Do these gaps mean that I am missing children of Alfonzo and Carmella?

Question

Hi all,

I was just looking at the profile for my great-great grandfather, Alfonzo Trizzino, and looked at his descendants and noticed that I am likely missing children because between Nicola Trizzino and his next youngest sibling, Rosalia, there are 7 years while there are about 8 years between Rosalia and my great grandfather Vincenzo/Vincent but then only 2 years between Vincenzo and Anna. I feel like the time between the births of Nicola and Rosalia and Rosalia and Vincent needs explaining.

I looked into the history of the time period but I could not find anything that suggests a disruption between those years. Maybe, they don't all have the same parents or children were born and died in those years?

Any suggestions on what to do next? That is short of writing to the Sicilian records place (I cannot afford that now with graduate school starting in a few months).

 

As usual, any and all help is appreciated!

 

Thank you,

Mike

Answer 1

It is often useful to look for those gaps, but a lot of time they are a sign of spontaneous abortions,/ miscarriage / stillborn.  Sometimes if a child is born dead it will not be counted as a birth, but othertimes the child will have a gravestone.  If you haven't been to where your ancestors lived you might want to check the local cemeteries to see if there are small gravestones or names of children on the parents gravestone.  Sometimes if there is an obelisk for a gravestone there may be names on the sides which may not appear on FindAGrave, for instance.

Answer 2

Did they come to the US? If so are they in the 1900 US Census? The 1900 census asked the wife how many children she had and how many were still living.