Help translating certificate

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delfgill
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Help translating certificate

Post by delfgill »

Hi,

Can someone please help translate the attached certificate. Thank you very much!
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cv birth crop.jpg
erudita74
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Re: Help translating certificate

Post by erudita74 »

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... cat=782541

Always best to provide a link to the record, if it is online. Sometimes there are annotations in the margin such as marriage and death dates or, in the case of an abandoned infant, such as this one, info concerning his recognition by the natural parents, if that occurred at a later date.

The record is dated Dec 10, 1868 in Viggiano. Rosangiola di Rago, daughter of deceased Ascanio, age 34, and receiver of the abandoned infants, found this young male at 2 a.m. on the 10th of December, abandoned on the wheel next to the door of her house on Strada Piazza Plebiscito. He was wrapped in black colored rags. She presented him to the town official who recognized him to be a male of apparently three days old, who had no signs on his body, or clothes which would make him recognizable (that is, which would help to identify him). It was the town official who then gave him his name and surname (Carlo Vitale).

Erudita
delfgill
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Re: Help translating certificate

Post by delfgill »

erudita74... many thanks for your quick response. I appreciate it more than I can say!

The family always spoke of my great grandfather being found abandoned wrapped in velvet clothing with a bunch of gold coins in the bottom of the basket. I am not surprised this is not mentioned in the certificate but part of me wishes it was.

Does anyone know what might have happened from here? His marriage certificate lists his parents as 'genitori ignoti' which makes me wonder if he was ever adopted. I would think his adoptive parents would have been named as his parents in all paperwork going forward.

Any help greatly appreciated.
erudita74
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Re: Help translating certificate

Post by erudita74 »

I don't see any mention of gold coins in this record. Sorry, but family oral history often spices things up. If there were such coins, they would have been recorded in the birth record, as when an infant was abandoned, all items left with that infant were recorded by the town official in case the natural parents returned at a later date to reclaim the infant.

As to adoption-it was a very rare thing, as far as I know. The only time I have ever seen a reference to an adoption was on a passenger list for the youngest sibling of my one grandfather. His surname was totally different on that passenger list from that of my grandfather and his family, but in the destination column of the passenger list, it states he was going to his adoptive father, and then names my great grandfather. Family oral history though is that this boy was about 7, roaming the town's streets, when my great grandfather, who already had a big family, took him in. I have also never been able to find his Italian birth record with the surname which appears for him on the passenger list, at least not in my ancestral town. All I know is that in the U.S., he had the surname of my great grandfather's family, but I've never found paperwork to show how his surname was formerly changed, but it had to be here in the U.S.

Erudita
delfgill
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Re: Help translating certificate

Post by delfgill »

Thank you very much!

I'm sure you've already thought of this... but do you think your family might have given the boy your grandmother/great-grandmother's surname?
erudita74
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Re: Help translating certificate

Post by erudita74 »

That wasn't the case. I'm sending you a private message.
Erudita
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