Friday, October 19, 2012

Who are Cosma Laneve's parents?

FamilySearch.org recently added State Civil records for Bari, meaning online access to Alberobello and Locorotondo records! Unfortunately, the records are only available on-site or if you are a qualified member (which I'm not) so I have to go to the Family History Center nearby to look through them. Even so, it will be saving me a ton of money by not having to rent microfilms. Plus, I can download the records, so I don't have to rely on my shoddy photography skills and an irritating microfilm reader to get a copy. Thus, for the last couple of weeks I've been going through the Alberobello and Locorotondo records to find and save my ancestors' birth, marriage, and death records.
**Quick piece of advice -- don't use a flash drive as your primary memory source! I broke mine the other day, which contained not only many of my own files, but also the files of research I'd done for a friend. With some luck, I'll be able to fix it and get my data back. *Fingers crossed*

But anyway, I was having some trouble finding the death record of one of my 4th-great grandmothers, Cosma Laneve. Based on the marriage and death records I'd found for some of her children, I narrowed her death date down to between 1861 and 1867.  I searched the indexes of each of these years, plus 1860 and 1868, but couldn't find her. I did find a Cosma Laneve who died in 1863, but it gave her parents' names as Angelo Laneve and Marta Tauro, while I had her parents' names as Evangelista and Paola Livinia Panaro. After searching through the records twice and even checking death records in Monopoli, I figured I would look at the Cosma who died in 1863, just in case. Sure enough, it listed her husband's name as Pietro Bino - my 4th-great grandfather. Her age and year of death seemed to further confirm I had the right person. The part that didn't make sense was the names of her parents.

She was born before civil records became available in 1809, so I didn't have the ability to check her birth record, but her two marriage banns and marriage record named Evangelista Laneve and Paola Livinia Panaro as her parents. What is even more interesting is that Pietro's mother's name was Marta Tauro. My first assumption was that whoever reported her death gave the wrong information. They got Cosma's mother confused with Pietro's...and who knows where Angelo came from. But when I went back to look at the names of Cosma and Pietro's children, I realized for the first time that they had no children named Evangelista or Paola or even Livinia. Their first daughter was named Marta and their first son was named Giuseppe, the names of Pietro's parents - following Italian naming traditions. Their second son, however, was named Angelo and their second daughter was named Antonia. If Cosma's parents were really named Angelo and Marta, this would make perfect sense. Because Pietro's mother was Marta they would only have one daughter named Marta. But then why would their marriage record name Evangelista and Paola? And if they are her true parents, why didn't Cosma and Pietro name any of their children after them?

I enlisted the help of the genealogists and researchers on on ItalianGenealogy.com. My two responders seemed to think Evanglista and Paola would be her true parents. As one person pointed out, a birth record would have had to be presented at the time of marriage, naming her parents. Thus, a marriage record would probably be more reliable than a death record. But even so, we can only speculate.

So who are Cosma Laneve's parents? I really don't know now. These unsolvable mysteries drive me nuts! Maybe I'll get around to sending a letter to the church in Alberobello, requesting her birth/baptism record in order to hopefully put an end to this mystery. Or maybe I will get to go there in person someday and find out myself!

No comments:

Post a Comment