Fiume, 1626

Kobler's list — the one Carlo used and this archive publishes on Carlo's Letter — begins with Valentino, «come from Carnia, made a citizen in 1739». That is now the first Carnian Defranceschi of Fiume, not the first Defranceschi of Fiume. Somebody of the name was baptising children in the city in the reign of Ferdinand II, while the Thirty Years' War was on.

Every instinct this archive has built says so. The Carnian weavers come down after 1679; the Gologorica house is built in 1711; Carlo's own account has them in Istria «intorno al 1700». A household standing at the font with the imperial Captain of Fiume in 1628 is a different social world from a tessitore contadino of Mione. De Franceschi is a patronymic and it formed independently everywhere the name Francesco was common. The honest reading is: a Venetian or Friulian merchant family in Habsburg Fiume, a century before ours arrives, and no connection shown.

It is worth saying why this matters anyway. This archive's own line ends at Senj, and the man who baptised Maria de Franceschi in 1632 was the Bishop of Senj. The line's own century in Crikvenica and Klenovica sits between the two cities. The surname was already in the Kvarner, at the top of it, three hundred years before Anton Rudolf was baptised at Klenovica house 22. Whoever they were, when the Gračišće stonecutter's son came down to this coast in the 1880s he was not bringing a new name to it.

The Fiume registers themselves — the marriages, which would give Giovanni Antonio's origin and Lucia's surname, and the deaths. The civic records Kobler worked through, in the Državni arhiv u Rijeci. And Kobler's own «Memorie per la storia della liburnica città di Fiume», which this archive cites already and has never searched for a pre-1700 Franceschi. None of that has been done.

The check looked sound. The eighteen-town sweep counted by place-name; the later sweep resolved records to the parish reel they sit on and produced ninety-three parishes with no Vodnjan among them. Following the image arks gave DGS 005497893, and asking the catalogue who made that film returned «Rimokatolička crkva. Župa Vižinada». Case apparently closed. The catalogue answers by film, and a film can carry more than one parish. Reel 005497893 holds two items: · Vižinada — Umrli 1754–1831, the deaths · Vodnjan — Rođeni 1815–1866, the baptisms A search by film number returns the first creator on the reel. The method was right and the question put to it was wrong, and this archive published the result inside twenty minutes without opening a single image. The regions row has been restored.

FamilySearch catalogue item koha:963267: «Metrical books (births, marriages, deaths) for the Roman Catholic congregation at Dignano, Küstenland, Austria; later Vodnjan, Croatia. Text in Italian.» · DGS 005497893 — baptisms 1815–1866 · DGS 005497894 — baptisms 1867–1878 · marriages 1815–1884 · deaths 1815–1833 · DGS 005497895 — deaths 1834–1893 Seventy-eight years of baptisms, seventy of marriages, seventy-eight of deaths, and until today this project did not know they existed.

149 · 4 Decembre [1816] · № domus 376 D. Stefano De Franceschi (de Parocho licentia) Domenica Maria De Franceschi, nata li 1.mo Decembre Catholica · Femina · Legitima Pater: Pietro De Franceschi di Giuseppe, agricoltore Mater: Maria Malusà q.m Matteo di Antonio Patrini: Pietro Ved… di Raffael × Maria Lu…anza di Franc… Conditio: Civile

The book is headed for the church of St Blaise of Dignano — the great basilica of Vodnjan — and the first De Franceschi entry gives more in one ruled line than most parishes give in a paragraph. A house number: 376. A grandfather: Pietro is «di Giuseppe». A mother with three generations of her own: Maria Malusà, daughter of the late Matteo, son of Antonio. And a status: civile. And look who is holding the child. The baptising column reads «D. Stefano De Franceschi, de Parocho licentia» — Don Stefano De Franceschi, by licence of the parish priest. A priest of this surname was serving at Vodnjan in 1816, and he is not baptising only his own kin: on the facing page, on 1 January 1817, he baptises a Mescheni child whose mother is Michiela De Franceschi di Giovanni. A priest of the name, and at least five lay households of it, in one small Istrian town. This archive has never had that anywhere except Gologorica.

Indexed, and now known to be Vodnjan rather than nowhere: · Pietro × Maria Malusà — Domenica Maria 1816, Domenica Michiela Giovanna 1818, Teresa Domenica 1820, Stefano Matteo 1822, Cristoforo 1824 · Pietro × Maddalena Francin — Maria Martina 1822, Pasqua 1824, Giovanni 1827, Lucia 1828 · Domenico × Zacchera Cerlon — Pietro 1817, Pietro 1819, Franco 1821, Domenica 1822, Pasqua 1825, Pietro 1828, Domenica 1830, Maria 1833; then × Pasqua Gorlato — Maria 1839; then × Maria Oliva Dorliguzzo — Pietro 1837, Bonetta 1841, Arveneria 1844 · Stefano × Bonetta Vellico — Domenico Giovanni Anto 1819, Martina 1824, Maria 1829 · Gio Maria × Lucia Bonassin — Veniera 1822, Lucia 1826, Giovanni 1829, Stefano 1831 Domenico baptises three sons called Pietro in eleven years and buries two wives. The marriage register, 1815–1884, is on film 005497894 and would name every one of these wives' fathers. It has not been opened.

7 [Augusti 1819] · № domus 32 · Mathaeus De Franceschi fil[ius] Antonii

The one death record among these is not Vodnjan's at all. Its page is headed «LIBER DEFUNCTORUM — Castellier» — Kaštelir, a chapelry under Vižinada, in the deaths section at the front of the same reel. So the film really does carry De Franceschi in two parishes forty kilometres apart, and that is exactly why the wrong answer looked right. Mathaeus De Franceschi, son of Anton, of house 32 at Kaštelir, born about 1750, died 7 August 1819 — and he belongs on the Vižinada side of the reel, not the Vodnjan one.

Two records now tie the two towns together. 1728 — in the Rovinj book of burial offerings: «Ob.to di Matt.o de Franceschi da Dignano — L 6». A man of Vodnjan, dead in Rovinj. 1840s — on the Rovinj film: Bona Defranceschi, daughter of Dominicus Defranceschi and Oliva Dorligurro, marrying Antonius Medelin. That is the third household above — Domenico's third marriage — sending a daughter to Rovinj. Both of these places sat in this archive's inventory as «unplaced». They are not unconnected; they are connected to each other, a hundred and twenty years apart, and nobody had put the two rows side by side.

