Assistance with Record Location – Palmer / Palmieri Line (Castillo / San Francisco de Macorís, Domin
Research Objective:
To locate the original Birth Record (1886) of my great-grandfather, Pascual Palmer, in order to obtain the declaration of age and parentage of my Italian great-great-grandfather, as well as the Death Record of the latter (Esteban/Stefano Palmer). These documents represent the critical link for an Italian citizenship by descent (Jure Sanguinis) application.
Immigrant Ancestor (Great-Great-Grandfather):
- Name: Stefano Palmieri / Palmeri (locally recorded as Esteban Palmer or Palmers)
- Place of Origin: Municipality or Province of Palermo, Sicily, Italy
- Immigration: Arrived in the Dominican Republic during the 1880s, accompanied by a brother who later relocated to Santiago de los Caballeros
- Dominican Spouse: Francisca Tamarez (also recorded as Tavarez, Támares, or Tabarez)
- Residence: Settled in the section of Juana Díaz, Municipality of Castillo, Duarte Province
Great-Grandfather:
- Name: Pascual Palmer (also recorded as Palmers or Palmer Tavarez)
- Birth: 1886, Juana Díaz, Castillo, Duarte Province
- Located Civil Death Record: February 11, 1970, Castillo
(Death Register 1970, Record No. 33, Page 33. DGS Roll: 004590934 / Image: 420)
Note: In this death record, the registrar incorrectly recorded Pascual’s parents as “Unknown.”
Catalogs and Film Rolls Already Reviewed (Without Success Through Standard Indexing):
- Church Baptisms (1886–1887):
- Reviewed the given-name index in the Cathedral of Santa Ana baptismal records of San Francisco de Macorís (Item 1, DGS containing baptisms beginning in 1886).
- Pascual’s baptismal entry was not located.
- Civil Death Records (Estimated Time Range):
- Identified the civil register volume “Defunción oportuna, 1055679, 17 Mar–2 Dec 1919” (DGS 105115158) for San Francisco de Macorís as a potential source for Esteban Palmer’s death record.
- Original Civil Birth Records:
- Currently conducting a manual page-by-page review of the chronological Birth Register (1886–1887) of San Francisco de Macorís (approximately 398 pages).
- This search is based on the administrative dependency of the Juana Díaz section during that period and the apparent absence of native 1886 birth books in the Castillo catalog.
Specific Request to the Representative:
I respectfully request specialized assistance using FamilySearch’s internal tools (AI-assisted search capabilities, unpublished transcriptions, or other internal indexing resources) to determine whether Pascual Palmer’s 1886 birth record, or the marriage and/or death records of Esteban Palmer, may have been indexed under a misspelled or variant surname within the early records of Duarte Province (San Francisco de Macorís / Castillo) or neighboring municipalities of the period, including Pimentel and Villa Riva.
Any assistance in identifying alternate spellings, hidden index entries, or non-public transcriptions would be greatly appreciated.
Answers
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@Siry91
You may have better success by posting in the Italy Research Group where several very experienced researchers can assist.
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/108-italy-research
And for the DR, Latin American and Caribbean Research Group
https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/115-latin-american-and-caribbean-research
Best of luck with your research.2 -
You will need to know a little more about the specific town of birth - Palermo is too general.
First, Palermo is a metropolitan city, which in 1886 was divided into 4 quadrants and each quadrant had named sections within them, such as Acqua dei Corsari, Altarello, Aquino, Arenella, Bandita, Boccadifalco, Brancaccio, Ciaculli, Mezzomonreale, Mondello, Pallavicino, Partanna, Pomara, Resuttana, San Lorenzo, Santuario di Santa Rosalia, Sferracavallo, Tommaso Natale, Vergine Maria, Villagrazia. More info is needed.
Typed books of birth indexes can be found here: https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/search-registry/?localita=Palermo&s_size=100&s_facet_query=conservatore_s%3A%22Archivio%20di%20Stato%20di%20Palermo%22%252Clocalita_ss%3APalermo%252Ctipologia_ss%3A%22Nati%2C%20indici%20decennali%22
I checked for births from 1876 through 1895 - two different volumes - and I did not find any potential matches for your named subjects using Palmeri or Palmieri.
