Vodnjan
Twelve families in a 1945 cadastre, and nothing behind them. Then the parish books were opened.
For most of this archive's life Vodnjan was a number: twelve Defranceschi families in the 1945 cadastre, more than anywhere else in Istria, and not one line of descent to attach them to. It was listed as the second open question.
On 9 and 10 September 2026 the parish books were read. The baptism register is indexed; the marriage register is indexed nowhere on earth, and was read opening by opening, by eye. What follows came out of it.
Everything below is transcribed from the page. Where a join is inferred rather than written, it says so.
The eldest line
Reached backwards out of a widow's second wedding. Nobody in the first two generations appears in any baptism register on any film this archive can reach.
Giuseppe's household — a priest, a ploughman, a weaver and a sister
Circled since March 1818 and opened on the last pages read. The mother is a Tromba, the surname of the parson who signs every page; and Giuseppe's own death, found in the death book, closes a bracket this archive had derived purely from how his sons were written.
The second line — from a Domenico
Nothing to do with the other two. Three children grouped on the patronymic and the dates.
The house-325 line — Pietro, Domenico, Stefano
Found in the death book on 10 September 2026, in the entry for a wife rather than a husband. The clerk wrote the widower out three deep and gave this household everything the baptism index never had.
Five women who left the name, and could only be found through their children
A surname loses its daughters. These five are recoverable only because a child of theirs married and the clerk wrote the mother's maiden name — which is the single strongest argument for reading a marriage register rather than searching an index of baptisms.
| Name | When | How she was found |
|---|---|---|
| Domenica De Franceschi | dead by Nov 1817 | married Tommaso Mivinurro · her daughter was 40 in 1817, so Domenica was born about 1750 |
| Antonia Maria De Franceschi | alive Jun 1819 | widow of Damiano Storcovich · her daughter was 40, born about 1779 |
| Lucia De Franceschi q.m Pietro | married by c.1796 | × Alvise Birattan q.m Saba · three daughters married out in 1821, 1824 and 1825 |
| Veniera De Franceschi | b. c.1781 | of the eldest line — the only one of the five whose parents the register also names |
| Luigetta De Franceschi | dead by Nov 1831 | × Francesco Gorlato q.m Biaggio · her son was 23 in 1831 |
The house numbers, and the one that repeats
Every entry in these books carries a № domus. It is the most under-used column in the whole register — and it is the only field that can join two households when the names refuse to.
One caution that removes most of the list. The house number belongs to the couple being married or the person who died, not to the witnesses. So the twenty-odd numbers standing against Don Stefano's name are other people's houses, and they prove nothing about his. What follows is only the entries where the number is the subject's own.
| House | When | Kind | Whose |
|---|---|---|---|
| 376 | 4 Dec 1816 | baptism | Pietro De Franceschi di Giuseppe × Maria Malusà — the entry that opened this whole reading |
| 312 | 30 Mar 1818 | marriage | Pietro De Franceschi q.m Gio. Maria, widower, marrying Lorenza Tesser |
| 356 | 9 Jun 1821 | marriage | Gio: Maria De Franceschi × Lucia Bonassin — the entry that gave four generations |
| 224 | 25 Jan 1826 | marriage | Michiela De Franceschi × Francesco Vellico |
| 48 | 23 Jul 1829 | death | Pietro, son of Domenico De Franceschi q.m Pietro × Zacchera Cerlon |
| 325 | 11 Mar 1829 | death | Maria, daughter of Stefano De Franceschi × Bonetta Vellico |
| 325 | 11 Sep 1830 | death | Bonetta Vellico, wife of Stefano De Franceschi di Domenico q.m Pietro — which makes 325 their house |
| 483 | 25 Jun 1830 | marriage | Veniera De Franceschi, widow, remarrying at forty-nine |
| 282 | 1 Dec 1832 | marriage | Domenico, son of Pietro De Franceschi q.m Gio: Maria and Veniera Francin |
| 325 | 17 Jul 1832 | marriage | Domenico De Franceschi, 46, son of Pietro De Franceschi and Martina Civico |
| 324 | 27 Jul 1833 | marriage | Maria Francesca, daughter of the late Giuseppe De Franceschi and Lucia Tromba |
House 325 belongs to Stefano De Franceschi and Bonetta Vellico. Their daughter Maria died there in March 1829 and Bonetta herself in September 1830, and her entry writes the husband out three deep: «Stefano De Franceschi di Domenico q.m Pietro» — father living, grandfather dead.