The marriage book is on DGS 005497894, and FamilySearch has never indexed it. Two hundred and eighty-six marriage-query arks were resolved against that film and not one of them landed on it. Every marriage in this section has therefore been read off the page by eye, opening after opening. The volume's cover is at image 170; the first entry, Annus 1815, at image 172; the next volume begins at image 266. Roughly ninety-four openings, 1815 to 1884. The folio numbers are stamped in the corner and run odd on the right — 178 recto is folio 11, 179 recto folio 13 — so the reading order can be checked against the book itself rather than against the film. What follows is images 172–182: doc on every line, because every line was photographed and read.

15 · 30 Marzo [1818] · № domus 312 Sponsus — Pietro De Franceschi q.m Gio. Maria, vedovo della q.m Veniera Franzin q.m Domenico Cattolico · d'Anni 42 · Vedovo Sponsa — Lorenza Tesser q.m Ambrogio, vedova del q.m Andrea Manzin fu altro Andrea Cattolica · d'Anni 40 · Vedova Testes — + Gio. Batta d'Ambra, fabbro + Antonio Bellicaglia di Giovanni, muratore

A whole generation arrives in six lines. Pietro is forty-two, so born about 1776 — and his father Gio. Maria De Franceschi is already dead, which carries the family in Vodnjan back into the middle of the eighteenth century, well behind the register's own first page. He is a widower: there was a first wife, Veniera Franzin, daughter of a Domenico Franzin, and she died before March 1818. He marries another widow, Lorenza Tesser, whose first husband was Andrea Manzin. This is not the Pietro of the baptism above. That one is «Pietro De Franceschi di Giuseppe» — di, father living. This one is «q.m Gio. Maria» — father dead. Two men of the same name in one small town at the same moment, and the register keeps them apart by naming the father every single time. (doc) One caution, marked plainly: the baptism register of 1816 records Gio Maria De Franceschi as a living household head. If Pietro's father Gio. Maria was dead by 1818, then the Gio Maria fathering children in the 1820s is a second man of the name — most likely a grandson. That is an inference and it is not yet proved. (inf)

Twice in 1818 a De Franceschi stands as witness, and both times the clerk writes a cross before the name — the mark of a man who cannot write his own. 30 March 1818, entry 14, house 391, at the wedding of Lorenzo Bilucaglia and Domenica Giacometti: «+ Cristoforo De Franceschi di Giuseppe — Tessitore» — a weaver. 14 September 1818, entry 25, house 457, at the wedding of Domenico Coffetti and Maria Zoghil da Gimino: «+ Pietro De Franceschi di Giuseppe — Agricoltore» — the father of the child baptised in December 1816. Cristoforo and Pietro, both «di Giuseppe». Same father, alive, named the same way in the same hand within six months: they are brothers. (inf, and a strong one) And a tension worth stating rather than smoothing over. The baptism of December 1816 records the household's Conditio as civile. The marriage register calls Pietro agricoltore and shows him unable to sign. Those are the two columns of two different books and they may simply be asking different questions — but this archive is not going to quietly publish the flattering one. (doc for both readings; the reconciliation is unresolved)

15 · 7 Giugno [1819] · № domus 718 Sponsus — Antonio, figlio di Domenico Belci q.m Andrea e Domenica Giachin q.m Domenico Sponsa — Natalia, figlia del q.m Stefano Codalovich q.m Ant.o e di Vita Tromba q.m Cristoforo · d'Anni 20 Testes — Don Stefano De Franceschi — Sacerdote Martino Fioranti fu Giò. — Artista Joannes Tromba Sac. Theol. Doct. Parochus Capitulique Praepositus

In the baptism of 4 December 1816 he appears as «D. Stefano De Franceschi (de Parocho licentia)» — he baptised the child by the parish priest's leave, which told us he was a priest but not which one, or whose. Here he is again, thirty months later, signing as a witness in his own right and styled simply Sacerdote. And the foot of the page names the man who gave him that leave: Giovanni Tromba, Doctor of Sacred Theology, parish priest and Provost of the Chapter. So Don Stefano was not the parish priest of Vodnjan. He was a priest of the town, one of the chapter's clergy, free to be asked for at a family baptism and to stand up at a neighbour's wedding. He is also, so far, the only literate De Franceschi in Vodnjan — the only one whose name is written without a cross in front of it. (doc) And then, on 17 August 1820, the clerk writes him out in full: > «D.n Stefano De Franceschi di Giuseppe — Sacerdote» Di Giuseppe. The same patronymic, in the same hand, in the same book, as «+ Pietro De Franceschi di Giuseppe, agricoltore» and «+ Cristoforo De Franceschi di Giuseppe, tessitore». They are brothers. A priest, a ploughman and a weaver, sons of one Giuseppe De Franceschi of Vodnjan — and the two who worked with their hands could not sign their names while the third was writing in the register. (doc for all three readings; the brotherhood is inf, and about as firm as an inference gets)

21 · 19 Novembre [1817] · № domus 145 Sponsus — Giuseppe, figlio di Fran.co Manzin q.m Giuseppe e di Cattarina Manzin q.m Andrea · d'Anni 25 Sponsa — Giovanna, figlia di Tommaso Mivinurro q.m Gio. e della fu Dom.ca De Franceschi · d'Anni 40

The bride is forty in 1817, so born about 1777, and her mother — Domenica De Franceschi — was already dead when the entry was written. Run it backwards. A woman whose daughter was born in 1777 was herself born somewhere around 1750. She was baptised, married and buried in a Vodnjan whose registers, on this film, do not start until 1815. She is the reach of this book backwards past its own first page: proof of De Franceschi in Vodnjan by the middle of the eighteenth century, from a record written sixty years later. (doc for the entry; the arithmetic is inf) She also sits within a lifetime of «Ob.to di Matt.o de Franceschi da Dignano», buried at Rovinj on 27 December 1728 — until today the only evidence this archive had that the name was in the town at all.

