Santa Margherita di Belice, Sicilia One Place Study

Date: [unknown]
Location: Santa Margherita di Belice, Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
Surnames/tags: One_Place_Studies Italy

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Contents 1 Santa Margherita di Belice, Sicilia One Place Study 1.1 Name 1.2 Geography 1.3 History 1.4 Population 1.5 Notables 2 Research Notes 3 Record Gaps 4 Errors in the Source Records 5 Research Hints 6 Problem Profiles 7 Idiosyncracies 8 Sources

Santa Margherita di Belice, Sicilia One Place Study

• Official Website
• Wikidata: Item Q432677, en:Wikipedia | Wikidata: Item Q432677, it:Wikipedia
• WikiTree Profiles that link here

Name

The name Santa Margherita was given to the town around 1610 ^[1], and 'di Belice' was added later to distinguish it from the other Santa Margherita in Sicily, which is located on the northern coast in the province of Messina. Historical records in Agrigento frequently refer to the town only as Santa Margarita (or Santa Margherita).

Geography

Continent: Europe

Country: Italia

Region: Sicilia

Province: Agrigento

GPS Coordinates: 37.683333, 13.016667

Elevation: 372.0 m or 1220.5 feet

Santa Margherita di Belice is located in the province of Agrigento, about 60 km (37 miles) southwest of Palermo, and 28 km (7 miles) almost due north of Sciacca. It is landlocked and has been primarily an agricultural town through most of its history.

It is located in the Belice Valley between the rivers Belice, Senore and Carboj ^[2]. The nearest towns, with frequent intermarriages among their populations in history, are Montevago (3 km, 2 miles away) and Menfi (11 km, 7 miles).

History

Per Wikipedia: "In this territory there is evidence of settlements and remains of Sicanians, Greeks and Romans, and the town had once been a mountaintop stronghold of Berbers and later of Arab civilization. It is only thanks to them in this area who made the foundations of the hamlet 'Casale of Manzil-Sindi' (named after their leader, Muhammed-ibi-as-Sindi).

"Afterwards with the arrival of the Normans, the territory of Casale Manzil-Sindi was named "Misilindino" or "Misirindino", then it became part of the feudal estate of a Spanish nobleman, Baron Antonio de Corbera, responsible for the first built-up area in 1572. Only in 1610 King Filippo III, releasing the "licentia populandi", authorized Baron Girolano Corbera, Baron Antonio's nephew, to establish the new village, who named it Santa Margherita, with an ambitious architectural program, the most spectacular result of which was the Palazzo Filangeri-Cutò built around 1680. The princes Filangeri, who succeeded the barons Corbera, gave impetus to the village by construction of several buildings and increasing the population. Among Filangeri of Santa Margherita di Belìce are included three viceroys of Sicily: Alessandro I, Alessandro II, and Nicolò I. In 1812 for about three months, Nicolo I hosted King Ferdinando, Queen Maria Carolina (the Donnafugata) and Prince Leopoldo di Borbone in the Palazzo of Santa Margherita.

"During the night of 15 January 1968, a violent and massive earthquake devastated Santa Margherita di Belice and the surrounding towns in the Belice river area, forever changing the lifestyle of its inhabitants. ^[3] A new town was built adjacent to the old town. Many of the damaged structures from the earthquake are still standing, including the ruined palace of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and the Palazzo Filangeri-Cutò. The author immortalized the palace in his novel, The Leopard, under the name Donnafugata. "

Many of the street names seen in vital records were in what is now called the old town, destroyed by the 1968 earthquake. They no longer show on contemporary maps.

Population

The estimated population for 2022 is about 6000 residents, down from 7300 in 1980 ^[4]. Historical population statistics are not readily available, but there was a significant decline in population during the 1880-1925 emigration out of Sicily. Most of the residents initially went to New York. Some went to the Scranton, Pennsylvania area.

The most common surnames as of 2022 are: Bilello, Barbera, Giambalvo, Di Giovanna and Morreale. ^[5].

Notables

Research Notes

The One Place Study currently underway (formalized in June 2022) is not limited in time, and can encompass any person born in, having lived in or died in Santa Margherita di Belice (SMB). The study currently has two volunteers -- the writer and Joanne Agate -- and others are most welcome (and needed!). To aid future contributors, I have compiled the following notes on progress.

The profiles in the study reflect 6 name studies which reached varying degrees of completion, then a random meandering through records as they presented themselves. All of the Riccas have been entered and connected to the original immigrant to SMB. There are still Barberas, Giambalvos, Monteliones, Reinas and Tumminellos who have not been entered, but most are in there. The profiles created early on are not well done and may be incomplete; I make an effort now and then to go back through them and improve on my early work.

