Indexing Italian Marriage Records

lorisandersperry

I review Italian indexing records. Some batches have marriage banns in the body of the record listing the bann dates and in the margin it lists the groom, bride, and date of the actual marriage. Should these records be indexed? It is confusing because some people are indexing them and others aren't. What is correct? To index or not to index the records?

Cousin Vinny

Which project? What do the project instructions say?

For example, in the Potenza—Civil Registration, 1809–1865 [Part E] project it says:

Che cosa indizzare

• Indicizza tutti gli atti di nascita, matrimoni, e morti.
• Non indicizzare i record di pubblicazioni (o annunci pubblici di matrimoni), indici o allegati. Indicizza solo i record dei matrimoni effettivi.

and…

Promesse di matrimonio

• A differenza dei progetti precedenti, le promesse di matrimonio (impegni formali di matrimonio) precedenti al 1866 dovranno ora essere indicizzate per le seguenti province e regioni:
  • Abruzzo
  • Bascilicata
  • Calabria
  • Campania
  • Frosinone
  • Lazio
  • Molise
  • Puglia
  • Sicilia

So, are you talking about marriage publications, or a marriage promessa? A pre-1866 marriage promessa has the marriage date in the margin. It will also have in the main body the dates that the marriage publications were made. But I don't believe the names of the spouses are found in the margin, just the names of the witnesses to the church marriage. These should be indexed (unless they are part of an allegati/processetti packet)

Post-1874 publications (with "Atti di pubblicazioni" at the top) have the names of the spouses in the margin and the dates the publications were made, but not the date of the (civil) marriage. These should not be indexed.