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Thanks so much! I will review and see what falls within my tree. Sorry I was unable to get back to you sooner ... I had limited access to the internet.
Did you obtain this info through the Stigliano comune by writing to them or through the LDS library? It's funny - when I recently received a reply from the comune on Giuseppe Rienzi (I waited a few months), the person who reponsed for the comune was a "Colangelo." They provided info on Giuseppe's siblings that I had not even requested, but it was great to receive that info. The additional info they sent me all involved the marriages to the "Colangelo" family. I wonder if the person from the comune who sent me the info was in some way related.
All of the information I sent you was extracted from microfilmed state civil records for either the town of Stigliano, or the Province of Matera which has some 220 films which have Stigliano records on them. Please tell me more about your experience sending to the town for information. Did you mail order for the info or send an email to the town? did you send money, if so, what method did you use? did you request a status of the family record, or what specific info did you request at the onset? My cousin has been to the town hall with a distant cousin who lives and works there (he is a police officer and has his office in the same bldg). He told me that they had to phone ahead and only then were they given access to information. That was years ago though, long before I had started the microfilmed research. I just wondered about the experience of mailing for info to Stigliano, as I have never done that. Thanks for sharing your experience in getting info from the town.
You mentioned that all of the information you sent me was ?extracted from microfilmed state civil records for either the town of Stigliano, or the Province of Matera which has some 220 films which have Stigliano records on them.?
Did you obtain these extracts from Italy?
I mailed the standard form letter to the Stigliano comune requesting the family status for Giuseppe Rienzi. Within that letter, I noted Giuseppe's parents names and his siblings (or at least the ones I knew of.) I was happy that they sent me all the birth extracts for Giuseppe's siblings and some mariage info as well but was disapointed that the one birth extract I really wanted, was not provided. I really did not understand that at all.
I did not insert money or international coupons within the letter however, I did offer to send them money for their services. They did not ask for anything. I might try again for Giuseppe's records and also ask for his parents this time.
Their response time was much longer then some other coumnes (i.e., Avella) but at least they responded.
Thanks for sharing your experience in writing to the town with me. It's good to know that they do respond to mail inquires.
When I said that I extracted the information what I meant was that I saw the actual records from the town or province archives that the Mormons had photographed and put on the microfilms. As I went through the microfilms record by record, I read the Italian and translated the information into English in notebooks that I had brought with me to my local LDS center. I did not write a translation of the entire record, but extracted the important information from the records-if a birth record, for example, I extracted the name of the parents, of the newborn, date of birth. Sometimes I extracted the ages of the parents at the time of the child's birth. I didn't necessarily copy the names of the informants or witnesses, their ages, or their professions unless they were in some way related to the family. Sometimes the records had street names and I extracted that info, but sometimes they did not. I did the same thing for marriage and death records, etc. If it was a direct line person in my ancestry, then I made a copy of the entire record from the microfilm. LDS has a machine that allows you to print a copy of the record from the microfilm.
Many of the Stigliano microfilms did not have indexes on them and you had to go record by record. Many were extremely difficult to read. If you are looking for birth records, I personally found it better to go to the Province films that include Stigliano, if you can narrow down the year of birth to a particular year or within a two year range. When I first started, I tried to find my paternal grandmother's birth record for 1895. There is no Stigliano microfilm with such a record. It has to be gotten from the Matera Province microfilm which has births for Stigliano for that year. The Stigliano films are primarily marriage oriented. If you tell me specifically the name of your ancestor and what year you think he was born, I will help you locate the correct microfilm number that should have his birth record on it.
The processetti are marriage packages which sometimes have cover pages and often do not. These can contain birth records for the bride and groom and other records needed for the marriage, such as death records of parents, of former spouses, etc. So I did get the birth records for my great grandparents who married in the 1894 with their marriage record, but not birth records for my grandmother and her sisters born several years after that. When the Stigliano processetti do not have cover pages with them, you get records for one couple followed by records for another and no separation between the records. It's difficult to know whose records are whose. You have to be able to read Italian and the old script. Many of these are completely handwritten and are not form records with fill in the blanks.
