Italian Infant Abandonment: Difference between revisions

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Understanding the history of the Italian infant abandonment system and its name-assignment practices may help you understand how some of your ancestors acquired their surnames and possibly help you find and identify ancestors in the records.  

From about the thirteenth century through the end of the nineteenth century, throughout the areas that in 1860 became unified Italy, a pregnant single woman, faced with the loss of her own and her family's honor, would leave her residence to give birth elsewhere and after having the baby baptized, would give (or have the midwife give) the newborn baby to a foundling home (''ospizio'') to be cared for by others. For about a year after giving birth, the unwed mother, in order to pay for her own infant's care, often served in the ''ospizio ''as a wet nurse for the children of others though almost never for her own child. (Kertzer, pp. 131-33, 162-63.) With few exceptions, she would have no contact with her child ever again.  

As conducted in Italy for about seven centuries, with varying degrees of success, the infant abandonment system was prompted by "great concern for the lives of women who found themselves in the desperate position of being pregnant and unmarried, with no one to care for their child." (Kertzer, p. 37.)  

The Italian infant-abandonment system generally but not always included the assignment of a surname to the infant upon arrival at the ''ospizio''. Thus while in the ''ospizio ''and later when placed with a family in the countryside, the child bore a surname different from its unknown family of origin and different from the family with which it was placed. (Kertzer, pp. 119-22.) "Until the nineteenth century, foundlings in many areas were baptized with first names only and were not given a last name." (Kertzer, p. 119.)  

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 Della Casagrande  

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 "Of the Ospizio" (of the Hospital or Hospice)  

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 "Innocent One"  

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Della Scala  

Name assigned by foundling home in Sienna  

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Projetti  

Name assigned by foundling home in Rome  

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Esposito  

 "Abandoned"  

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Degli Esposti  

 "Abandoned"  

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Ospizio  

 Foundling Home  

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Incogniti  

 "Unknown"  

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Circoncisi  

 "Circumcised"  

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Palma  

Surname given to child born or abandoned on Palm Sunday  

''• Because Mr. Rossoni identifies Aprile, Aprili, D'Aprile, Febbraio, Febbraro, and Settembre (April, February, and September) as surnames for abandoned infants derived from the names of the months in which the infants were abandoned, it may well be that the names of other months were similarly used.''

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![[File:Certificate of Abandonment of Merico Scherzi.jpg|500px|Caption]]

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<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,&nbsp;with the birth occurring on 23 Apr 1902, the baptism occurring on&nbsp;24 Apr 1902, and the abandonment occurring on 25 Apr 1902, in Chiavari, 12.6 km (13.4 miles) away from Orero.<br>

This discussion is comprised of two parts: (1) What to do when an ancestor's birth or baptism record is not found in the records of the town of post-birth residence; and (2) What to do when an ancestor's birth or baptism record is found (which most often is not the town of post-birth residence).<br>  

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 themselves.<br>  

*Joanne Mueller and Lorraine Sherr, "Abandoned babies and absent policies." ''Health Policy'' (2009), doi:10.1016/j.healthpol.2009.06.002.

*Ettore Rossoni's "L'Origine dei Cognomi Italiani: Storia ed Etimologia" [The Origin of Italian Surnames: History and Etymology"] (Melegnano, 2014; 3,379 pages; available at <nowiki>https://archive.org/details/OrigineEStoriaDeiCognomiItaliani</nowiki>)

*http://www.unisob.na.it/inchiostro/index.htm?idrt=4500 (Italiano) (interior of a wheel)

*http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Borgo_-_santo_Spirito_in_Sassia_-_la_ruota_1639.JPG (exterior of a wheel)

{{Place|Italy}}  

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{{H-langs|en=Italian Infant Abandonment|pt=Itália, Menor Abandonado|fr=Italie Enfants abandonnés}}