Tragedy and Happiness in Bona, Algeria

In an earlier post (Bona, Algeria), I discovered the birth record of my ggggrandfather Antonio Barbara in 1838 in the North African state, then under French possession, where I discovered his father's name: Giuseppe Barbara.





Back to the CAOM I had terrible news. There was the death of a Giuseppe Barbara in 1839 - just a year after Antonio's birth. Looking at the CAOM list there was no Barbara activity until some 8 years later, and the death of the father was an enough strong motivation for the mother to return with her son back to her native land,Malta. To try to prove the link, I asked my french connection to retreive the document of death for Giuseppe from Aix-en-Provence. She complied.




She also stated that she had discovered that Antonio had an elder brother Tony, who was born a year before him, in 1837.

Slowly I was getting a picture of the dramatic stay of the Barbara family in Bone, Algeria:

• in 1837 the son Tony was born
• in 1838 the son Antonio was born
• in 1839 the father Giuseppe died

Knowing that at 19 years of age, Antonio had married and borne a son in Malta, I can only imagine the wife's (Rosa) journey back to Malta with her son(s) (I have no record of Tony Barbara in Malta, yet).