The Elusive Debonos...

I could not find the marriage of Ignatio Debono and his wife Joanna Zammit, parents of Maria Debono whose birth is shown below. Then I remembered a rule that I learnt by experience:

When looking for a marriage of a newborn's parents you could be lucky and find them marrying soon before - if the newborn is their first born.

Or they could've married 20 years earlier - if the newborn was their youngest child...

Or they could've married in another parish.

With this in mind, I went to look for further siblings to Maria...

and I found...

lots...

• Gregorius Aloysius Antonius Albertus born 1797
• Paola Magdalena Caterina born 1794
• Maria Anna Francisca born 1791
• Vinartus Pasquali Bartolomeus Domincus born 1788
• Joseph Bartolomeo Antonius born 1786
• Petris Michel Felix born 1784
• Joanne Maria Josephus Bartoloemo born 1782

Thus Maria was the youngest of 8 children. I searched the marriage between the parents Ignatio and Joanna in the marriage registry of Attard from 1782 backwards, but to no avail.

But from the births of her sibilngs, I gleaned some clues as to the origins of Maria's parents. One of the godparents was a certain Paoli Debono from Casali Pinto. Another was Joseph Zammit, son of Bartolomeo and Maria, also from Casali Pinto.

If you haven't seen the clues yet, Paoli shares the same surname as Ignatio, and Joseph shares the same surname as the mother's maiden surname: Joanna Zammit.

Could these two be the brother and sister of Maria's parents?

If so, then my research will take me elsewhere: Casali Pinto.

Casali Pinto refers to the town to whom the Grand Master Emmanuel Pinto de Fonseca gave his name and made it a city: Qormi

Will I find the marriage of Ignatio and Joanna Zammit in the parish records of Qormi?

First I need to identify which parish to visit: Qormi has two parishes: St George and St Sebastian. A visit to the parish website reveals that St Sebastian was built in 1889, thus it's too late in the day. The parish that interests me is St George, which was already existant in 1436.

Micallef - 1908

The photo above depicts a mother (second from left, front) and her 10 children in a photo dated approximately 1908.

It is special in that the children at the back were not present for the photo - they were added later. At the time they had already emigrated to the Unites States of America. The family was never reunited. The young boy in front is Joe Micallef - father of Eda, who later married Albert Adreveno - also in the USA.

The girls on the right (the only two girls in the family) remained in Malta. The rightmost is 16 year old Teresa, who 9 years later married Carmelo Vassallo (see below). She is my great grandma - mother of Cristino and his siblings.

The other girl is Grace Micallef. Her son's son (my mother's second cousin) married my aunt Catherine Barbara, my father's sister. This relationship can be seen in the descendency chart below. Carmelo Barbara and Catherine Barbara are brother and sister.