some of the 10-year indexes were published as two separate volumes that divided up the alphabet this way.

2. My search (the Ania family) took me to the A-I section; the next level is the "pagina" (singular), numbered 1 through 6. As you go through the six pagine (plural), you find images ("Immagine") numbered consecutively 1-359, 60 per pagina. If you go to the L-Z section, there is a separate set of pagine (1-8 in this case) AND the immagine numbers start again at 1, through 447 on pagine 8, all corresponding to the second volume of the index. At this level I am using the terms pagine/pagina to avoid confusion with the English terms to be used in the next step.

3. The actual images of pages of the book do show the page numbers.

4. I started searching at A-I section, pagina 1, immagine 1 to find the start of the index, the cover, intro pages, etc. and then the actual records. But instead immagine 1 shows page 134, and we're already into the B's of the alphabet!

5. So where is the actual beginning of this index book? It is on section A-I, pagina 5, immagine 284! NOTE: the first several pages of this volume (and others) provide a key to the Palermo neighborhood/parish abbreviations used, and a guide to the notations of individual records, in English.

6. The previous immagine (283) contains the final pages of the volume (668-669).

7. A quick examination of the 1846-1855 L-Z volume shows that everything seems to be in order.

BOTTOM LINE: The error I've described seems to derive from a single mistake - someone "cut & pasted" a big chunk of content incorrectly. Within the various chunks, the records seem to be in correct consecutive order. Apparently the same mistake has been made more than once, in different volumes, and that's unfortunate.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER THIS PROBLEM:
1. Don't give up when some record is not where you expected it to be! Go to each Pagine in the section, look at the first image and look at the final image. Hopefully you will find the discrepancy that will allow you to orient correctly to the alphabet and page number sequences.
2. Do not waste your energies bemoaning this system. People make mistakes, and especially with a project this massive, some can be expected. Roll with the punches.

The 10-year death indexes do not name the spouse; is this your Rosalia?
1856-1865 A-Z; pagina 1, immagine 7:
Rosalia Mancuso
daughter of Salvatore Mancuso & M. Anna Pampillonia
5 iuglio 1865, age 47
citta 501, n 1976

Hopefully someone else on the forum can help you carry the search from here for the actual document, it is beyond my skill set.

Parker

[parkergambino]

Hey Mezzogiorno,

I just saw another problem. There's a gap for much (if not all) of Palermo death records: FamilySearch kicks in at 1866, but the Antenati site may only have record images up to 1861.

I can speculate on a potential workaround, but this is not at all my forte, and again, others more knowledgable about this can address it with more authority. When a marriage occurs but the parents are deceased, some of the preliminary documents that need to be filed in publicazione include the death document (maybe only for the father? maybe only for brides?). So you might need to poke around for this option to find documents not available through the easier channels. That's some digging!

Good luck

Parker

[mezzogiorno62]

this is the correct entry. husband was salvatore landino. parents and date of death are correct. thats why i was trying to find the entry, as hopefully it would lead me to the original record. but the antenati site only goes up to 1861 and familysearch doesnt start until 1866. i need 1865.also,the entry you found says citta,meaning,i assume,that she didn't die in one of the sezioni,or sections,as opposed to the city proper. none of this makes much sense, but thanks very much for checking.

[bbivona]

this is the correct entry. husband was salvatore landino. parents and date of death are correct. thats why i was trying to find the entry, as hopefully it would lead me to the original record. but the antenati site only goes up to 1861 and familysearch doesnt start until 1866. i need 1865.also,the entry you found says citta,meaning,i assume,that she didn't die in one of the sezioni,or sections,as opposed to the city proper. none of this makes much sense, but thanks very much for checking.

The Antenati site goes up to 1865 for Palermo most of le sezioni. Here is the link to the document that I think you're looking for. She was in Sezione Riunite. Some of the pages are out of order, but the index gives the order number of 1976, so I just played around with finding where those were, and got it in a few minutes. (The second supplement goes up to about number 1840 and the third supplement starts with 2504, but when you go further into the third supplement the numbers drop back down, so I just worked my way back from where I found the lower numbers.)
http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it ... ewsIndex=0

If you go to this link you'll find Palermo and sezioni (and on the next page). The majority of these have 1865 documents.
http://dl.antenati.san.beniculturali.it ... aurazione/

[mezzogiorno62]

thanks very much! i have the extract of this record with the number 1976 vol.504 included. it says citta and mentions nothing about sezione riunite. the sezioni in palermo didn't include that district. never heard of it. but this is the correct record. just wanted to see the original. thanks again.

[bbivona]

thanks very much! i have the extract of this record with the number 1976 vol.504 included. it says citta and mentions nothing about sezione riunite. the sezioni in palermo didn't include that district. never heard of it. but this is the correct record. just wanted to see the original. thanks again.

When you look at the 1865 deaths in Palermo that aren't in a specific sezione, there are very few. If she was number 1976 in the year, a number way higher than the total in the ones grouped as just "Palermo", I figured she had to be in a sezione. I opened a few of them and looked through the sezioni with very large numbers of deaths and found her.

[parkergambino]

Al contrario, bbivona,

I'm still on the upswing of my learning curve for the Palermo Antenati records. Here are my observations and some speculation. I'm always happy to be shown the light when correction is called for!

My cursory exam of the Antenati morti holdings for the Palermo sezioni shows that the majority are missing record years between 1861-1865! Only a few have a complete run from 1861-1865. I have not looked at the other civil document categories (Nati, Matrimoni, etc.) yet.

Is there an actual place called Reunite? Google maps can't find. Also note, the "Reunite" is designated "sezioni" (plural), while all the others (corresponding to verified geographical locations) are "sezione" (singular). I will post a query about this to the Italian Geography section of the forum.

Then if we examine the Reunite morti records, they include only the years 1862-1865 - the same years that are missing from so many of the individual sezione sets.

My speculation: Reunite could be where all of those missing records now reside. That certainly proved true to find Rosalia Mancuso mort 1865.

When I have time (sounds like 2019), I will investigate this hypothesis further; for now it seems to connect a few disparate dots. Much thanks to both of you for moving this aspect of my search along. Nice Christmas present!!

Parker

[bbivona]

Al contrario, bbivona,

My cursory exam of the Antenati morti holdings for the Palermo sezioni shows that the majority are missing record years between 1861-1865! Only a few have a complete run from 1861-1865. I have not looked at the other civil document categories (Nati, Matrimoni, etc.) yet.

Is there an actual place called Reunite? Google maps can't find. Also note, the "Reunite" is designated "sezioni" (plural), while all the others (corresponding to verified geographical locations) are "sezione" (singular). I will post a query about this to the Italian Geography section of the forum.

Of the 17 sections with records, 11 of them go to 1865, while 6 stop at 1861. I was just addressing the comment that Antenati stops at 1861. It doesn't, although there are no records for 6 of the 17 sections after 1861.

Doing a little looking, it does appear that the deaths listed as "città" in 1862-1865 were all reflected in the Sezioni Riunite. (The Combined Sections.) It looks like the 6 sections that don't have records for 1862-1865 were just in a single archive that year, so they're not really "missing" as much as they are just grouped differently.