Don Stefano turns up again and again in the years the register has so far given up, and who he stands beside is the point. · 7 June 1819, house 718 — with Martino Fioranti fu Giò., artista · 20 August 1819, house 246 — with the Reverendissimo Signor D. Michiel Benedetto, Canonico Coffetti · 17 August 1820, house 161 — with D.r Antonio De Marchi q.m Antonio, sacerdote, and here he is «di Giuseppe» · 13 November 1820, house 588 — with D. Antonio De Marchi again · 3 July 1822, house 200 — with Giacomo De Marchi q.m Antonio, agricoltore · 28 October 1824, house 208 — with Canon Michiel Benedetto again · 16 February 1828, house 464 — with D. Antonio De Marchi, the two entered together as Sacerdoti · 23 September 1828, house 73 — with D. Giacomo Tosoni, Sacerdote · 25 November 1828, house 344 — with Egidio De Maria fu Nicolò, possidente · 25 November 1828, house 329 — the same day, the next couple, with Giacomo De Marchi, nunzolo He is never the officiant and never the parroco: Giovanni Tromba, Doctor of Sacred Theology, signs the foot of every page as Parochus Capitulique Praepositus. Don Stefano is a priest of the chapter, called on by families and standing at the altar rail beside canons. His brothers, in the same years, are being written into the same book with a cross in front of their names. (doc) · 23 May 1829, house 281 — in the church of San Martino, with Ferdinando Verbits, Maestro delle Scuole Elementari · 31 August 1829, house 51 — with Giacomo De Marchi, nunzolo · 19 December 1829, house 294 — with D. Giacomo Tosoni, on a dispensation from the three readings of the banns granted by the Imperial-Royal Circle Captaincy · 22 December 1829, house 516 — with Canon Tommaso Belli, the two entered as Ecclesiastici · 8 June 1830, house 61 — with Giacomo De Marchi, on a fourth-degree dispensation · 24 November 1830, house 380 — with Giovanni Prencis q.m Lorenzo · 3 August 1831, house 293 — with Canon Cristoforo Paolino Pagano · 17 January 1832, house 376 — with D. Antonio De Marchi, sagrestano · 16 November 1832, house 77 — with D.n Filippo De Marchi, sacerdote Nineteen times in thirteen years. Twice on the same afternoon of 25 November 1828. Never once as the officiant — that is always Giovanni Tromba, the parroco. And look at who is standing beside him: canons, priests, a doctor of theology, and in May 1829 the town's elementary schoolmaster. Don Stefano moves in the small literate world of Vodnjan while his two brothers, in the same volume, are marked with a cross because they cannot write.

19 · 30 Giugno [1819] · № domus 13 Sponsus — Dom.co De Rocchi, figlio del fu Dom.co De Rocchi fu Veniere e di Antonia Forlani q.m Ant.o, vedovo della fu Vita Manzin Sponsa — Martina Antonia, figlia del fu Damiano Storcovich e della vivente Antonia Maria De Franceschi giugali Cattolica · d'Anni 40

Della vivente — still living. Where Domenica De Franceschi was «la fu» in 1817, Antonia Maria is alive in June 1819, widow of Damiano Storcovich, with a daughter of forty. So the register holds two De Franceschi women of the generation born around 1750, both married out of the name — one dead, one alive — whose daughters were born about 1777 and 1779. They are almost certainly sisters, and they belong to a Vodnjan household that no register on this film reaches. (doc for both entries; the sisterhood is inf) That matters for the shape of the thing. The five lay households of the baptism book are not the beginning of the De Franceschi in Vodnjan. They are the middle of it.

9 · 9 Giugno [1821] · № domus 356 Sponsus et Genitores — Gio: Maria De Franceschi, figlio di Pietro De Franceschi q.m Gio: Maria e della fu Veniera Francin q.m Dom.co de Rondel, giugali, Agricoltori · Cattolico · d'Anni 22 · Celibe Sponsa et Genitores — Lucia, figlia di Giovanni Bonassin q.m Giuseppe e della fu Lucia Davanzo q.m Leonardo, giugali, Agricoltori Cattolica · d'Anni 27 · Celibe Testes — Pietro Ghechig q.m Venier, Agricoltore Giacomo De Marchi q.m Antonio, Agricoltore

In 1821 the register changes its ruling. The columns become «Sponsus et Genitores» — the parents of both parties, in every entry, by name. From this page on the book gives pedigree instead of hints. And the first thing it gives is the whole line. Gio: Maria De Franceschi, twenty-two, is the son of Pietro De Franceschi q.m Gio: Maria — the very man who remarried in this book on 30 March 1818 — and of Veniera Francin, Pietro's first wife, the one already dead when he did. The bride is Lucia Bonassin, and «Gio Maria De Franceschi × Lucia Bonassin» is one of the households this archive reconstructed out of the baptism register months ago, with four children between 1822 and 1831. So the household now stands four deep, off a single page: · Gio. Maria De Franceschi — dead before 1818 · Pietro, born about 1776; married Veniera Francin, then Lorenza Tesser in 1818 · Gio: Maria, born about 1799; married Lucia Bonassin on 9 June 1821 · and their four children, 1822–1831 And it retires this morning's guess. When Pietro's father turned out to be dead by 1818, this page said the Gio Maria fathering children in the 1820s had to be a second man of the name, most likely a grandson, and marked it inf because it was not proved. It is proved now, and he is exactly that: grandson, named for the grandfather. (doc)

20 · 14 Novembre [1821] · № domus 54 Sponsus — Lorenzo, figlio di Dom.co Michiele Mainuzzo q.m Andrea e di Bonetta Forlani di Lorenzo, giugali · d'Anni 21 Sponsa — Maria, figlia di Alvise Birattan q.m Saba e di Lucia De Franceschi q.m Pietro, giugali · d'Anni 21 Testes — Sig. Giannandrea Dalla Zonca q.m Benedetto, Nobile Sig. Guglielmo Conte Lombardo di Felice, da Pola, Nobile Dispensa dal quarto grado di consanguinità, sub № 23