Second, Palermo is also a regional Province with approximately 80 towns located within it - this is the large area that surrounds the main city of Palermo, but when asked about birth locations abroad, many would just say "Palermo." You will need to know the specific town in order to be able to search further for your 2xGGF. [edited to delete GGF for clarity]
Do you have documents that contain more specific information such as a passenger manifest?
Note: I see Pascual's death record, #33, located here: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9396-YJPP-P
You should note that the registrar did not necessarily list his parents as "Unknown" incorrectly. The term used here "no sabe" simply means that the declarant, Rafael Burgos, did not know their names - nothing more.
Also, it states a year of birth of 1896 - which, of course, on death records is often wrong.
Can you provide the name of Stefano's brother? Sometimes in genealogical research we often can locate information about a particular person by first researching their siblings.
Lastly, have you located the Dominican marriage records for either Stefano or Pascual?
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@SantaNinfa he is saying that Pascual was born in the Dominican Republic, not in Italy. This doesn't appear to be Italian research at this point.
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Agreed, however, It seemed he was also looking for info on his 2xGGF Stefano, born in Palermo or surrounding area, which he is going to need if his primary stated goal even has a chance. So, an 1860's (or so) birth for Stefano or Stefano's brother would definitely help him.
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Thank you so much for your thorough analysis and valuable insights! (By the way, just a quick note to clear up a small misunderstanding: I am actually a woman, though I noticed the system layout might have made it seem otherwise! Haha). Your check on the Antenati decennial birth indexes for the city of Palermo effectively narrows our target down to the wider regional Province of Palermo (the 82 surrounding communes).
To help us pivot the strategy, here is the clear overview of what we have discovered so far and the specific missing links:
1. Pascual's Birth and Parentage Context:
To clarify the lineage, my great-grandfather Pascual Palmer was born in the Dominican Republic. He was born in 1886 in the rural section of Juana Díaz, Castillo (Duarte Province), and his father (Stefano/Esteban) was fully Italian. Our absolute priority is locating Pascual's original 1886 Civil Birth Certificate because, during that primitive era of the Dominican Civil Registry (established in mid-1885), the Italian father had to declare the birth in person, which would explicitly state his age and his specific town of origin in Palermo. Since Castillo’s independent records suffer from gaps prior to 1896, we are manually sweeping the chronological pages of the San Francisco de Macorís Birth Registry (1886–1887) due to the administrative dependency of Juana Díaz at that time.
2. The Marriage Records Gaps & Found Documents:
You asked about the marriage records. I have not been able to locate any marriage record for the immigrant Stefano/Esteban Palmer in the country.
Regarding his son Pascual Palmer and María Beatriz Sosa, I have found several digital search results for their family structure, including the birth certificates of their children and even the marriage certificates of their children (where Pascual appears as the father). However, Pascual and Beatriz's own 1917 Marriage Certificate does not appear as an independent, text-indexed entry in the search database. It seems their 1917 marriage record is only preserved within the unindexed image lots of Castillo, Duarte (Dominican Republic, Civil Registration, 1744-2019). Since you have advanced administrative viewer privileges to bypass standard search filters, could you please help me check the physical images for the Castillo Marriage Book of 1917? If found, the registrar would have listed Pascual's parents as: "Hijo de Esteban Palmer, natural de [Town/Commune Name], Italia".
3. Stefano's Brother (The Sibling Strategy):
Your suggestion to research the sibling is spot on. Family lore states that Stefano arrived in the Dominican Republic in the 1880s accompanied by a brother who eventually relocated to Santiago de los Caballeros. Unfortunately, I do not have the specific first name of this brother. We are trying to filter 19th-century civil death and marriage rolls in Santiago for the surname Palmer/Palmers/Palmieri to identify him, hoping his records might also reveal the specific commune.
4. The Crucial Details Needed for Italy:
I want to emphasize that I need to discover at least Stefano's age (to calculate his birth year) and his specific town or commune of birth. Without these two precise pieces of information, it is legally and logistically impossible to locate or request his birth record from the State Archives or local municipal registries in Italy, which completely halts my Iure Sanguinis process. Given your expertise and system access, any help checking the unindexed 1917 Castillo Marriage images or guiding us through unindexed 1886 San Francisco de Macorís birth batches to find the specific town in the Province of Palermo would be a massive breakthrough.
