BAD NEWS!

The certificates didn't make it today - I have to wait until Monday, hopefully!

Good News!

"Your order for certificates with reference #4808 has been processed and payment has been settled by the Public Registry. Your certificate copies have been sent by mail."

I'll spend the morning panting next to the letterbox tomorrow, awaiting the certificates!

Online request for Certificates from Public Registry

During your research you are prone to come across information which will be assimilated for later pondering and deductions. While trying to find more info for the Barbaras in Zurrieq and Bone, I learnt that 1863 is the earliest date for records available from the public registry. Also I was reminded that the full birth certificate gives the names of both grandfathers.



This thought came to mind while I was in the peadiatrician's waiting room. So I loaded up my genealogy programme and brought up a 5-generation ancestor chart.

I checked if I had any post-1862 births for which I could get a full certificate and discover more ancestors. On my father's side I had exhausted all possibilities, but on my mother's side I had some work to do: which was a positive thing as research had stalled horribly there - basically never started in earnest.

The first candidate was Alphonse Vassallo, born in 1876. So far I only had the names of his parents - and getting their fathers' names is a very important step. This is the paternal line of my mother - as much important as my own paternal line.

Next candidate was Maria Teresa Micallef, born in 1894, being my maternal grandfather's mother - just 3 generations away. Again I only knew her parents.

The other two candidates come from the paternal line of my maternal grandmother: her father Paolo Zammit born in 1895 whose maternal grandparents are as yet unknown, and his father Mariano Zammit born in 1865 of who only the parents were known as yet.

With EUR9.00 per certificate, this will cost me EUR36 but will excavate seven more ancestors from the as yet dormant maternal side of the research.

Watch this space for updates and fingers crossed (that the clerks at the Public Registry manage to find the records!)

An Uncle in Bone?

Whilst looking for the birth record of Antonia Barbara (see In search of Antonia) I came across the birth of a child in Zurrieq to a certain Andre Barbara and Maria.

Whilst revising the survey I had made of the Barbara records in Bone, Algeria I rediscovered the death of a certain Andre Barbara at the age of 60, whose wife was a certain Maria Farrugia. Is it a coincidence that, on the same year of Antonia's death , 1836, another Andre Barbara dies, with his and his wife's name cropping up in Zurrieq whilst searching for her death? Desperate times call for desperate measures: if he is an uncle, a brother to Antonia's father Giuseppe, then I can trace HIS family in Zurrieq. I had a look at his death record (Giuseppe's mentioned his father's and mother's name) but in Andre's case, they only mentioned his wife, Maria FARRUGIA.

So I had no choice but to head to Zurrieq. Wife and kid in tow, then deposited at the nearest park, I headed to the parish office where I was given access to the birth records of the 1830s. 

The plan of action was this:

1. A family profile of Andre Barbara and his wife Maria
2. Find the marriage record of Andre Barbara and his wife Maria
3. Compare Andre's parents with those of Giuseppe (Antonio  and Caterina)
4. IF the parents match

• Find Andre's birth record
• Look for Giuseppe's birth record in the whereabouts

I had 45 minutes to do all this... and in fact only managed to do the first (IF I have found all the offspring of the couple in question).

As I went through the births, I noted down ALL baptisms of Barbara offspring, irrelevant of their parents, just in case I'd need them in future. Here are my findings:

PARENTS: Andrea Barbara AND Antonia
NAME Carmelo Joseph Franciscus Barbara
BAPTISM 20 Feb 1833
 
NAME Archangelus Rosarius Joannes Cajetanus Barbara
BAPTISM 19 Dec 1828

NAME Anna Rosa Maria Barbara
BAPTISM 3 Jan 1828

PARENTS:  Marquis Francisco Barbara AND Carolina
NAME Heliodony Erasmus Inatius Antonius Paulus Franciscus Joseph Carolus Barbara
BAPTISM 26 Nov 1828 

PARENTS: Petro Barbara AND Maria
NAME Joanna Cajetana Paula Barbara
BAPTISM 19 Jan 1816 

PARENTS: Andrea Barbara AND Maria
NAME Francisca Aloysia Carmela Elisabeth Catherine Colomba Barbara
BAPTISM 27 apr 1826

NAME Antonius Joannes Paulus Barbara
BAPTISM 13 Jun 1825

NAME Gratia Modesta Rosa Barbara
BAPTISM 12 Apr 1824

NAME Anna Francisca Joanna Barbara
BAPTISM 12 Feb 1821

NAME Antonina Maria Andreana Barbara
BAPTISM 27 Jan 1820

NAME Catharina Maria Gratia Barbara
BAPTISM 28 Nov 1816

NAME Consuela Catharina Christina Barbara
BAPTISM 4 Aug 1814

NAME Gratia Rosa Margherita Barbara
BAPTISM 4 Jan 1812

NAME Francisca Horatia Antonina Barbara
BAPTISM 7 Feb 1810
 

That's EIGHT DAUGHTERS for Andre and Maria in 16 years - and counting.

I plan to go again this week to finish off the plan - unless Andre turns out to be someone else's uncle!

In search of Antonia

In my previous post, A surprise at the National Archives , I mentioned the discovery of an elder sister to Antonio, who died two years before his birth, at the tender age of 4.



Now this is actually a help to try to find the origins of the Barbara family (see Before Bone, Algeria ). Why? Whilst I have no idea of the year in which the couple was married, with Antonina's death at the age of four in 1836 I can retrace her birth date to 1832. So now rather than searching blindly for a marriage, I can search for a the birth of a specific Antonia Barbara to a couple Giuseppe Barbara and Rosa Vella in the year 1832.