Lucia De Franceschi q.m Pietro — a third woman of the name married out of it, after Domenica and Antonia Maria. Her daughter is twenty-one, so born about 1800; Lucia herself married by 1799 and her father Pietro was dead by 1821. He cannot be the Pietro who remarried in 1818, who was only forty-two — so this is an older Pietro again, and another branch the baptism register never reaches. And look who signs. Not a ploughman and a weaver but Giannandrea Dalla Zonca, of the family that gave Vodnjan its best-known nineteenth-century writer, and Count Guglielmo Lombardo of Pola — two nobles standing up at the wedding of a granddaughter of a De Franceschi. The couple also needed a dispensation in the fourth degree of consanguinity, which is the register quietly telling us these families had married each other before. (doc)

On 13 February 1822 the register marries a Chiara, figlia di Gio Batta Malusà q.m Gio e Maddalena Franceschich q.m Gio, giugali di Pinguente. Franceschich is not Franceschi. It is a Slavic patronymic out of Buzet, and it will match a loose search every time. This archive is reading these pages precisely so that names like that one are ruled out by eye rather than swept in by a query. (doc — and recorded as a miss, deliberately)

4 · 30 Gennaro [1824] · № domus 409 Testes — Matteo Tromba q.m Gio. da Sissano, Agricoltore Pietro De Franceschi di Gio., da Dignano — Tessitore D.n Giannantonio Bozorich, Cooperatore di Sissano, li sposò in Sissano

The couple were married not at St Blaise but at Šišan (Sissano), ten kilometres south, by that village's own curate — and because the clerk is writing about strangers he says where each man is from. So the witness is set down as «Pietro De Franceschi di Gio., da Dignano, Tessitore». Two things come out of that line. A man this archive did not have. Not Pietro di Giuseppe the ploughman, not Pietro q.m Gio. Maria who remarried in 1818 aged forty-two — a Pietro son of a Giovanni, and a weaver. The clerk writes «di Giuseppe» in full elsewhere in the same book, so the abbreviation is his own and it means Giovanni. (doc; that he is a fourth distinct Pietro is inf, and the possibility of a slip is left standing) And it is the same formula as 1728. «Ob.to di Matt.o de Franceschi da Dignano», in the Rovinj book of burial offerings. A man of this family is called of Vodnjan only when he is written about somewhere else. Ninety-six years apart, in two different parishes' books, the same phrase does the same work.

21 · 14 Giugno [1824] · № domus 278 Sponsa — Bianca, figlia di Alvise Birattan q.m Saba e di Lucia De Franceschi q.m Pietro, giugali Cattolica · d'Anni 20 · Celibe Testes — D. Michiel Benedetto, Can.co Coffetti, Ecclesiastico Giacomo De Marchi q.m Antonio, Agricoltore

The same couple as November 1821 — Alvise Birattan and Lucia De Franceschi — marrying off a second daughter three years later. Maria was twenty-one in 1821, Bianca is twenty in 1824, so the two girls were born about 1800 and 1804 and their mother was married by 1799. One household, two entries, and between them they fix Lucia's generation without a baptismal record existing for any of them. (doc)

34 · 19 Novembre [1823] · № domus 684 Sponsa — Bonetta, figlia del fu Pietro De Franceschi q.m Dom.co e Domenica Manzin q.m Dom.co, giugali Cattolica · d'Anni 23 · Celibe — and three months later — 6 · 28 Febbraio [1824] · № domus 764 Testes — Matteo Rotta di Gio. Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro — agricoltori

Two entries, ninety days apart, and between them a second male line that has nothing to do with Giuseppe's three sons or with Gio: Maria's household. Pietro De Franceschi q.m Domenico, married to Domenica Manzin q.m Domenico, dead by November 1823. His daughter Bonetta is twenty-three, so born about 1800. And in February a Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro signs as a witness — a man whose father Pietro is dead, in the same parish, in the same season. He is almost certainly Bonetta's brother. (doc for both entries; the brother-and-sister reading is inf) So the line stands: · Domenico De Franceschi — dead before his son was written down this way · Pietro q.m Domenico × Domenica Manzin — dead by 1823 · Bonetta, born about 1800, married 1823 · Pietro q.m Pietro, ploughman, 1824 That is a Domenico at the head of it, and Domenico is the given name that runs through three of the eight households the baptism register produced. Whether this Pietro is also the «q.m Pietro» who fathered Lucia — married out by 1799 — the register has not yet said, and this archive will not decide it on the strength of a shared forename. (open)

1 · 15 Gennaro 1825 · № domus 667 Sponsus — Gio. Maria, figlio delli fu giugali Andrea Fioranti q.m Antonio e Veniera Bonassin fu Gio. Ma. q.m Francesco · d'Anni 32 Sponsa — Lucia, figlia di Alvise Birattan q.m Saba e di Lucia De Franceschi q.m Pietro · d'Anni 28 Testes — D.r Giacomo Tosoni, Sacerdote · Giacomo De Marchi q.m Ant.o

A third daughter of the same couple, and with her the household is complete on the page: · Lucia, 28 in January 1825 — born about 1797 · Maria, 21 in November 1821 — born about 1800 · Bianca, 20 in June 1824 — born about 1804 So Lucia De Franceschi q.m Pietro was married by about 1796, and her father Pietro was dead well before 1821. Three weddings out of one house, and not one of these women appears in any index anywhere. And a correction, in the place where the mistake was made. Earlier today this page called the husband «Alvise Bortolan q.m Saba». That was a misreading of the hand. This third entry writes it clearly, and the two earlier ones say the same thing when you go back and look: the name is «Alvise Birattan q.m Saba». Bortolan was this archive's word, not the register's, and it has been changed above.