My emphasis has been on entering marriage records, as these provide the key to relationships. Some years of birth records have been entered. As a result, most of the families lack many of their children, and should be seen as works in progress. Entry of birth records is now underway, and entry of marriage records continues.

I have attempted translations of many records, but they are loosely paraphrased rather than having exact translations.

The following record groups have been entered:

• Marriage civil records. 1824 through 1885, entered completely. There are no civil records for 1875. Only the Matrimoni files have been processed, not those marriages or banns in the Publiccazione files, so not all the marriage date available have been entered for those years.
• Marriage church records pre-1821. These are from the church records contained in the archives for Santissimo Rosario, the historical church for Santa Margherita. The record images attached to some profiles were purchased. Others are viewable on the newly-available site ASDA https://www.archiviostoricodiocesiag.it/ricerche-genealogiche/ --- 1818 through 1821 are entered entirely, minus a few records that need research. These encompass the record images numbered #129 through #165 inclusive under the folder Marriages 1807-1824. Records for other years were entered scatter-shot and are not continuous. It is not possible to download the images from the ASDA site, so I have entered directions on how to find the right image on that site. Linking to a URL for the image is also not possible.
• Church records for marriages in which civil records had previously been entered are included only if there was a reason to do so. In earlier work, the church records were not consulted. Some info is available in church records that was omitted from the civil record (name of deceased spouse). If the civil record covered everything needed, I did not bother to find and enter the church marriage under Sources.
• Birth records. 1840, 1843 through 1867 are entered completely. Foundlings and stillbirths are in Diversi files for some years and most are not yet entered.
• Death records. Only 1866 through 1868 have been entered.
• Diversi files. Only 1857 through 1860 are entered, with a few omissions. These files contain births of foundlings, stillbirths, and deaths informed by mail from other towns.

Joanne has made very welcome progress in researching the Church records available on the ASDA site, https://www.registriparrocchiali.archiviostoricodiocesiag.it/registri-santa-margherita-belice/.

A lot of information was entered beyond the records outlined above. Anyone picking up this project should be cautious that profiles are not duplicated. So many people had the same name! We have made an effort to enter spelling variants so that people show up in a search, and still I find I enter duplicates. So spend the time to check out a new person before creating a profile.

Record Gaps

The following gaps in the records were noticed: [NOTE this list is a work in process.] Births: -1821 no records after 30 May through the end of the year. -1868 no records. Marriages: - 1821 no records before 13 July 1821. - 1822 the records before 27 July 1822 are in the file marked 1823. - 1823 marriages: a file exists but it contains the first half of 1822 marriages. 1823 marriages have not been found. - 1826 civil records are there, but no Church marriage records on the ASDA site. - 1875 no records. Deaths: - 1844 has only the file with stillbirths.

Errors in the Source Records

Numerous.

The most common error is to substitute the surname of a woman's mother for her own surname. I imagine the records clerk looking at a number of birth/ marriage/ death atti and just grabbing the wrong name. Men's names don't seem to share the same pattern of errors.

An error in a birth record was often copied over into that person's marriage record, so repetition is no guarantor of accuracy. It is occasionally helpful to check the Church records as they will sometimes have the right name when the civil record does not. But there is some evidence that the baptism record relied on some paper from the civil authorities when the birth was registered, as I have seen many instances where an error in the civil record recurs in the baptism record.

Research Hints

Foundlings are recorded within the main body of civil birth records, the Nati file, for the years up to 1844. Starting in 1845, they were recorded in the Diversi file. They are once again recorded in the Nati files starting in 1866. They were also assigned surnames at birth starting in May 1840. I don't know if this was Italy-wide, or a local practice.

Ages in birth and death records are often unreliable. Ages of bride and groom in marriage records, however, were derived from the birth record that was reviewed at the time the marriage was recorded and are usually reliable. Exceptions: (1) some of the clerks recording the marriage just consulted the year of birth, independent of the individual's date of birth within the year, and the age at marriage may be off by a year. (2) There are also cases where it appears that the bride or groom brought a birth record belonging to an older deceased sibling of the same name, and the age at marriage corresponds to that sibling's birth date. It also seems that the older marriage records perhaps did not rely on any birth record for the bride and groom and those ages are less reliable.

I made the assumption that if a child had a younger sibling of the same name, that the older child had died. This has proven wrong in a few instances where a child was given one name, but then called by another name. The original name was then used on a subsequent child, resulting in two siblings with the same formal name. Hell to untangle.