Not having found any such record in Zurrieq, I started looking in the neighbouring towns.

Mqabba

Having recently discovered that an acquaintance of mine was a Barbara from Mqabba, I felt inclined to start my search from here.

From http://www.maltadiocese.org/l-imqabba?l=2 I found the opening hours of the parish priest's office for Mqabba, and today, Monday I drove there in the afternoon. The parish priest was a bit hesitant at first, but then was very helpful in trying to find such a record - but unfortunately to no avail.

Hal Safi

My next stop was Hal Safi. I had no internet access in my car so I just tried my luck - and lucky I was for I found the office open. The young parish priest was very helpful. The records can be very efficiently searched due to an index by surname and by year. The only Barbara baptism records in the 1800s were in 1800 and 1882 - so again the search was futile.

Zurrieq

To make sure I did not miss the record in Zurrieq itself, my next and last stop for the day was in Zurrieq - again without checking beforehand whether the office would be open. For the second time that day I was lucky - but the office only had 5 minutes left. The Archpriest did me the kind favour to allow me to search - given I did not take too long. In those 5 minutes I confirmed that she was not born there.

Next Mission

Having covered Mqabba and Safi, next time I plan to visit Kirkop and Qrendi - the remaining two towns around Zurrieq...

A surprise at the National Archives

Note: Please make sure you read the previous post, Before Bone, Algeria, prior to reading this post.



So once again I went to the National Archives of Santu Spirtu, this time looking at naval records BEFORE the birth of Antonio Barbara in Bone, Algeria. I was looking for the journey of the couple Giuseppe Barbara and Rosa nee` Vella to Bone, Algeria. I searched through tomes and grimoires, even enlisting the help of my father - but it was all in vain.



I left the idea for a while...



Then I discovered that the National Archives held another source of information: the Passport Register. While the naval records would have contained information about lots of irrelevant stuff and people (I remember finding a record of a Mexican man landing in Malta), and possibly multiple times for the same person, especially crew, the Passport Register would have only one entry for Maltese persons requesting a passport - and to travel by ship, one would need a passport. This information was also better available: in PDF format, so I could search the records without damaging and old invaluable book. I had 80 pages to search in, and I found something 20 pages on.



I found a record of a certain Rosa Barbara requesting a passport, together with.... wait for it... her daughter Antonina Barbara! Apart from the absence of her husband, which would have gone there before his family, the existence of an elder sister for Antonio was a welcome news!



On my way back home I wondered what could have happened to Antonia. Would she have helped her mother raise her two younger brothers? Would she have returned with them back to Malta, or would she have found love, married and brought up family in Bone, Algeria - would there be descendents, relatives of ours, still living there? Would I be able to make contact?...



All this fizzled away when I rechecked the CAOM records and found out that she had died in 1836, before Tony's birth in 1837 and Antonio's birth in 1838 - they hadn't even met!

Antonia died at the tender age of 4 years. This made the stay of the Barbara family even more dramatic:

• in 1836 the daughter Antonina dies
• in 1837 the son Tony is born
• in 1838 the son Antonio is born
• in 1839 the father Giuseppe dies
  

Imagine Rosa's tragic life: going abroad with a daughter and husband, and returning back with only two sons...

Before Bone, Algeria

Earlier this year, specifically in my post entitled Tragedy and Happiness in Bona, Algeria I explained how the Barbara line had emigrated to Bone, and come back fatherless but with two more sons.

Now the quest was on to find out which town Giuseppe Barbara and Rosa nee` Vella came from. Since their son Antonio, on his return to Malta, married in Zurrieq, it was of course the first place to search - but alas with no result.

Actually there was a surprising result which felt like a slap in the face accompanied with dark laughter: I found there a copy of Antonio's baptism record from Bone, Algeria. And I had gone all that way to look for it when it was always there waiting for me!

Some careful thoughts ensued: where would a widow return to, with her two young sons? Would she return to her husband's home town, or to her own family? The latter being the most probable answer would mean that the wife Rosa was from Zurrieq but her husband no. As I was unable to find a marriage record of such a couple, I made an educated guess that Rosa was from Zurrieq, and the husband was from some other, hopefully neighbouring, town - and that they had married there. I could try to find a baptism record for Rosa Vella, but without knowing her parents (usually acquired from the marriage record) it would have been a wildly assuming and presumptious guess.

Where should I look for information as to where they are from?

In the meantime I was intrigued by the fact of being born in one country and getting married in another. I wanted to search for documentation of the journey and one interesting source of information came to mind: the naval records at the National Archives hosted at Santu Spirtu in Rabat, Malta. I had 23 years to search: Antonio was born in 1838 in Bone, Algeria and married in 1861 in Zurrieq, Malta. When I reached the Archives and told the clerk there of my intention, she remarked that I'd spend the whole summer there. I soon learnt why. She came back with three tomes (some 4 feet by 2 when closed) on a trolley - and they only covered the large part of a year. Each page contains details about the ship, its incoming crew, passengers, and cargo, as well as the outgoing crew, passengers and cargo. After looking through these three tomes I gave up... but it was not for nothing.

I realised that, on some occasions, next to the outgoing passengers was written the name of their hometown. What if I could find the record of Giuseppe and Rosa's OUTGOING journey to Bone, Algeria - and there find the name of their hometown?