6 · 25 Gennaro 1826 · № domus 224 Sponsa — Michiela, figlia di Cristoforo De Franceschi q.m Gio: Maria e di Maria Luigia Manzin q.m Domenico, giugali Cattolica · d'Anni 26 · Celibe Testes — Giacomo De Marchi fu Ant.o · Manzin Manzin fu Dom.co, Agricoltori

«q.m Gio: Maria» — the same dead father as the Pietro who remarried in March 1818 at forty-two. So Cristoforo is Pietro's brother, and the eldest line in Vodnjan now has two sons in it instead of one: · Gio. Maria De Franceschi, dead before 1818 · Pietro, born about 1776 → his son Gio: Maria, married 1821 · Cristoforo × Maria Luigia Manzin q.m Domenico → his daughter Michiela, born about 1800, married 1826 And here is the trap this parish sets. There are now two men called Cristoforo De Franceschi alive in Vodnjan at the same time: this one, q.m Gio: Maria, and the weaver, di Giuseppe, who signed with a cross in 1818. They are not the same man and they are not in the same family. The register keeps them apart by the father's name and by nothing else — which is exactly why these pages have to be read rather than searched. (doc)

29 · 10 Luglio 1826 · № domus 18 Testes — Ant.o De Franceschi fu Vittorio Martino Suspich q.m Martino — Agricoltori D.n Alessandro Fonsa, arciprete, li congiunse in Sanvicenti

Another wedding held outside the parish — this time at Savičenta, which is Svetvinčenat — and again the outside venue makes the clerk name people properly. «Antonio De Franceschi fu Vittorio». Vittorio is not a Vodnjan name in anything read so far. It is a Rovinj name: the household this archive pulled off the Rovinj film runs Giacomo → Vittorio, with Domenica Moscarda → Piero Anto, 1736. And Svetvinčenat is the parish where this archive has been reading a quite separate cluster — Mattia 1669, Mattio 1674, Piero 1707, and the nineteen openings of baptisms finished earlier this week. So one line of a Vodnjan marriage register touches both of the other southern Istrian places at once: a man carrying a Rovinj given-name in his patronymic, standing up at a wedding in Svetvinčenat. This archive is not going to claim the three clusters are one family on that. It is recording that the register put them in the same room. (doc for the entry; any connection is open, and unproved)

4 · 7 Febraro 1828 · № domus 366 Sponsa — Michiela Damiana, figlia del fu Domenico Pastrovicchio q.m Matteo e della vivente Veniera De Franceschi q.m Gio: Maria, giugali Cattolica · d'Anni 20 · Celibe Testes — Cristoforo De Franceschi fu Gio: M.a — Agricoltore Giovanni Fabro fu Matteo — Sarto

One entry, and the eldest Vodnjan line acquires a sister and a third child. Veniera De Franceschi q.m Gio: Maria is della vivente — alive in February 1828 — widow of Domenico Pastrovicchio. Her daughter is twenty, born about 1808. And standing as witness at that daughter's wedding is Cristoforo De Franceschi fu Gio: Maria: her own brother, at his niece's marriage. So the children of Gio. Maria De Franceschi, dead before 1818, now number three: · Pietro, born about 1776 — remarried 1818, father of the Gio: Maria who married in 1821 · Cristoforo — agricoltore, married to Maria Luigia Manzin, father of the Michiela who married in 1826 · Veniera — married Domenico Pastrovicchio, widowed, alive in 1828 The register found all three by naming their dead father the same way, three times, across ten years. Not one of them has a baptism on any film this archive can reach. (doc) A note on the given name: Pietro's first wife was Veniera Francin, and his sister was Veniera. In a town this size the same handful of names does all the work, which is exactly why the patronymic is the only thing here worth trusting.

26 · 23 Settembre 1828 · № domus 313 Testes — Giacomo De Marchi fu Ant.o, Nunzolo Pietro De Franceschi di Gio. — Tessitore D.r Antonio De Marchi, Sacerdote

The same man as the wedding at Šišan four years earlier — «Pietro De Franceschi di Gio., Tessitore» — and this time in Vodnjan itself, so the clerk drops the «da Dignano». That settles something small but useful: he was not a visitor. He lived there, and the 1824 entry named his town only because the wedding did not. (doc)

44 · 25 Novembre 1828 · № domus 344 Testes — Giovanni Prenis di Lorenzo, Falegname Cristoforo De Franceschi di Giuseppe — Tessitore

Ten years after he signed with a cross in March 1818, Cristoforo De Franceschi di Giuseppe, weaver, is a witness again — and this time the clerk writes the patronymic out, which is what makes him safely separable from the other Cristoforo, fu Gio: Maria, the ploughman who witnessed his niece's wedding earlier the same year. Two men, one name, one town, ten months apart in the same volume. Only the father's name tells them apart, and only because this clerk happened to write it. (doc)

42 · 25 Novembre 1828 · № domus 344 Sponsus — Giuseppe, figlio del fu Pietro Francin q.m Dom.co de Rondel e di Maria Vellico q.m Giuseppe, giugali · d'Anni 19

At a glance in the hand this reads Franceschi. It is Francin — and it is worth writing down rather than silently discarding, because it is the same family Pietro De Franceschi married into. Pietro's first wife was «Veniera Francin q.m Dom.co de Rondel». This groom's dead father is «Pietro Francin q.m Dom.co de Rondel» — the identical patronymic, so Veniera's brother. The boy marrying here at nineteen is Veniera's nephew, and a first cousin of the Gio: Maria De Franceschi who married Lucia Bonassin in 1821. Francin is not Franceschi. But in Vodnjan the two families are one household deep in each other, which is precisely why a name-match search on this parish would produce nonsense in both directions. (doc — logged as a miss, and as a connection)

22 · 22 Febbraio 1830 · № domus 399 Testes — Pietro De Franceschi di Gio. — Tessitore Giacomo De Marchi, Nunzolo di Chiesa Dispensa dal 4° grado di Consanguinità dell'Ordinariato di Pola, 18 Feb.o 1830, № 97

Third appearance for Pietro De Franceschi di Gio., the weaver — 1824 at Šišan, 1828 and now 1830 at home. He is a fixture. And the right-hand column is quietly useful. The dispensations in this book are issued by the Ordinariate of Pola, and the banns can be waived by the Imperial-Royal Circle Captaincy. Vodnjan's paperwork ran to Pola for the church and to the Austrian civil administration for the state — which is where to write next for anything this register only alludes to. (doc)

20 · 25 Giugno 1830 · № domus 483 Sponsus — Domenico, figlio delli furono giugali Domenico Fioranti fu Giorgio e Mattea Bartolet q.m Ant.o, vedovo in 2.do voto della q.m Maria Ant.a Manzin Cattolico · d'Anni 53 · Vedovo Sponsa — Veniera, figlia delli furono giugali Gio. Maria De Franceschi fu Pietro e Michiela Zambaletta fu Cristoforo, vedova in 1.o voto del q.m Domenico Pastrovicchio q.m Matteo Cattolica · d'Anni 49 · Vedova Testes — D. Michiele Benedetto, Can.co Coffetti · Giacomo De Marchi, Nunzolo di Chiesa

