Salomon
Generation two — she married Giovanni Battista Defranceschi (1787–1846). Born 17 March 1797, at Gračišće. What this archive can prove about her family, and what it would take to prove more.
Five women married into this line and carried it forward, and for years the front page said the same thing under each of them: «no archive of her own line yet». David asked on 29 September 2026 for that to stop being true. These are the pages; the research behind them is mostly still to do, and each page says exactly how much.
What is documented is one line, and it is the marriage
She was born 17 March 1797 at Gračišće, and she married Giovanni Battista Defranceschi, born 1787, died 1846. (doc.)
That is the whole of it. No parish entry for her marriage, no parents, no siblings, no death. She is generation two, and she is the thinnest woman on this line — which is why the one thing the family said about her people mattered so much, and why it had to be tested rather than repeated.
The family remembered two things about the Salomon, and only one of them was theirs
The archive's pedigree carries a note about her family rather than about her: «Of a family with a palace on the square facing the bishop's; by 1848 a Salomon sat in the parliament at Vienna.»
So the Salomon of Gračišće were not peasants — a house with a building on the main square and, within a generation of Francisca, a seat in the Reichstag. That note had no source attached to it. One half of it now has one. The other half turned out to belong to somebody else.
The palace is real, and it is dated 1570
The Salamon palace at Gračišće stands on the square, is of the sixteenth century — the date 1570 is given — and its distinguishing feature is a row of Gothic bifore, Venetian two-light windows, on the first floor. It is in poor condition and wants restoration.
(doc for the building. The source describing it gives no family history and cites nothing, so it establishes the palace and not the people. That a house on that square carries the name is not the same as a documented line from it to Francisca, and this page does not pretend otherwise.)
No Salomon sat in that parliament — and the seat the family remembered was their own
David downloaded the roll of the 422 deputies himself, and it was read here the same hour. (The obstacle had been mechanical and on this session's side: the file resists text extraction and the browser pane is served it as a download. It was never a closed door.)
There is no Salomon in it. And the negative is made properly, because a nil is only worth the list behind it: 437 lines, 65 surnames beginning with S, zero matches for Salomon or Salamon in any spelling — with the control passing, since the S-names parse correctly and are listed. (doc for the negative.)
And the seat was real. It was this family's. The roll reads, verbatim:
> Defranceschi · Karl · k.k. Rathsprotokollist · Pisino · Küstenland
Carlo De Franceschi of Gologorica, the historian, sat for the district of Pisino — Pazin. The archive already half-knew it: Carlo's page has said since 13 September that he «sat in Vienna» and was a Rathsprotokollist des Landrechts zu Rovigno — but that came from a newspaper attacking him, the Journal des Österreichischen Lloyd of 7 September 1848. This is the official roll, it confirms the office, and it adds what the newspaper never gave: the seat he was elected for.
A family remembered a parliamentary seat correctly for a century and a half and attached it to the wife's people instead of its own. The Salomon note loses its parliament and keeps its palace. The correction is recorded.
What is not known, and is worth asking for
A widow Salamon stands godmother at Gračišće, ten years after Francisca was born there
This is the first Salamon this archive has found inside a Gračišće parish register. Everything before it came from a building, a printed history or a surname database.
> At the baptism of 26 November 1807, house 203, of a daughter Catharina to Antonius Bicol and Maria olim Iuxa, the godparents are «Franciscus Jurich» and «Maria vidua Salamon» — Maria, the widow Salamon. (doc.)
Francisca Salomon was born on 17 March 1797. A widow of the name standing at the font in the same parish ten years later is the right generation to be her mother, and that is exactly as far as this goes. The register gives the widow no forename beyond Maria, no house and no husband. No kinship is claimed, and none should be read into the coincidence of a surname in a small parish.
What would settle it is one page. Francisca's own baptism of 1797 names her parents. It is in the Gračišće baptism book — and not on the reels this family holds, which stop at 1807 behind a printed card reading «NASTAVLJA SE». The rest is DAPA ZM34K-216. The errand is on the errands page.
A Salman four kilometres away — WITHDRAWN: the family is PALMAN
Walking the Gologorica household book turned up a household under the name SALMAN, and it is close enough to this line to have to be written down, and far enough to have to be written down carefully.
> «Franciscus Salman», Sutor — a shoemaker — born 27 October 1796, house 11, married 8 November 1827 to «Antonia uxor n. Brusich», born 21 March 1797. Six children entered; four died in infancy. (doc.)
Read at five times magnification the name is S-a-l-m-a-n. There is no o between the l and the m. It is not written Salomon and it is not written Salamon.
⚠ So nothing is claimed. *What is recorded is the coincidence, because a later session should not have to find it twice: a Salman born October 1796 at Gologorica, four kilometres from Gračišće, where the Salamon palace stands and where Francisca Salomon was born in March 1797. Five months and four kilometres.
