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If you have the whole page i can try to verify with other words. The only thing i can suppose is "Mezza" with the meaning of "Metà " (Half), but i'm not sure.
I probably should have added more info when I first posted. This is a page from a 1750 stato dell'anime. The line reads:
"Angela Lisabetta Maria Troisi, sua nezza, e figlia di Filippo e q. Petronilla di Garofano..... yada yada .... age 11."
The woman on the (cut-off) line above her was her grandmother, aged sixty, and according to the formula of the other households, "sua nezza" describes her relationship to the head of the house (in this case her grandmother.)
In the previous censuses "nipote" was used for niece/nephew/grandchild, so this "nezza" thing is a new twist.
I've scoured the Latin books and can't find anything remotely similar and I know it's not dialect. It's bugging me that I can't find a definition.....
I, for example, didn't do it, but i just did think it wasn't the correct transcription of the word because i never heard of it ... so, i insist, "ottimo, Livio".
There has been a strong custom in Italy that determines how children are named: The first male is named after his paternal grandfather.The second male is named after his maternal grandfather.The first female is named after her paternal grandmother.The second female is named after her maternal grandm...