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).

The tree returns to its roots...

In my second post on this blog, The Spark, I had mentioned how

my dad drew a sketch (see right, darker annotations were made at a later date by myself) to explain how there was an inheritance of 7 /11 of a field in the South of Malta...

Yesterday I received a phone call from my dad who needed some information regarding some ancestors' places and dates of birth and deaths to give to the lawyer who was taking care of the said inheritance. I was able to furnish the results of my research as requested.
After 8 years, the research for my family tree helped provide some answers spurred by the same inheritance that sparked off the whole research!

Bona, Algeria!

Earlier in my blog, specifically here: http://barbaravassallo.blogspot.com/2007/04/from-bona.html I had shared with you my desperation in not being able to trace my paternal line. All I knew about my paternal great great great grandpa was that he was born in Bona.

On 23rd May 2006 I came across a post by Mr Jean Bernard Mifsud indicating his Algerian-Maltese ancestry and asking for help. See here: http://genforum.genealogy.com/malta/messages/1963.html

On seeing a possibly Algerian person with an interest in genealogy I immediately threw in a reply, asking for any leads into seeking my own ancestor's records there.

To my post, another forum member Mr Frederic Messud from Australia(!) gave me a link to CAOM - Centre d'Archives d'Outre-Mere - where the French government was giving an online catalogue of birth, marriage, and death records in its colonies, including Bone, Algeria. He even gave me two possible records for my ancestor's births: one in 1838 in Bone and another in 1894 in Mascara.

I was overjoyed! The one in Bone fit perfectly as he would have been 19 when his son would be born in Malta. The catalogue is very dry in information, giving only what happened, to whom , which year and which commune. The website has strict rules not to communicate via email, and to my request for the birth record, or at least for information as how to get it, I was asked to supply a postal address which I did.

In the meantime I found myself subscribing to the pieds-noir mailing list. These 'black foots' are sons of the European immigrants to Algeria who were forced to leave the country after the Algerian-French conflict. Through this mailing list I received an email from a certain Ms Collonna who told me that she'd been to Aix-en-Provence (the place where these records are located) and seeing my request had brought it for me! I gave her my postal address so she could send it to me.

As luck would have it, Aix-en-Provence sent me a letter describing how they do not do research and that you have to go personally or send someone in your stead, BUT FOR THIS ONCE, THEY SENT ME THE RECORD! A civil record detailing the birth of Antonio Barbara to Barbara Giuseppe and his wife Rosa nee Vella (my gggggrandparents!) who were from Malta.

Against all odds, here was the birth record that I had given up of ever coming across!

-0-

A couple of months later I was looking in the parish archives of Zurrieq (where Antonio Barbara whose birth record I received above got married) for records relating to Antonio's wife's ancestors... and I was leafing through the records and noticed a page alien to the book, in that it was pasted onto the book. I had a look at the page and saw an Algeria mark. I remarked how strange it was for it to be in the book and did not give it any second thought.

Until I was packing up to leave and a second thought finally made it to my mind. I checked again the page. It was the parochial record of the baptism of Antonio Barbara in Bone Algeria! My GGGGrandpa! Here in Malta!

Whilst I had given up, came across a link by chance, and got through all the trouble of getting the record from France, it was all the time available in Malta! What a surprise!

Quandary Explanation

It's been almost a year now and I have not had the chance to carry out the family profile that I promised in http://barbaravassallo.blogspot.com/2007/07/fenech-buttigieg-1696.html.

May I now explain the problem that I have met and how I plan to find evidence to prove a possible alternate situation that may have led to the records met.

Refer to Figure 1 below, which depicts an event timeline of a normal family:

A couple are born, marry, and have kids. For them to be legally recognised, they ought to be born AFTER the marriage. Each sibling is expected to be born at least 9 months after the previous sibling (9 months being the gestation period of humans) unless the siblings are twins (or triplets or quadruplets, etc) and are born on the same occasion (as for siblings 2 and 3 above). Another case is when the child is born prematurely - but they did not have incubators back then so they would have died on being born.

Now the evidence found so far shows that my ancestor Rosa was born BEFORE her parents' marriage. Figure two below demonstrates this:

This is after having searched for the marriage of Lawrence and Gratia prior to 1694 with no success and only finding a record of such a marriage in 1696, 2 years later.

This could mean that Rosa was born out of wedlock, even though there is no such record of this in the parish archive but rather the mother is specified as being the wife, and the bride is specified to be a virgin.

Now all this could only be true if the parents of Rosa were NOT married in the SAME parish but were married somewhere else, which would explain the missing marriage record prior to Rosa's birth.

But why is there a marriage AFTER the birth? This could be if there was ANOTHER couple named Lawrence Fenech and Gratia who married in the same parish where Rosa was born. The Figure below should help explain this:

The fact that Gratia's surname is not listed in Rosa's birth record makes this fact still possible.

But how can it be proved?

The only tool available is the fact that siblings need to be 9 months apart. What I plan to do is to take a family profile: that is finding all the children born to Lawrence Fenech and his wife Gratia to try to find overlapping births - which would indicate two parallel couples in the same parish.

In which case I would need to identify which parish were Rosa's parents from, maybe by looking at the godparents of the children who might be specified to be from some other parish.

Wish me luck!

Greetings to Sunday Circle readers

If you've reached this blog after reading my article on the Sunday Circle, then I'm sure I piqued your interest :) Thank you very much for visiting!

