Briffa

Having reached a dead end, and with 25 minutes to spare at the Zurrieq parish records, I set to research any other records that I needed from this parish.

Having returned to Malta, Antonio Barbara married and had a son Carmelo. This Carmelo married a Josephine Briffa, whose family was also from Zurrieq. A missing record that I required was the birth date and location of her greatgrandfather Vincentius Briffa - whose est. year of birth was 1752 based on his death record which estimated his age at 75 when he died in Zurrieq on 29 Feb 1828.

I started searching from 1752 working my way to earlier dates but I found no birth record of a Vincentius Briffa, nor of any other baptisms to the parents of Vincentius: Jacobo and Maria Briffa.

Then I started searching forward and found the following siblings to Vincentius:

• Joannes Baptista Micael Joachinus BAPTISED ON 25 Feb 1753
• Joannes Petrus Joseph Thomas BAPTISED ON 30 Mar 1754
• Michael Angelus Joseph BAPTISED ON 17 Nov 1757
• Michael Arcangelus Joseph Ignatius BAPTISED ON 28 Apr 1759
• Feliciana Maria Teresa BAPTISED ON 26 Feb 1763

Having married in 1771, Vincentius couldn't have been born after Feliciana so I stopped searching there.

The clock struck six and the office had to close, so I laid down my tomes and walked away, determined to return again and scrutinise more closely the year 1750 to 1753 - as in my records, the marriage of Jacobo and Maria Briffa was on 4 Oct 1750 (which I will confirm first thing next time).

P.S. Much of the data I have here was acquired by Googling "Concepta Formosa" and finding this research made by my 5th cousins in Canada: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/AF/individual_record.asp?recid=13741148&lds=0&region=-1&regionfriendly=&frompage=99

However I do make sure to confirm there data by looking them up in the parish records.

Today I googled "Concepta Formosa" again and found another tree available freely on ancestry.com, here: http://records.ancestry.com/Andreas_Joseph_Formosa_Zurrieq_Malta_records.ashx?pid=41660891&gss=seo

From this site I gathered that Vincentius was born around June 1752, apart from the fact that he had two other brothers: Jose Giovanni Briffa born in 8 Jan 1756, and Franciscus Arcangelus Briffa born 5 Oct 1751. Did I miss them?? I'll make sure next time...