That matters because the same number stands against Domenico De Franceschi, forty-six, son of a Pietro and Martina Civico, remarrying as a widower in July 1832. Two households, one house, and now a shared grandfather's name.
The connection is likely; which connection is open. On the stated ages the 1832 Domenico, born about 1786, is too young to be Stefano's father — so it is two brothers of one name, an uncle, or an age the register got wrong. Vodnjan also renumbered its houses more than once. A house number is a thread, not a proof, and this one is recorded so the next reader tests it rather than rediscovers it.
Note also 324, next door: that is Giuseppe De Franceschi's house, where he died on 14 February 1830 and out of which his daughter Maria Francesca married in 1833. (doc for every number; every connection drawn from them is open)
Ninety days at house 456
The reading of the death register resumed at image 562 on 13 September 2026, and the first opening gave up the other half of an entry this archive has had since 10 September.
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, and in the sacraments column «senza assistenza spirituale per la malattia repentina»: no priest reached him, the illness was too sudden.
14 March 1831, entry 48, house 456. «Maddalena Francin di Giovanni, Moglie di Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro» — cattolica, femmina, aged 39, dead of tisi polmonare. And her sacraments column is full: Conf.e, Com.e, Extr. Unz.e, Ind. in art. mortis. Confession, communion, extreme unction, and the indulgence at the point of death.
It is the boy's mother, ninety days after the boy. The register names the same couple in the same words both times, which is what makes it hers and not a coincidence of a common name.
The two columns read together are the closest this book comes to saying something out loud. One death was too fast for a priest to arrive; the other was slow enough for all four rites. Tuberculosis gives you time, and the register is where that shows.
Her age puts her birth at about 1791–92, and makes her about 27 when Pietro was born in 1819. Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro is left a widower at house 456 in the spring of 1831, having buried a son that winter. Whether he is the «Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro, agricoltore» who witnessed a marriage from house 764 is still the open question it was — this entry does not settle it, and is not made to.
Then image 563, and a third. «Pasqua figlia di Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro, e della fu Maddalena Francin di Gio. giugali» — entry 84, 19 May 1831, house 456, dead of tosse convulsiva, whooping cough.
Della fu Maddalena. Of the late Maddalena. The book confirms its own March entry nine weeks later, in the ordinary course of writing down her daughter, without being asked — which is the kind of corroboration this archive almost never gets.
Three deaths at house 456 in five months: the son in December, the mother in March, the daughter in May. Pasqua's age is written small and sideways in a column the viewer will not render legibly, and is left unread rather than guessed.
A seventh woman, and a father called Giuseppe
20 February 1833, house 532. «Giacomo figlio del fu Dom.co Giachin q.m Giacomo e di Michiela De Franceschi fu Giusep. giugali» — a boy dead of idrotorace, with every sacrament.
She is not the Michiela this archive already had. That one is fu Pietro, married to Andrea Palin at house 24, and already dead when her own daughter died in January 1831. This one is fu Giuseppe, married to Domenico Giachin, and alive — the two deaths in her line are her husband's and her son's.
So the count of De Franceschi women recovered only because a child of theirs died stands at seven. The register keeps the sons under their own name and lets the daughters out of it; the one door back is an entry that has to say whose child this was.
And the father's name is the find inside the find. This archive holds one Giuseppe De Franceschi: 1758 – 14 February 1830, house 324, married to Lucia Tromba q.m Cristoforo, dead suddenly with no priest at his side. He had been three years in the ground when this entry was written — which is exactly what «fu Giuseppe» means.
If she is his, then Michiela is a fifth child of that household, standing beside Don Stefano the priest, Pietro the ploughman, Cristoforo the weaver and Maria Francesca — and the household that this archive has spent weeks reconstructing from its sons gains its second daughter.