What would settle it is her baptism, which names her father — and that is on the Gračišće births film for 1797, which runs off the end of the reel this family holds. It is the first errand.
⚠ WEAKENED THE NEXT DAY, BY READING ON. The Gologorica baptism book, folio 44, enters a «Lucia PALMAN» on 7 January 1808, daughter of Stephanus Palman and Catharina née Jurich — and at five times magnification that initial is an unmistakable P, with a closed bowl and a descender. (doc — ZM34K-214, M01069057.)
Both readings survive the test, and that is the point. The 1826 initial was re-checked against the same scribe's own hand: it matches the S of «Sutor» *written on the very same line. So the 1826 book really does say Salman, and the 1808 book really does say Palman.
Almost certainly one family, spelled two ways by two scribes eighteen years apart — and if the earlier form is Palman, then the resemblance to Salomon is a coincidence of one hand, not a clue. The lead is not withdrawn, because the 1826 reading stands; it is downgraded, because the 1808 reading exists. Recorded rather than quietly dropped, since it was published here yesterday.
❌ WITHDRAWN, 5 October 2026. The family is PALMAN, and the 1825 entry names his father.
> «Franciscus PALMAN filius Stephani, Sutor», with «Antonia ejusdem uxor nata Brusich» — the baptism of their daughter Maria, 12 July 1825, house 28. (doc — ZM34K-214, M01069092.)
That settles it, because it is a patronymic and not just a spelling. The man the 1826 census writes «Salman» is here written Palman and named filius Stephani — tying him to the Stephanus Palman who appears in this register from 1799, with children Theresia (1799) and Lucia (1808) and a wife Sancta and later Catharina née Jurich. Three entries write P and name a father; one writes S.
So there is no Salman at Gologorica, and no coincidence to record. The lead published on 30 September and downgraded on 1 October is now withdrawn entirely. The correction is here. This line still has no register entry of its own, and the thing that would give it one is still Francisca Salomon's own baptism of 1797, on the Gračišće reel the family does not hold.
A Salamon stands godfather to a Defranceschi child — and this time the word was tested first
This archive published a «Salman» of Gologorica on 1 October, downgraded it on 4 October and withdrew it entirely on 5 October: the family was PALMAN, and a patronymic — «Franciscus Palman filius Stephani, Sutor» — settled it. Six days of public error, because the word was written up before it was tested.
On the same day a second Salamon-shaped word turned up in the same book, and the order was reversed. At the baptism of Teresia Defranceschi, 15 November 1843, house 5 — daughter of Antonius Defranceschi and Francisca — the godparents are entered «Antonio SALAMON et Maria soror», conditio cives.
THE TEST, before anything was claimed. A hand is only legible against itself. The scribe is Petrus Milcetich, and he writes «Franciscus Palman sutor» eleven folios earlier, on 28 April 1841. Both words were cut from the film at one magnification and set one above the other — the plate is published on the Gologorica page so a reader can check the archive rather than take its word:
| Palman, 1841 | Salamon, 1843 | |
|---|---|---|
| initial | a tall closed majuscule bowl, the same form as his B in «Brussich» | a small low pointed stroke, no bowl |
| body | a · l · m · a · n | a · l · a · m · o · n |
| letters | six | seven |
The medial «a» between the l and the m is the clincher: Palman has nothing there. The 1843 word is not Palman. (doc — DAPA ZM34K-214, M01069118, folio 104.)
⭐ WHY IT MATTERS ON THIS PAGE. A Salamon surname at Gračišće was already established here — the widow Salamon standing godmother in 1807 and the palace on the square. This is a Salamon four kilometres away at Gologorica, entered civis, with «Maria soror» beside him — a household, not a stray name — standing for a Defranceschi child.
⚠ AND WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing ties this Antonio Salamon to Gračišće, and nothing ties him to Francisca Salomon. A shared surname four kilometres apart in Istria is a direction, not a descent. What would make it a line is Antonio Salamon tied to Gračišće, and worklist 174 sets out the order of work — sweep this baptism book for the name it was never read for, then the 1826 household index, then the death register at two per cent read, and only then Gračišće on the reel the family does not hold.
This is the first lead on this line that has survived its own test. It is recorded as a lead and nowhere as a connection.
The other maternal lines
- Fernasar — Maria née Fernasar
- Kovačina — Uršula Kovačina
- Kalanj — Anna Kalanj, and the parish nobody has opened
- Blažević — Hedviga; the family is kept in The Blažević Archive
The pedigree walls in this archive's own ancestors data, the Pfullingen and Arolsen material, and the Gračišće register programme. Written 29 September 2026 at David's request.