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Italian Infant Abandonment (view source)
Revision as of 19:40, 17 September 2012
, 17 September 2012Add "Tracing An Abandoned Infant's Ancestry" section.
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On occasion, a person who was abandoned as a child might learn who one or both of his or her birth parents were, for example, when registering for the military or when marrying. Sometimes the records of the ''ospizio ''were coordinated with the birth or baptism record. The above two images show the birth and abandonment records of a baby boy named by the midwife and the priest as "Merico Scherzi"; the certificate of abandonment is interleaved in the volume of records of births facing the page on which the birth is recorded. In this case, in 1902, at a time when the system was virtually ended, the surname was given to the child at the time of baptism, without the mother or father being identified, with the birth occurring on 23 Apr 1902, the baptism occurring on 24 Apr 1902, and the abandonment occurring on 25 Apr 1902, in Chiavari, 12.6 km (13.4 miles) away from Orero.<br> | On occasion, a person who was abandoned as a child might learn who one or both of his or her birth parents were, for example, when registering for the military or when marrying. Sometimes the records of the ''ospizio ''were coordinated with the birth or baptism record. The above two images show the birth and abandonment records of a baby boy named by the midwife and the priest as "Merico Scherzi"; the certificate of abandonment is interleaved in the volume of records of births facing the page on which the birth is recorded. In this case, in 1902, at a time when the system was virtually ended, the surname was given to the child at the time of baptism, without the mother or father being identified, with the birth occurring on 23 Apr 1902, the baptism occurring on 24 Apr 1902, and the abandonment occurring on 25 Apr 1902, in Chiavari, 12.6 km (13.4 miles) away from Orero.<br> | ||
== Tracing An Abandoned Infant's Ancestry == | |||
Although the post-1865 records of birth of abandoned children usually are recorded in ''Parte II'' of the birth register for the year in which the birth occurred (as is the record of birth of Merico Scherzi shown above), usually the birth record of an abandoned child did not mention the name of either parent. If, however, the parents later acknowledged the child, a record of the acknowledgement can be found in the ''Atti Diversi ''(Miscellaneous Acts). Both before an after unification (e.g., from the earliest to the latest times that records were kept in the town or city where you are conducting your research), you might still be able to learn the parentage of an abandoned child from other extant records. For example, when a young man would register for military service or exemption therefrom (at 21 years of age), the entry for him in the ''Lista di Leva ''(avaiable at the Archivio di Stato for the province where the town of birth is located) might possibly reveal his parentage. Similarly, other records should be consulted, such as notarial records (''notarii''), and tax assessment and census records (''catasti ''or ''estimi catastali''). As to the notarial records, be cautious not to interpret the title "''bastardelli notarili''" (illegitimate notary records) to refer to records pertaining to illegitimate children. Such records merely constitute a chronological list of the ''atti ''(acts) prepared by a notary as a sort of index or set of abstracts he kept of his own work for his own reference, considered and titled "illegitimate" only because they did not constitute legal documents themseves. | |||
== References == | == References == | ||