This is not claimed. The register says her father was Giuseppe and that he was dead. It does not say which Giuseppe, and in this parish that is not a rare name. The baptism register decides it, and it has not been read. It is written here as what it is: the strongest inference on this page, and an inference still.
Tested, and not settled — with a caution the test itself produced. The marriage register would decide this: a marriage entry names both of the bride's parents, so if Michiela's mother is Lucia Tromba, she is Giuseppe's. The book opens 12 October 1815, and the fourteen De Franceschi marriages already read out of it run 1817 to 1832 — none is hers. Her marriage therefore sits in the register's first fifteen months, or before the book begins at all. That is a bounded search and it has not been done.
And the search turned up a warning. Vodnjan holds at least three women of this name in these years — Michiela fu Pietro, wife of Andrea Palin; Michiela di Cristoforo q.m Gio: Maria, born about 1800; and Michiela fu Giuseppe, the one in this entry. The name is one of the family's commonest. Everything here rests on the two words «fu Giusep.», and nothing rests on «Michiela» at all.
What is still open, stated as open
The father in the 15 December 1830 entry is «Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro», of house 456, married to Maddalena Francin di Giovanni. A «Pietro De Franceschi q.m Pietro, agricoltore» witnessed a marriage on 28 February 1824 from house 764.
Same name, same patronymic, same parish, six years apart — and two different house numbers. Families did move, and a witness is recorded at the house of the wedding as often as his own. But «q.m Pietro» is the commonest styling in this register and has already been shown to cover more than one man. This archive is not joining them, and says so.
The index has Stefano De Franceschi × Maria Francin baptising five children 1854–1865, and Stefano De Franceschi × Maria Forlanichio baptising two in 1858 and 1860. The years overlap, which normally settles it — two men. But Forlanichio and Francin are close enough on a page that one clerk's hand could produce both, and the 1858 births fall four months apart, which a single household cannot do. Either there are two Stefani, or the index has split one man's wife into two women. The Vodnjan marriage register for the 1850s decides it; that film has not been opened.
Lucia Michiela De Franceschi bore four Forlani children 1848–1857, so she was born around 1825. Two Lucias fit: the one baptised 25 July 1826 to Gio. Maria and Lucia Bonassin, and the one baptised 25 August 1828 to Pietro and Maddalena Francin. Both are in this archive; neither can be preferred. A marriage entry naming her father would end it in one line.
Vodnjan has now produced four De Franceschi lines that this archive keeps separate: Gio. Maria's, Giuseppe's, Domenico's (the Cerlon household) and Pietro → Domenico → Stefano at house 325. Every one of them has a Pietro at or near the top. That is either a family that reused one forename for four generations — which is exactly what this parish does — or four branches of one house. The dispensation files of the Ordinariate of Pola would say outright, because a dispensation states the degree of kinship; this archive cannot.
The register has produced Pietro q.m Gio: Maria (b. c.1776), Pietro di Giuseppe the ploughman, Pietro di Gio. the weaver, Pietro q.m Pietro the ploughman of the second line, and a Pietro × Martina Civico whose son Domenico married in 1832. Some of these may be one man. The register settles it only when it chooses to write a patronymic, and it does not always choose.
Cristoforo fu Gio: Maria, agricoltore, and Cristoforo di Giuseppe, tessitore, alive in the same town in the same year. Only the father's name separates them.
They share a town, a surname and a handful of forenames. That is not evidence. The place to settle it is the dispensation files of the Ordinariate of Pola, which this register cites by protocol number and which would state the degree of kinship outright.
Lucia Tromba is the mother of Don Stefano; Giovanni Tromba is the parson who licensed him. In a town this size that is very likely kin — and it is inferred from a shared surname, which is exactly the reasoning this archive distrusts everywhere else.
Vodnjan (Dignano), Liber Baptizatorum and Liber Copulatorum in Ecclesia S. Blasii — FamilySearch catalogue koha:963267, DGS 005497893 and 005497894. Marriages read image by image, 172–216, on 9–10 September 2026. The marriage register is not indexed by FamilySearch: 286 marriage-query arks were resolved against film 894 and none is on it.
Entry by entry, in the order it was read: the register reading → · Vodnjan in Places → · the Pola dispensations that would settle it →