This blog basically narrates my research in the parish records of Attard, Zurrieq, Zabbar and other localities. I tried to transcribe the records and provide a translation to give you a head start in the right direction if you plan to research your own family tree.

As with all blogs, the most recent entry is shown first, so if you want to start reading you should start from the first blog, here: http://barbaravassallo.blogspot.com/2007/04/preface.html

Once you've read this, if you're interested in my own family tree, feel free to visit https://gw.geneanet.org/jbarbara_w?lang=en&i=0&type=tree

I am sorry to refuse any request for doing any research on your behalf - I barely have time to do my own! - not even against payment.

Beleive me, if you have the time, nothing beats the joy of finding unknown ancestors, one by one. The experience brings you face to face with records written by parish priests who have had face-to-face contact with your own ancestors. These are invaluable documents - so make sure you take good care of them!

I would appreciate any comment you might wish to leave to this blog.

Thanks for your time

Jonathan

Photos by Rene Roussignaud

Fenech + Buttigieg 1696

Ottobre 1696

Die decima tertia Octobris 1696 Denuntiationibus premisis tribus diebus fassiuis(?) quarum pa. fuit die 23 7bris 1696, 2a fuit die 29 eiusdem, 3a fuit die 30 puedicti ing missae parrochilais solemnia habita, nulloq. legitimo impedimento detecto. Ego Sylvius Paci parochus Ecclesia parrochialis Casalis Attard Laurentius Fenech filius legitimus et naturalem qdm. Vincentii Fenech et Maria viventis obim coniugi ex Parrochia Casalis Attard, et Gratia virgine, filia legitima et naturalem Ignatii Butigieg, et Catharina coniugi ex eadel Parrochia, interrogavi, corumque mutuo consensu habit(?) per verba de presenti matrimonio coniunxi presentibus testibus artis(?) Angelo Debono sacrista, et Joanne Camilleri et postea in celebrazione missa ex vitu S. Matris Ecclesia Ego Parochus qui supra benedixit.

October 1696
13th October 1696 marriage banns made firstly on 23rd September 1696, secondly on 29th of the same month, third on the 30th .... no legal impediment detected. I Sylvius Pace parish priest of the parish church of Attard interviewed Lawrence Fenech legitimate and natural son of the late Vincent Fenech and his widow Maria from the parish of Attard, and Gratia virgin, legitiamte and natural daughter of Ignatius Butigieg and his wife Catherine from the same parish. who verbally gave their mutual consent for this wedding in front of Angelo Debono sacristan and John Camilleri. At the end of the celebrated mass in the church of St Mary, I the above mentioned parish priest, gave my blessings.

There is a bit of a quandary here. The marriage is dated 1696, but their daughter (Rosa Fenech below) was born 2 years earlier, in 1694. In her baptismal record, Gratia is mentioned as being the wife of her father Lawrence (which she would not have been if she only married 2 years later) and in this marriage record Gratia is said to be a virgin (thus would not have had kids yet).

The truth is I could not find any other couple marrying in Attard with the names of Lawrence Fenech and Gratia. Moreover , Rosa is said to be the legitimate daughter of her father in her wedding's record.

This leads to two possibilities: either Rosa's parents were not married in Attard, thus the absence of their marriage record - or they married after having Rosa, whilst the Church buried it under regular wordings to hide the scandal.

But how can I, 300 years later, try to uncover the truth? An impossible task really. What I might do is to take a family profile (look up all the children born to a Lawrence and Gratia) and see if there are any overlapping pregnancies (babies being born within 6 months or less of each other) which would mean that there were two couples named Lawrence Fenech and Gratia in Attard, one of them married elsewhere.

I could also look at the godparents of the baptised children to seek some common links.

Watch this space!

B. Rosa Fenech 1694, Lawrence Debono 1690

TOP:

Maggio 1694

Die decima sexta Maij 1694 ego Sylvius Pace Parochus Ecclesia Parrochia Casali Attard baptizavi filia heri nata ex Laurentius Fenech et Gratia conig. cui impositum nome Rosa Maria. Matrina fuit Maria Rosa Vassallo ex eadel parrochia.

May 1694

16th May 1694 I Sylvius Pace parish priest of the Parish church of Attard baptized a daughter born yesterday to Lawrence Fenech and Gratia his wife who gave her the name of Rosa Maria. Godmother was Maria Rosa Vassallo from the same parish.

THIRD:

Die nona novembris 1690 Ego Sylvius Pace Viceparochus Ecclesia Parochis Casalis Attard baptizavi filio nato ex Angelo Debono et Gratia coniugibus, cui imposuit est nomen Laurentius Clemens. Patrinus fuit Philippus Debono ex aede Parrochia.

9th November 1690 I Sylvius Pace vice-parish priest of the parish church of Attard baptized a son born to Angelo Debono and Gratia his wife, who gave him the name of Lawrence Clemens. Godfather was Philip Debono from this same parish.

Note the later addition of the name Lawrence to the baptism record. Was this a forgotten name or a late change?

P.S. For the record, the second and fourth entries are unrelated to the infants listed here or to me. They are

Second: Baptism of Dominic Fenech on 19th May 1694, born the previous day to Joseph Fenech and his wife Dominica, with godparents Dominic Fenech and his wife Bellica from Lija.

Fourth: Baptism of Joseph Scerri on 3rd November 1690 born to Michael Xerri and his wife Dominica with godparents Mautirus Pullicino from the same parish. (Joseph died 10th February 1691).