Two years after she married her daughter off, Veniera De Franceschi buries her husband and marries again at forty-nine — and because a widow's remarriage is written out in full, the clerk names her parents. That single line does more than any other in the volume. «Gio. Maria De Franceschi fu Pietro e Michiela Zambaletta fu Cristoforo». The father who has been a bare name since March 1818 now has a father of his own and a wife. So the line in Vodnjan stands five generations deep, entirely off this one unindexed book: · Pietro De Franceschi — dead before Gio. Maria was written down this way · Gio. Maria De Franceschi × Michiela Zambaletta fu Cristoforo — both dead by 1830 · Pietro (b. c.1776) · Cristoforo · Veniera (b. c.1781) · Gio: Maria (b. c.1799, m. Lucia Bonassin 1821) · Michiela (b. c.1800, m. 1826) · Michiela Damiana Pastrovicchio (b. c.1808, m. 1828) · and the children baptised from 1822 Michiela Zambaletta is the first woman named as a mother in this line at all, and Veniera's age puts her own birth at about 1781 — which means the marriage of Gio. Maria and Michiela was in the 1770s, forty years before this register opens. (doc for the entry; the generation dates are inf from stated ages)

21 · 17 Novembre 1831 · № domus 266 Sponsus — Ant.o Gio., figlio di Fran.co Gorlato q.m Biaggio e della q.m Luigetta De Franceschi, giugali · d'Anni 23 — and three months later — 8 · 18 Febbraio 1832 · № domus 36 Testes — Giovanni De Franceschi q.m Pietro — Calzolajo Giacomo De Marchi q.m Antonio, Nunzolo di Chiesa

Luigetta De Franceschi makes five women of the name married out of it and recoverable only through a child's wedding — after Domenica, Antonia Maria, Lucia and Veniera. She was dead by November 1831 and her son was twenty-three, so born about 1808; she married a Gorlato. And Giovanni De Franceschi q.m Pietro is a new man — a shoemaker. His «q.m Pietro» is the same formula as the Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro, agricoltore, who witnessed in 1824 and again in October 1831, and both sit beside Bonetta, daughter of «il fu Pietro De Franceschi q.m Dom.co», who married in 1823. On the dates and the patronymic they look like three children of one Pietro — the second Vodnjan line, the one descending from a Domenico. (doc for each entry; the sibling grouping is inf) Which gives this small town, in one generation of one surname, a priest, a ploughman, a weaver and a shoemaker — and, from the other line, a farmer's household that could not sign its own name.

28 · 17 Luglio 1832 · № domus 325 Sponsus — Domenico, figlio delli furono giugali Pietro De Franceschi e Martina Civico q.m Domenico, Vedovo della q.m Veniera De Rocchi fu Onorato Cattolico · d'Anni 46 · Vedovo Sponsa — Domenica, figlia delli furono giugali Andrea Biasiol q.m Ant.o e Pasqua Marin q.m Dom.co, vedova del q.m Giuseppe fu Ant.o Testes — Simone Marsanante fu Girolamo, Civile Nicolò De Marchi q.m Domenico, Possidente

Two widowed people marrying in middle age, and because both are widowed the clerk writes everything out — which hands this archive a couple it did not have. Pietro De Franceschi × Martina Civico q.m Domenico, both dead by 1832. Their son Domenico is forty-six, so born about 1786; he had already been married once, to Veniera De Rocchi fu Onorato. That is the third distinct wife now named in this generation of the surname at Vodnjan — after Michiela Zambaletta (wife of Gio. Maria) and Domenica Manzin (wife of the Pietro q.m Domenico whose daughter married in 1823). And it will not be forced into a shape. This Pietro's wife is Martina Civico; the other Pietro's wife is Domenica Manzin. They may be one man twice married or two men of the same name — this parish has already produced four Pietros and two Cristoforos, and the register decides that question only when it decides to write a patronymic. It has not. (doc for the entry; the relationship to the other Pietro is open)

41 · 1 Dicembre 1832 · № domus 282 Sponsus — Domenico, figlio di Pietro De Franceschi q.m Gio: Maria e della q.m Veniera Francin q.m Domenico, giugali Cattolico · d'Anni 29 · Celibe Sponsa — Antonia, figlia del q.m Giovanni Del Carro q.m Pasquale e di Bernardina Lugieri q.m Giacomo, giugali, Vedova · d'Anni 34 Testes — D. Giuseppe Del Ton, Dottore · Gaudenzio Dalla Zonca, nobile

The same parents as the marriage of 9 June 1821: Pietro De Franceschi q.m Gio: Maria and Veniera Francin q.m Domenico. So this is a second son of that couple — Domenico, born about 1803, four years behind his brother Gio: Maria. The eldest Vodnjan line now runs: · Pietro — named only in his son's patronymic · Gio. Maria × Michiela Zambaletta, both dead by 1830 · Pietro (b. c.1776) × Veniera Francin, then Lorenza Tesser · Cristoforo · Veniera (b. c.1781) · Gio: Maria (b. c.1799, m. 1821) · Domenico (b. c.1803, m. 1832) · Michiela (b. c.1800, m. 1826) Five generations and three of the fourth's siblings, all of it out of a book no index touches. (doc)

1 · 26 Gennajo 1833 · № domus 177 Subscriptio sacerdotis copulantis: **«D.n Stefano De Franceschi, De Parochi lic., li congiunse e benedisse nella Chiesa Parrocchiale»**

He married them himself. Joined them and blessed them in the parish church. This archive has said, on this page and in its commit messages, that Don Stefano appears nineteen times as a witness and never once as the officiant. That was true of every entry from 1819 to the end of 1832. It stops being true on 26 January 1833, and it is corrected here rather than quietly amended. What does not change is how he acts: «De Parochi lic.» — by the parish priest's licence. It is the same formula as the baptism of December 1816, «de Parocho licentia». Don Stefano is never the parson of Vodnjan; he is a priest of the chapter who steps in when Giovanni Tromba licenses him to, at a family baptism in 1816 and at the altar in 1833. Seventeen years apart, the register uses the same three words about him. (doc)

