Records reported back from Foreign Places
In the later years, after so many Polizzans had emigrated to the US or South America, families were expected to report all births, marriages & deaths back to the comune office in Polizzi. Most didn’t bother to do this. But if they did, many of them often waited until they had 3 or 4 children and then reported those births back to Polizzi all at one time. They are usually included in a “Part II” section at the end of a year of records. Death records were also sent back to a village, but not nearly as often. And I've rarely see a marriage reported this way until the 1890’s & 1900’s.
The process of sending this information back to Sicily was a very long and tedious one. But they can be a real treasure trove. First the events were recorded locally in the US and then sent to the Italian Consulate in NYC, San Francisco, etc. From there the record was sent to Rome and then finally to the individual villages like Polizzi. The entire process often took at least a year if reported from a place far away, so don't be surprised if you see these records in a "part 2" for a year other than when the actual event took place. But for other Sicilian villages closer by, it often happened within a week or two.
These foreign records were extremely detailed, giving names, physical descriptions, dates, cause of death, place of death, length of time in the area etc. When one of these reports eventually arrived in Polizzi, it was usually completely handwritten and sometimes even had an English version and then one that was translated into Italian. And there were often notes written from every stop along the way.
In the Polizzi civil records I’ve seen records sent back from NYC, New Jersey, Missouri, Detroit, San Francisco, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and even Malta and Tunisia. 6-15-2013
Records reported back from Foreign Places
In the later years, after so many Polizzans had emigrated to the US or South America, families were expected to report all births, marriages & deaths back to the comune office in Polizzi. Most didn’t bother to do this. But if they did, many of them often waited until they had 3 or 4 children and then reported those births back to Polizzi all at one time. They are usually included in a “Part II” section at the end of a year of records. Death records were also sent back to a village, but not nearly as often. And I've rarely see a marriage reported this way until the 1890’s & 1900’s.
The process of sending this information back to Sicily was a very long and tedious one. But they can be a real treasure trove. First the events were recorded locally in the US and then sent to the Italian Consulate in NYC, San Francisco, etc. From there the record was sent to Rome and then finally to the individual villages like Polizzi. The entire process often took at least a year if reported from a place far away, so don't be surprised if you see these records in a "part 2" for a year other than when the actual event took place. But for other Sicilian villages closer by, it often happened within a week or two.
These foreign records were extremely detailed, giving names, physical descriptions, dates, cause of death, place of death, length of time in the area etc. When one of these reports eventually arrived in Polizzi, it was usually completely handwritten and sometimes even had an English version and then one that was translated into Italian. And there were often notes written from every stop along the way.
In the Polizzi civil records I’ve seen records sent back from NYC, New Jersey, Missouri, Detroit, San Francisco, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and even Malta and Tunisia. 6-15-2013
