The Marriage of Joseph Marco Parisi and Marina Morelli

[Housekeeping:  For this post, Joseph Marco Parisi is listed as Guiseppe Parisi.  Please click on the pictures to see them in a larger window.]

Below is the marriage registration of Guiseppe Parisi and Marina Morelli in 1885.  The year is not clearly noted on the page unfortunately.    They are the second full entry from the top.   

This first detail below shows the date:  20th of August [1885] and the town, Premione.  I don't think this was where they got married since the records are for the church, S. Maria Assunta, in Tavodo.  It might mean where the groom was from, or where the couple were to live after marriage.

The Groom's part is the longest, mainly because it includes information about the Banns that were published, part of the record keeping to prove the marriage was legitimate and the priests followed the rules.  It reads:

Parisi, Guiseppe

son of Pietro [Parisi] and Oliva Armanini

of Premione

Regularly publicized [their intentions to marry] to the Parish 

on the 19th & 26th of July and the 2nd of August

to see if there was any impediment to the marriage

and no one came forward  [Banns information]

The bride's information is on the next page, and is much shorter.  It says: 

Morelli, Marina

of Seo,

Daughter of Antonio & Maria Sicheri

with parental consent

The parental consent part was not part of the bridal information for the other registrants on the page.  I'm not sure why this was.  Her death certificate shows her birth year to be 1862, which would have made her 23 years of age - surely over the age of consent.

A Note about the Italian Records and Names

A bit of Housekeeping

One of the issues that arises when finding records from a different country is which name to use:  the American one they used when they arrived here, the Italian one that's in the records, or even the Latin one that is in some of the church records.  Some are easy; Marina Morelli Parisi used the same name in the records that I have found in both countries.  However, others are not so easy.

For the purpose of this blog, I'll note at the top who is who, then use the names in the records.  For example, Joseph Marco Parisi was the Americanized version of Guiseppe [Marco] Parisi in the Italian records.  I'll note this at the start of the blog post when I post any Italian record where he appears.

Also, Joseph/Guiseppe had both a father Pietro and a brother Pietro.  I've written about his brother before; he's listed in the labels/tags as Pietro (Peter) Parisi.  Therefore, Joseph/Guiseppe's father is labeled/tagged as Pietro Parisi (Premione) since I believe he stayed in Italy and didn't emigrate.

While I'm talking about the records in general, I'd like to warn everyone that the italian records get more blurry and harder to read as we go along.  The ink has bled through the pages over time and the writing is more of a scrawl for many years.  I'll do my best to translate.

The photos are also not the best.  I am taking a picture of the record as it is projected from the microfilm.  The records are also filmed very small; it takes an older machine with a higher magnification to read.   All of this can combine for some pretty low quality images, and I apologize.  I believe the Church of Latter Day Saints is working on digitizing and indexing all their films (Yahooo!), so if they ever post better images, I will fix the ones I'm posting now.

For anyone who is interested in finding these records on microfilm, here are their numbers so you can order them to your local Family History Center:

Baptisms 1545-1867    #1448115     Items 6-19


Baptisms 1867-1923    #1448116     Items 1-17
Marriages 1571-1923
Deaths 1641-1923
Foreign Baptisms 1869-1921
Foreign Marriages 1851-1923
Foreign Deaths 1883-1923


Baptisms 1572-1573      #1448476     Item 16

Anthony Parisi's Birth Record

This is my Grandfather's birth record.  Click on the picture to enlarge it.

He's the fourth one down from the top on this page from 1886, next to the large notation in the margin (more on that below).  Reading across, it says that he was born on 10 Dec in Premione and baptized on the 11th.  His name is Parisi, Antonio Pietro (first born), and then there are some recordkeeping numbers.

On the opposite page are the names and information on his parents.  What is fabulous about these records is that it lists not only Antonio's parents, but their parents and town they were from too!   So with one birth record, I get three generations!  This was probably done because so many of the names were similar; there are LOTS of Parisi's and Morelli's in the records!

It shows that his father Guiseppe [Parisi] is the son of Pietro [Parisi] and Oliva Armanini; since no village is listed, it is assumed they are from Premione.  His mother is Morelli, Marina, daughter of Antonio and Maria Sicheri of the nearby village Seo.

The next column is the name of the priest who baptized/recorded this and then the name of the Godparent:  Antonio Morelli.  So my grandfather Antonio Parisi was named for his grandfather, Antonio Morelli.

Now about that notation.  It's recording the marriage of my grandfather to my grandmother Amelia Godes Kensen [Really Godskesen], daughter of Chirsath & Michelle [really Christian and Annie] in Portland, Oregon on 25 May 1918!  Someone must have written family that stayed home, who told the priest, who noted it.  Even across all those miles, and years, they were still keeping track!

A Brick Wall Smashed!!!

Over the last few years, I had hit a Brick Wall in finding more records.  I searched through the available records from Stenico (the nearest "big" town and where today's records are kept).  Nothing.  

Recently a site came online for the Trentino records:

https://secure.natitrentino.mondotrentino.net/portal/server.pt/community/indice_nati_in_trentino_-_inglese/837/nati_in_trentino/23739

While the site is mostly under construction, it does have searchable birth records for 1815-1923.  I was able to find family births on here, and more importantly, where the records are.  Turns out that the Church the family used was in Tavodo, a nearby village!  With this information, I am able to order microfilm from the Family History Library that go all the way back to 1523!  

I am slowly picking my way through the records, but have found everybody and am moving slowly backwards. I will be posting a lot of goodies soon.

To see where everybody came from, I have created a Google Map with key towns noted.  You can access it here:  https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=209706965284535003811.0004cf210637e110edca7&msa=0&ll=45.844108,11.678467&spn=4.285862,6.102905

So far:

Premione:  Village where the Parisi family lived and emigrated from

Tavodo:   Village where their Church was (S. Maria Assunta) and where the records were kept

Seo:  Nearby village where the Morelli family was from