13 · 12 Febbraio 1833 · № domus 332 Testes — Cristoforo De Franceschi fu Giuseppe — Tessitore Subscriptio: «**D.n Stefano De Franceschi, De Par. lic., li congiunse e benedisse nella Chiesa della B. V. del Carmine**» 14 · 13 Febbraio 1833 · № domus 437 Testes — Pietro De Franceschi fu Pietro — Agricoltore Subscriptio: «**D.n Pietro Bradamante, De Par. lic., li congiunse e benedisse nella Chiesa della B. V. della Trovesa**»

Two consecutive days, and three things come out of them. Giuseppe De Franceschi is dead. The weaver was «Cristoforo De Franceschi di Giuseppe» in March 1818 and again in November 1828. Here he is «fu Giuseppe». The father of the priest, the ploughman and the weaver therefore died between November 1828 and February 1833 — a date this archive did not have and can now put a bracket round. (doc) Don Stefano officiates a second time, and not in the parish church: in the church of the Blessed Virgin of Carmel. With San Martino in 1829 and the Chiesa della B. V. della Trovesa the next day, Vodnjan is running marriages through at least four churches. And «De Par. lic.» is a formula, not a favour. Yesterday this archive read it as the particular way Don Stefano was licensed by the parson — the same three words as the 1816 baptism. The very next entry uses them of Don Pietro Bradamante. So it is the register's standard wording for any priest deputising for the parroco, and the pattern this archive drew round Don Stefano is a pattern of the book, not of the man. (doc — and a reading of it withdrawn the day after it was published)

34 · 27 Luglio 1833 · № domus 324 Sponsa — Maria Francesca, figlia del fu Giuseppe De Franceschi q.m Pietro e di Lucia Tromba q.m Cristoforo, giugali Cattolica · d'Anni 28 · Celibe Testes — Fran.co Davanzo fu Gio., Trafficante Sig.r Andrea Tromba fu Matteo, Possidente Civile

The household this archive has been circling since March 1818 — Don Stefano the priest, Pietro the ploughman, Cristoforo the weaver, all «di Giuseppe» — finally opens. «del fu Giuseppe De Franceschi q.m Pietro e di Lucia Tromba q.m Cristoforo». That is a father for Giuseppe (a Pietro), a wife for Giuseppe (Lucia Tromba), and a fourth child: Maria Francesca, twenty-eight, so born about 1805. And Giuseppe is «del fu» — dead — which sits exactly inside the bracket the weaver's own patronymic gave: after November 1828, before February 1833. And the mother is a Tromba. The parish priest who signs the foot of every page of this book is Giovanni Tromba, Doctor of Sacred Theology, parroco and Provost of the Chapter. One of the two witnesses here is Andrea Tromba, Possidente Civile. That reframes the whole household. A family of a ploughman and a weaver who cannot write their own names produced a priest of the chapter — and their mother came from the family that held the parish. It also explains the formula that has run through this reading from the start: Don Stefano acting «de Parocho licentia», by the leave of a parson who was, in all likelihood, his own kinsman. (doc for the entry; that this Giuseppe is the brothers' father is inf — same town, same generation, death inside the same bracket — and the Tromba kinship is inf, on a shared surname in a small town) The line now stands: · Pietro De Franceschi — named only as Giuseppe's dead father · Giuseppe × Lucia Tromba q.m Cristoforo — Giuseppe dead 1828×1833 · Don Stefano, priest · Pietro, agricoltore · Cristoforo, tessitore · Maria Francesca, b. c.1805

54 · 11 Marzo 1829 · № domus 325 «Maria, figlia di Stefano De Franceschi e di Bonetta Vellico q.m Antonio, giugali» — LIBER DEFUNCTORUM in Ecclesia S. Blasii Adignani

The third book on the film. Deaths 1815–1833 run from about image 471 to 575, in a Latin-headed ruling — Tempus mortis · Nrus domus · Nomen defuncti · Religio · Sexus · Aetas · Morbus seu causa mortis — about thirteen entries a page, twenty-six an opening, and roughly six images to the year. It is not indexed either. A query for De Franceschi deaths across 1826–1836 in the whole of Croatia returns eight dated records, none of them from this parish. The first entry read out of it belongs to Stefano De Franceschi and Bonetta Vellico — one of the eight households this archive reconstructed from the baptism index months ago. Their daughter Maria died on 11 March 1829 at house 325. The household had children recorded 1819–1829; now it has a burial too, and a house number. What this book is being read for: Giuseppe De Franceschi, whose death his sons' patronymics bracket to between November 1828 and February 1833, and who should therefore be somewhere in images 546–575. (doc)

54 · 11 Marzo 1829 · № domus 325 «Maria, figlia di Stefano De Franceschi e di Bonetta Vellico q.m Antonio, giugali» 96 · 23 Luglio 1829 · № domus 48 «Pietro, figlio di Dom.co De Franceschi q.m Pietro e di Zacchera Cerlon di Franc.o, giugali»

Two of the eight households reconstructed from the baptism index now have a burial and a house number — and the second has something better. «Dom.co De Franceschi q.m Pietro». The baptism index gave this household as a bare pair of names, Domenico × Zacchera Cerlon, with children 1817–1833. The death of their son Pietro on 23 July 1829 at house 48 names Domenico's own dead father: a Pietro. That is a fifth Pietro in this parish, or one of the four already known — and the register does not say which. What it does say is that the household has a generation above it, which the baptism book never showed. (doc)

27 · 14 Febrajo 1830 · № domus 324 «**Giuseppe De Franceschi q.m Pietro era ammogliato con Lucia Tromba fu Cristoforo**» Cattolico · Maschio · d'anni 72 Morbus seu causa mortis: Vizio organico di petto Sacramenti: senza assistenza spirituale per morte improvvisa — and five months later — 77 · 13 Luglio 1830 · № domus 501 «**Lucia De Franceschi q.m Pietro era Moglie di Alviso Birattan q.m Sabà**» Cattolica · Femmina · d'anni 70 · Ascite universale