Also the death records and birth records that are contained in these packages are extracted from the original records. They are the complete records hand copied by a town clerk from the original record and have everything in them that the original has. They are usually handwritten in old script and can be extremely difficult to read if you don't know the language or don't have experience in reading them. It takes a lot of practice to get good at reading these kinds of records.
Unfortunately, doing the province films gets extremely expensive (since there are over 200 of them) especially if you have to rent one roll of film to get one kind of record for a single year. I think the rental is now $5.50 or more for one roll of film. I haven't looked at Stigliano microfiilms since 1999 pretty much and basically did research from them and the province films between 1997 and 1999.
I used to have the Stigliano microfilms on permanent loan at my local center in northern NJ, but have since relocated and don't think they kept them after I moved even though technically they are supposed to keep them. I never had the province films though on permanent loan, as there were too many of them.
I hope you understand my explanation of the concept of extraction. I have used it in two ways.
1) to just pick out of a record the important info-names of parents, of a newborn, or names of bride and groom, marriage date, name of person who died, person's parents' names, date of death, location of death, name of spouse
2) extracted records used for marriages-entire records hand written and entirely copied from the original records by a town clerk for the couple getting married to use for their marriage-death records of parents, of former spouses, of grandparents, birth records of the spouses, etc.
Sometimes with marriage packages, there were other kinds of records. One person needed a dispensation from Rome to marry the sister of his deceased first wife. Sometimes you would get a record called a family assembly or family council record. If the couple marrying was under the age of 21 and both parents were deceased, other family members had to convene in a family council to discuss the merits and shortcomings of the prospective spouse. If female, whether her dowry was sufficient, whether the prospective spouse was of good moral character and worthy of marrying their relative, etc. Under 21, parental consent was always required for the marriage.
I hope I have answered your questions. Also hope you don't mind any additional information I gave you concerning the records.
I now recall that you had a date in 1875 for Giuseppe. If that is the case, the province microfilm to order from a local LDS family history library would be as follows:
The towns are in alphabetical order on the province films. So, on the above film, for Stigliano, you only get births for the year 1875, as it goes from M to T for the town names. For 1876, it only goes A to R, so Stigliano 1876 births would not be on this roll of microfilm.
Here is the potential problem. There are missing years on some of the films. So, even though you get 1875 births on this film, and the ones for Stigliano should be on this film, it is possible that the 1875 births for Stigliano are completely missing. It's a chance you have to take, but it could be the reason why your Giuseppe's record wasn't found. Also it is possible that he was born in a neighboring town and not in the same town as his siblings, but I think it's more probable that there are missing records. If you believe you have the right date, I would rent this film and give it a try. There should be a sheet before each town's records with the name of the town on it and, Stigliano, if it is there, will be in alphabetical order for the records for 1875. Personally, I think the records for births for 1875 will be there, as I did extract info from both marriage and death records for that year. I did not need birth records for the year 1875 and never ordered or viewed that particular microfilm.
Thanks so much for sharing your extensive knowledge. I enjoyed reading about your research experiences and learned quite a bit from your post!
The 1875 birth year for Giuseppe Rienzi is a best guestimate from various sources including his marriage certificate and his sole surviving child. (Although her memory is not very sharp lately.) I am trying to figure out the best way to detetmine his birth date so I can research the extracts.
Thanks again for your input - greatly appreciated!
Sophia
You have an 1875 date from the copy of the WWI draft registration card that someone posted for you. I have in my possession a number of such cards for various ancestors and the dates on those cards are pretty accurate, at least they have been for me. In one case, my husband's grandfather's date of birth was off by 1 day. All of the other cards I have copies of have the exact dates of birth that I have confirmed from my various Italian and Sicilian towns. So, if you are sure that world war I card is definitely your ancestor, I would go with the date of birth on it. I know you are concerned that you did not get the info directly from the town of Stigliano itself when you wrote to it. I have been communicating via email the past week with a town official in an anagrafe office in one of my Sicilian towns. He got me actual dates of birth for some ancestors for whom I only had estimated years of birth. But he was missing one I had found records for on the microfilm for his town. When I emailed him that I had another child whose date he didn't give me, and was born three years earlier than the first date he sent me, sure enough he had that date and the date of another child born before that one. He also got me the parents' marriage date, once he had the earlier children. So there is always the possibility that the person in the Stigliano office simply missed your Giuseppe when going through the records or registers.