Thank you again for your incredible support! :)
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Thank you so much for the links and for pointing me in the right direction! I truly appreciate your time and the guidance you've given me. I will follow your advice right away and post my case in both the Italy Research Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Research Group to see if the specialists there can help me locate those specific unindexed records from Castillo/San Francisco de Macorís or find the missing brother.
Thank you again for your amazing support!
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@Siry91 My sincerest apologies for misgendering you - mea culpa. Thank you for your detailed reply.
I do not have "advanced administrative viewer privileges" as I do not work from an AL or an FSC - but there are others here that do some of their work from such locations and they may be able to share details from a transcription if, for example, a marriage record were to be found. I noticed that some of the Duarte records are availabe for full-text searching, while others are not. So, it will take a little time.
I will let you know if I find anything.
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@Siry91 UPDATE!
Pascual and (Maria) Beatriz Sosa were married 29 May 1915. Pascual's surname is spelled Parme and he is listed as 26 years old - if accurate, that means he was born between May 1888 and May 1889 - so, I guess there's not a chance at finding that - births seem to start in 1898. However, the way he is listed may indicate that Stefano and Francisca may not have been officially married. Also, Stefano is deceased as of this date (so, I will start with 1915 and work back looking for his death record). Beatriz is listed as 17 years old. I will trust that you can read the rest better than I can as there is mention of a Pedro Parme towards the end.
Their marriage record, #55, Image 713/761 (and the next page), is here: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9396-BS4B-K?lang=en&i=712
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Oh, my apologies for the misunderstanding! I truly thought you had special access because finding image 713/761 so quickly was an absolute masterclass in research! Thank you so much for your dedication. Now that we have the actual document, I carefully reviewed the cursive handwriting of Record #55, and it gives us the most solid clues we've had so far:
- The "Pedro" Clarification: You mentioned seeing a Pedro Parme toward the end. I double-checked the handwriting, and the word is actually "padre" (father) written in old Spanish legal cursive regarding the bride's family consent. So there is no relative named Pedro; our sole Italian focus remains strictly on Stefano.
- Stefano's Death Window: The record explicitly states "Esteban Parme (difunto)", meaning Stefano had already passed away by May 1915. Your intuition to work backward from 1915 looking for his death record is 100% correct and is now our best strategy.
- Pascual's Birth (1889): Since Pascual was 26 in May 1915, he was born around 1889. While Castillo's local independent books start later, in 1889 this area was under the administrative jurisdiction of the main headquarter municipality, San Francisco de Macorís. His civil birth registry should be hidden somewhere in the San Francisco de Macorís 1889 books.
Since we are both using standard home access, I will start browsing through the unindexed digital folders for Castillo and San Francisco de Macorís Deaths (1900–1915) to see if I can find Stefano's death entry. If I hit a wall, I will post the specific DGS numbers here to see if any other group member working from an FSC can look into them.
Thank you again for cracking this case wide open for me!
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@Siry91 Your most welcome - my pleasure to help.
Note that there is a window for a possible birth for Pascual since the wedding took place on May 29 - so he could have been born any time between 30 May 1888 through 28 May 1889 - all assuming age 26 is his true age on the day of marriage.
Also, taking a second look at Page two, it appears clearly that Parme is EITHER part of the hyphenated surname of one of the witnesses, that is Manuel Encarnacion Juancito-Parme (which seems very unlikely) OR it is being used to separate the names of the two witnesses, Manuel Encarnacion Juancito - Parme Pedro, but it seems clear to me that the word Padre is not there - not even close. This becomes even clearer if you read the language before and after those names indicating they were the witness and both were of majority age.
All that aside, this seems to be a definite brother of Pascual: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:DJKD-BJ6Z?lang=en
Juan Palmer died in 1946 and was born in 1896. I'll see if that birth document tells us anything new.
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Thank you so much for these findings!
According to what my family tells me, Juan is definitely Pascual's brother, so that completely confirms the connection.
I’ve been trying to keep searching for Pascual’s birth certificate and Esteban's death certificate based on these new dates, but I haven't been able to find them yet. Have you had any luck finding those or any other clues in the records?
Thanks again for your amazing help! 😊
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@Siry91 My pleasure.
Nothing yet - but I will let you know.
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