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Starting off researching records in or around Augusta Sicily isn't always easy. If you know the town, then you have a great beginning! If not, then you have a bit more work to do. Please refer to the information and resources below and how to start.
Although this information should be useful to you, there are so many more sites out there that have similar information and more! For another version of "How to get started", refer to SicilianFamilyTree.com
In Augusta, all of the original Birth, Marriage and Death records are available from 1820-1942, except marriages from 1892-1899, which have been lost (fire maybe?). If you are looking for records in other nearby towns such as Brucoli (these are grouped with Augusta with separate indices), Melilli, Florida, Ragusa etc., the date ranges may be slightly different. Typically all of the records will have an index at the end of each year, but some may be missing, making it necessary to scan that year page by page to find a name of interest. In Augusta, these indices are normally alphabetical, but in Melilli I have seen them written chronologically. Also, one of the most useful record types is the Matrimonio Allegati, also called the Matrimonio Processetti. This type of record contains the birth records for the bride and groom as well as death records for deceased parents PLUS the deceased grandfather of the groom. They are the best way to get 3 generations at one time! These volumes do not, however, have indices, so you will have to scan through to find the record number that corresponds to the matrimonio. Within the birth records, you will always find the age of the father, and sometimes the mother. Death records will have the age of the deceased and list their spouse and parents.
Depending on the town, certain records are available from your own computer and others require a trip to a library.
The short answer is "No", but at first it may be difficult. However, there is a pattern to the records, and after looking at a few, you will start to know where to look to find the date, names of the parents etc. Family Search has an Italian Genealogical Word List that outlines all the common words on the records as a quick reference. Brigham Young University has a wonderful site called The Italian Script Tutorial to help you decipher the records, including Alphabet charts to help you read the handwriting and examples of the Civil and Church records. You will start to recognize the variety of handwriting styles, but in case there is a name you are unsure about, try typing your best guess into the Sicilian Surname Search Engine at SICILIA.INDETTAGLIO.IT to see if your guess is close to an actual name. Another bonus to this surname search is that it will tell you how common that name is in each town.
If you don't know the exact town, you have a few options. First, start with the person who left Sicily. Once you have started a tree (on Ancestry for example), you should look for that person's name on a passenger list. These lists will tell you the town they were living in when they left and their age. The entry will also contain some important names including the contact person in the place of origin, as well as where they were going and the name (and sometimes relation) of the person they were going to meet. If your ancestor was male and came by himself, the record may tell you his wife's name if he was married already, or a parent's name. If your ancestor was female and traveling alone, then she would typically be listed by her maiden name and would likely been traveling to meet her husband if married. If there were children traveling with her, their surnames would match the father's. Another great record to find is the naturalization. This will list the ancestor's birthday (which can be slightly off in some cases...they weren't always good about remembering these to the day) as well as their birth town, as well as information about the spouse and any children. Once you have the town and an age to start, then you can go to the original records!
If you are not familiar with Italian naming traditions, there are multiple resources out there that describe it. I found the description on The Italian American Podcast to be entertaining. When starting your research, do not be tempted to assume you have found your relative without verifying the additional information about that entry. There are MANY individuals with the same given/surname combination due to the naming traditions, so it is important you do not attach the wrong person to your tree as I have seen many people do. The first easy check is to verify the marriage pair. Even though the towns are small, it is uncommon to have the same marriage pair of names in the same generation. For example, you may see a Santo Marino married to a Giuseppa Amara born in the early 1800's and another couple with the same names born in the 1890's, but rarely would they be contemporaries in the same town. However, it has happened, so be careful!
Yes, to make it even more complicated, you may see different versions of the same surname (or given name), which is actually NOT a different name. I have run across a name spelled one way for the same person in one record (birth), and spelled a different way in a death record. And from town to town, the names can also vary. The most common is the use of “Di or "L" or “V” or “In” before the surname root. For example, DiFazio is the same as Fazio or DiModica and Modica, L'Astorina/Lastorina/Astorina, LaSaia/Saia, Vaiasicca/Aiasicca, or Inferrera/ Ferrera. Sometimes there can be a letter change, such as DiMare/DiMari, Saraceno/Saracino, or Spinali/Spinale. And occasionally, the order of the letters is altered: Galofaro/Garofalo, Magnano/Mangano, Castro/Crasto, and Lastorina/Lastrina. There are also versions of names based on letter sounds, possibly due to the name originating in Spain, if I had to guess: Frixa/Friscia, Ruiz/Ruizi/Ruisi. And finally, sometimes the different versions do not appear similar at all: Patania/Platania/Patané or Zuppello/Zappulla/Zappalá. As you are looking for your surname, do not dismiss a name that may look similar in case there are two written forms. It is worth recording alternate-looking forms just in case it does represent another version.
Maternal surnames can be tricky. On the positive side of Italian genealogy research, a woman keeps her name from cradle to grave. This makes it extremely easy to follow a maternal line since you do not need to know her husband's surname to find her death since her name will be the same on both her birth and death record. But there are instances where you may see a surname attached to a woman that is different than her birth surname. First, as you delve into the Allegati, you will see that it was common for someone to be married two, three, or even four times if their spouse died. Within the Allegati, you will find the death record of the former spouse in these cases of remarriage. However, you may also see a remarried widow retain the surname of her deceased husband. You may not know this until you are able to find either her first marriage, or her birth where her mother's name is written. Second, in some records you may see a woman have two names. In this case, the second would be her mother's surname, in the same tradition of naming in Spain. For some reason, the record keeper may have written her maternal surname first, and excluded her paternal surname. Although this doesn't happen often, finding a woman's parents is usually the only definitive way to distinguish her birth surname from the one written on subsequent records.
Augusta Genealogy Info
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