You have a point. I guess it is possible that the person in the Stigliano office simply missed that one birth record. I will use the information you provided about the 1875 index info and visit the nearest LDS Center.
I have noticed that dates for even Giuseppe's brother Leonardo is off. His naturalization paperwork is 4 years off from his birth extract from Stigliano. I am noticing that a lot when comparing US paperwork to the Italian comune paperwork.
It takes a few weeks to get the microfilm from Salt Lake City when ordering it at a local LDS center. Once you get it, make sure you use it on a microfilm reader that magnifies the records. Also always bring a hand held magnifying glass with you as well. If you don't have one, the LDS volunteers can usually find one for you to use while there, if you should need it. Keep me posted on how you do. I really hope you find the record.
maestra36 wrote:It takes a few weeks to get the microfilm from Salt Lake City when ordering it at a local LDS center. Once you get it, make sure you use it on a microfilm reader that magnifies the records. Also always bring a hand held magnifying glass with you as well. If you don't have one, the LDS volunteers can usually find one for you to use while there, if you should need it. Keep me posted on how you do. I really hope you find the record.
Wondering what family tree software you use to keep everything in order. You seem to have quite a bit of information that appears to be VERY organized. I am currently looking into options and getting input from others. Thanks!
I am still using a version of Family Tree Maker -version 16 at the moment. I had updated to new versions from the basic one over the years, but personally think this program is pretty awful. I'll see if I can get feedback from people in my village genealogy club. My husband's cousin has a really good program but it's not available anymore. Anyway, I found the following about different family tree software options. Possibly you would want to consider one of these or post on a separate section of this website to see what kind of feedback you get from others. My database currently has about 18,000 people in it. I don't like the way charts print out with my program. I also tried to move data from one version to another and now have a version with people in there quadrupled or worse. It's been a nightmare, especially with so many people in the database. Look and see if anyone else has posted on this forum about their family tree software. You should definitely have some kind of software program though, as it is the only way to keep the data organized, especially as you continue to build your family tree.
WOW. You certainly have a lot of people on your tree. How many years have you been researching?
I can't seem to find users who are completely happy with any genealogy software program. There's always something they don't like, but I'll do some more research and then purchase something. I really need to get this info stored somewhere.
Sophia,
I asked the president of my village genealogy club, and he too uses Family Tree Maker and says he's always been happy with it. I was just looking at the demo for Legacy 7.0 online, and it looks to be too complicated a program for a beginner, although it has many interesting features. It is easy to enter data in Family Tree Maker. I did like some of the older versions of Family Tree Maker that I had years ago, but they no longer worked with the upgrades on my computer and I had to then upgrade to newer versions. I just haven't been happy with the last two versions I have had. I have version 16 now. I wish I could give you a definite answer to your question, but I can't. It's a matter of personal choice. I would look for something that is simple to use now, but which gives you growing room.
I have been doing genealogy research since 1994 and Italian research since 1997. I taught myself to decipher the old script and to read the Italian records. I had studied Italian in college, but bought myself a number of dictionaries and learned a lot more from the reading the records than I probably learned when studying the language for 4 semesters. I think you know it was me who helped you with that baptism record from Avella. I love your enthusiasm for the Italian research, and I appreciate so much that you are always appreciative of the help and take the time to say "thank you."
Hello - I am looking for information on my grandfather's family - Salvatore Rienzi who settled in Yonkers, NY.
He married Sarah Santo and had five children together, Laura, Peter, Anna, Catherine and Joseph. My mother, Anna is 103 years old and lives in New Jersey with her daughter, my sister.
When her mother died in 1918, she was sent to live with her father's relative in Brooklyn, NY. I would like to find more history on the Rienzi family from Stigliano, Italy. From the information that has been posted it looks like there is a connection to your family. Any information would be helpful. John Yurista
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