Pescocostanzo comune records after 1865
Greetings,
I am researching my paternal Great Great Grandparents and have found a birth record for my Great Great Grandfather who was born in Pescocostanzo, L'Aquila, Abruzzo in 1859. He immigrated permanently to the US in 1892 and later married a woman also from Pescocostanzo in 1898. However he had two children (one of which was my Great Grandmother) from a previous marriage. My research has confirmed that his first wife died in Italy but I have been unable to determine where they were married or where their children were born.
Being that he had very strong ties to other immigrants from Pescocostanzo for his entire life, I am surmising that he was also married there circa 1885-1887. As the records for Pescocostanzo on Antenati only go to 1865 I am hoping to find later records from the 1880s to confirm his marriage and the name of his first wife. I have been unable to locate any later records online and need some help on where to look next. I did find a homepage for the Pescocostanzo comune online and sent them an email few weeks ago regarding the records but did not hear back.
Any advice on where to look next to find these records, please let me know.
Answers
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Have you tried clicking on the map of countries, selecting Europe, then Italy, then on the colorful map select the region L'Aquila in the Wiki of Family Search? You will find online digital records for civil registration. Select Tribunale. There is an Indicii decennali 1886-1895 by surname for marriages in the Tribunale. If you stick with Italy, L'Aquila, L'Aquila. Don't know if this will help you in this instance, not knowing the name you are looking for, I could not search myself. There are records of L'Aquila marriages on DGS film 2014120 that can be browsed also, but unfortunately I found only one index imbedded in the over 3000 images on that film, but skipping forward to Image 1597 begins 1885 marriages, image 1663 begins the 1886 records, and image 1738 begins the 1887 marriage records. Wouldn't be that many images to search through, maybe about 200 images as opposed to over 3000 images on the entire film. Just a suggestion... Marie
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Hi Marie,
Thank you very much for your reply. I looked through the records on the film you suggested but unfortunately didn't find them. Always good practice to read through more old records though!
My Great Great Grandfather was named Raffaele Fiore. Unfortunately since he was a foundling I don't know and will probably never know who his birth parents were. His birth record can be found in the Nati esposti section for Pescocostanzo in 1859 on Antenati. His naturalization papers from the US listed that he was born in Pescocostanzo and that is how I was able to find out where to look for his birth record on Antenati. What is frustrating is that these same naturalization papers list that his children were born in "Aquila" and I am unsure if he meant the province or the comune. I've searched the Aquila comune birth records for his two children (Alfredina and Giuseppe) near their listed birth years without success.
Just a few days ago I received a copy of my Great Grandmother's death certificate in the mail and it was no small task finding out where she had died in the United States. This document listed her mother as "Maria DaPrato" however this is my only documented source of her birth mother's name and as such it isn't much to go on. I've researched the DaPrato surname in Italy and found that it is extremely uncommon, especially in the Abruzzo region. I did find some records in the 1870s for people with the surname DiPrato in the Chieti province in the comunes of Chieti and Ripa Teatina but none of them matched up with my ancestors.
I was surprised to find post 1865 records for the Chieti province on Antenati so hopefully these later records will be available for the L'Aquila province in the near future. I've also considered that if my Great Great Grandmother was really named Maria DaPrato that she may have been a foundling as well. DaPrato translates to something like "from the meadow" which lines up with the nature based surnames that foundlings were often given during that time. I've read all of the available foundling records for Pescocostanzo on Antenati and found that nature based surnames were quite common there...especially during the 1850s and 1860s.
Thank you again for your reply...the search continues. 😀
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Last resort DNA. Eventually may locate a descendant of Raffaele or his siblings who is a cousin match. Good hunting.
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Funny that you mention it. I've received test results from MyHeritage and Ancestry during the last month and I've noted some strong matches with people who have ancestors from Pescocostanzo, Ateleta and other nearby comunes in L'Aquila. But as I looked into some of their online trees and then tried to corroborate their findings via Antenati I unfortunately found that many shortcuts had been taken and listed relatives had not been properly verified.
My initial excitement was dimmed when I realized that I would have to verify everything on these trees before proceeding further and that would take an enormous amount of time that I unfortunately do not have.
If I can confirm the identify of my Great Great Grandmother it should make things a lot easier. I have been talking with one gentleman in Italy that I matched with but we've yet to determine how our family trees align but as I continue building and researching our family trees perhaps we'll figure it out one day.
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I have a cousin living in Isernia who sent us a spreadsheet of names of members on our family tree and birthdates back to 1700's, but as you indicate no verifying documents were provided. I accepted his data as a shortcut to ancestors and have since obtained some documentation through Family Search and Antenati. The comfortable part of accepting his data is that in Italy they do not move around like we do in America. They have records kept of all members of a family including subsequent marriages, deaths and destinations that they move to. On my mother's side, original birth records in Rocca di Mezzo, L'Aquila, Italy even had notations in the margin about someone who came to America and died here. Records were sent from officials in Los Angeles to Rocca di Mezzo verifying my great aunt's death and the registrar made note of this on her original Italian birth record.
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