Problem Profiles

Profiles that have significant unresolved problems contain the personal category under my id Category:Coleman-10547. The intent is to go back periodically and see if the addition of more records through time helps clarify the issue. The use of this category started in January 2023, and earlier problem profiles are not identified. This category is affixed to this study, to give other researchers of this town a way to look into the worst issues.

Idiosyncracies

I want to make note of a few conventions I've adopted. I do this not because anyone else is required to use the same conventions, but more to explain that these choices were deliberate and not errors of omission.

-- I am omitting the husband's surname under the wife's 'Other Last Names'. Initially I thought that it would be useful to enter the name here -- another way to look up a woman in a search. But I fear that WikiTree may die from its own weight. As more profiles are created, we see more people with the same name coming up in searches, and without programing changes to hone our search criteria, it has become tedious to plow through the names, looking for the right person. Having the list grow even longer with the addition of women whose husbands had the desired surname seemed to take things in the wrong direction. I also found that I never looked for women in Italy based on the husband's surname. I do, however, include the husband's name if she emigrated and may have used that surname in another country. Women in Italy did not (and do not) use their husband's surname.

-- Genealogical best practice prescribes that children's names be listed within a person's biography. With a few exceptions, I haven't done this. The simple reason is that almost all of the families are still works-in-process and children are still being discovered. Out of laziness, I opted to save myself the task of updating the parents' profiles with each new child entered. My intention, should I live long enough, is to list the children once most or all of the children for a family have been identified.

-- I have also omitted the names of the subject's in-laws from the profile. Profiles get pretty crowded with names, especially with multiple marriages, and knowing the names of a person's father-in-law doesn't seem meaningful. The name is available on the spouse's profile.

-- To the disapproval of some WikiTree rangers, I often use D'Ignoti as the surname for children born with no surname. It seems to me that Unknown is an inappropriate surname when it is known that there was no surname. Unknown begs to be researched. D'Ignoti (translates to 'of unknowns') tells you not to try.

-- Some records list names Last Name, First Name and others do the reverse. Rather than flip-flop back and forth, I transcribe records as if they were written First Name, Last Name. Avoids confusion, I hope, where a name could be either a surname or given name (e.g. Rosolia, Tommaso, Maddalena).

-- I have overlooked putting place of birth in the biography text if it was Santa Margherita, as everything I work on is Santa Margherita. This was an oversight, and I'm trying to remember to include it going forward.

-- In profiles I have translated 'villico' (peasant) as farmer or peasant farmer. 'Peasant' seems insulting, and I believe it is now used as an insult in Italian, much as it is in English. The word 'villico' seems to have been replaced in time with 'contadino' which sites translate as a sharecropper farmer, as opposed to a farm hand who is paid a wage and owns no portion of the yield. This translation of contadino comes from this site: http://www.conigliofamily.com/SicilianAndItalianOccupations.htm Later on, 'contadino' was replaced with the more generic 'bracciante', laborer and eventually 'agricoltore'. This word is translated in some sites as farm owner or manager, but it clearly is used to mean just farmer in the mid to late 1800s. It can't be that 80% of the population is a farm owner. The earliest records seem to describe all farmers as field hands.

-- I have translated 'marammiere' as a person responsible for renovation or building of Church properties. This is at odds with both Google Translate which assigns the meaning of 'marble workers', and some websites on Sicilian occupations which translate it as 'hoer or agricultural worker'. The translation I'm using came from an individual in the Italy Project on WikiTree, and this translation seems to fit best as the man is often also noted as someone in the construction trades -- a carpenter or bricklayer, e.g. The position is also often held by a Maestro, which makes no sense for an agricultural worker.

I hope our research has some value to those with ancestors in this town, and I also hope that someone can pick up where we leave off when no longer able to continue this work. Or may Joanne and I will just live forever...

Jaci Coleman 15:18, 15 June 2022 (UTC). Updated 5 May 2024.

Map drawing is courtesy of Wikipedia. By Cattette - This PNG graphic was created with Adobe Illustrator., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=111541722

Sources

1. ↑ Per Wikipedia.
2. ↑ Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Margherita_di_Belice
3. ↑ The Day the Earth Shook, Time Magazine, January 26, 1968. In addition, an excellent description of the earthquake as experienced by residents can be found in Theresa Maggio's The Stone Boudoir (New York, 2002), Chapter 9..
4. ↑ http://www.citypopulation.de/en/italy/sicilia/agrigento/084038__santa_margherita_di_belic/
5. ↑ https://italia.indettaglio.it/eng/sicilia/santamargheritadibelice.html.