The father of the priest, the ploughman and the weaver. This archive had never seen a date for him — it had a bracket, derived from nothing but how his sons were written: «di Giuseppe» in November 1828, «fu Giuseppe» in February 1833. The register gives 14 February 1830. Inside the bracket, and the bracket was right. And it gives four things the marriages never could. He was seventy-two, so born about 1758. He died at house 324 — the house his daughter Maria Francesca would marry out of three years later. The cause was an organic defect of the chest. And the sacraments column, which is usually a formula, says he died suddenly, with no priest: «senza assistenza spirituale per morte improvvisa». His son was a priest of that parish, licensed by the parroco to baptise and to marry. Don Stefano did not get to his own father. (doc) And then, five months later, Lucia. «Lucia De Franceschi q.m Pietro», wife of Alviso Birattan q.m Sabà, dead of dropsy at seventy, so born about 1760. She is the woman whose three daughters married out of the name in 1821, 1824 and 1825, and who existed here only because those weddings named their mother. Both are «q.m Pietro». Born about 1758 and about 1760, in one small town, dying five months apart. They are almost certainly brother and sister — which joins Giuseppe's household to Lucia's, and puts a Pietro De Franceschi born around 1730 behind both. (doc for both entries; the sibling reading is inf, and it is the strongest inference this reading has produced)

94 · 11 Settembre 1830 · № domus 325 «**Bonetta Vellico q.m Antonio, Moglie di Stefano De Franceschi di Domenico q.m Pietro**» Cattolica · Femmina · d'anni 57 · Tisi polmonare

Eighteen months after her daughter Maria died in the same house, Bonetta Vellico dies at house 325 of pulmonary consumption, aged fifty-seven — so born about 1773. And the clerk writes her husband out three generations deep: «Stefano De Franceschi di Domenico q.m Pietro». Note the two different words. Di Domenico — his father was alive in September 1830. Q.m Pietro — his grandfather was not. So a third Vodnjan line stands: Pietro → Domenico → Stefano, with Domenico still living. And house 325 is now theirs. This archive flagged that number two days ago because it also appears against Domenico De Franceschi, forty-six, son of a Pietro and Martina Civico, remarrying in July 1832. The house is Stefano and Bonetta's; the Domenico who married out of it two years later shares a grandfather's name with Stefano's own father. The connection is now likely rather than merely possible — and the exact link is still open. On the stated ages the 1832 Domenico (born about 1786) is too young to be Stefano's father, so the readings on the table are: two brothers of one name, an uncle, or an age the register got wrong. This archive is not going to pick one. (doc for the entry; the join is inf, and which join it is remains open)

Scanning 1817 and 1818 for Veniera Francin — she is not there, so she died earlier — the book says something else instead. 1817 ran to 222 deaths. Page after page of febbre gastrico-nervosa maligna, often with «(Tifo)» written beside it: typhus, through a walled town, in the year of the great post-Napoleonic famine across the whole of central Europe. And on 31 December 1817, three entries in a row — Giovanni Bonassin, 28; Michiel Vertorich, 22; Antonio Giurich, 24 — each with the same cause: «Morte violenta di supplizio». Violent death by execution. Three young men of the parish, hanged or shot on the last day of the year. None of them is ours. It is recorded because a family archive that only lifts out its own name is reading a town's register and seeing nothing. (doc)

15 December 1830, house 456. «Pietro figlio di Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro e di Maddalena Francin di Giovanni giugali», dead at eleven of scarlatina, «senza assistenza spirituale per la malattia repentina». The archive already had this couple, from four baptisms running 1822 to 1828. This boy was born about 1819, which moves their marriage back to 1818 at the latest and makes him the eldest of five, not a child they never had. The two little words do the rest. q.m Pietro — the father's father was already dead. di Giovanni — the mother's father was still alive. And the house is 456, which is neither Giuseppe's 324 nor Stefano's 325. Three houses, three De Franceschi families, one small walled town.

He did not die alone. Entries 150, 151, 152, 153 and 155 all give the cause as «Scarlatina», and the ages beside them are seven, eleven, six, six and a child. Two of them, on either side of him, are the children of Bortoluzzi and Bendonicchio — the same illness moving down the same street. The column is headed Aetas and the clerk writes «d'an. 11». It is the only place in these registers where this archive can watch an epidemic take a named child of the family, hour by hour, with the sacrament column recording that nobody got there in time.

6 January 1831, house 24. «Domenica figlia di Andrea Palin q.m Pio. e della fu Michiela De Franceschi fu Pietro giugali.» Two deaths in one line, and neither is the subject of the entry. «della fu» buries the mother; «fu Pietro» buries her father. Michiela De Franceschi was dead before January 1831, and this archive would never have learned her name if her daughter had lived. That is now the sixth Vodnjan woman recovered this way — the surname keeps its sons and loses its daughters, and the only reliable way back to them is a child's death entry that has to name the mother to say whose child it was.

At the zoom that lets you scan a page in four passes, «q.m Francesco» and «di Francesco» are indistinguishable from «De Franceschi». Two entries on image 560 were flagged and both had to be given up on a closer look: entry 157, «Nicolò Sussani q.m Francesco», and entry 16, «Antonia Palin di Francesco legittimi giugali». Both are patronymics — son of the late Francesco, daughter of Francesco. The surname the eye wants is not there. In a parish this full of Francescos, every candidate has to be re-read at full magnification before it is written down, and two out of four on a single page did not survive that.

Image 561 photographs the same opening again, this time with a loose slip lying across the left-hand page — so December 1830 is hidden and the slip is filmed instead. On one side: «Cercare ne' libri de' morti — Maria Celin fu moglie del fu Marco Silla, morto da anni 25, 26 c.a». Search the books of the dead. Somebody, at some point, wanted to know when Marco Silla died and left themselves a note about it in the book they meant to search. On the other, upside down: a draft death entry — «165 · Dom.ca Gasparro fu Dom.co e Cat.a Baldarin № 505, morta li 23 ottobre 1843, da male di petto» — and two names, «Giorgio Cossich e Fran.co Maravo». Neither side is this family. It is here because it is parish office scrap from 1843 left in an 1831 opening and photographed because nobody moved it, and because the archive is in no position to be superior about an unfinished search.