Monday, August 20, 2012

Cericola Birth Records


Monday August 2, 2012
          We left our apartment at 8:00 AM in Calitri for the 1 ½ drive to Orsara.  After arriving in Orsara, we went directly to the Office of Civil Registration.   They had office hours from 9 – 12AM.  We sat on the wooden bench outside the busy office waiting our turn to speak to the man in the record office.  He didn’t speak English.  After some hand signals and much discussion, Ken filled out a form to request a record of birth for his grandfather and grandmother.  We would have to come back tomorrow and hope the records were ready.  In the meantime we satisfied our anxiety by eating pastries from the local pasticcieria (pastry shop).  I was one of the few women sitting outside on the main street.  Women seem to be shopkeepers, trash collectors or are at home, but rarely seen just sitting and talking.  Men were a different story.  Many men seem to sit and talk.  Older women dress in black and sit just inside or outside their doorways.  Up the street we bought pizza al cipolla (pizza with cooked onions).  Ken said it was just like his grandmother’s pizza.  We headed back to Calitri for our afternoon rest.  Most towns close up all their businesses from about 1 to 4 PM.  People go home and eat a big lunch, rest, and businesses and towns come alive again about 5 PM.  We adapted easily to this new lifestyle.
 
Onion Pizza and cheese pizza




  

Tuesday  August 3, 2010
          This is the reason we came to southern Italy – to find family roots.  After having onion pizza and melon for breakfast, we set off for Orsara again.  This time the Civil Registration Office was not busy.  


Civil Registration Office in Orsara
The same man was in the office.  He wanted to see the records we brought from the USA – the marriage record from St Michael the Archangel  in Butler, PA .  On that record Antonio Cericola and Anna Maria DeSanctis were married in Butler, PA on February 2, 1911.  Domenico (the man in the record office) left and came back with original ledger books.  He showed us the birth of both Antonio Cericola and Anna Maria DeSantis.  If that wasn’t enough, he showed us their marriage record in Orsara.  Yes, they were married in Orsara before coming to the USA.  
Original marriage record of Antonio and Anna Maria DeSantis in Orsara di Puglia
Here is the information on the official birth and marriage records from the Comune of Orsara.

Antonio Cericola
Born in Orsara di Puglia on July 9, 1886
Mother – Teresina Cercola
(No father name)

Anna Maria DeSantis
Born in Orsara di Puglia on September 9, 1886
Mother – Angela Michela Schiavo
Father – Pietro DeSantis

Antonio Cericola and Anna Maria DeSantis were married in Orsara di Puglia on September 9, 1906.  That was Grandma Cherry’s birthday, she was 20 years old.

He prepared official documents of all the records and we paid him €7.74 - that would be about $9.50 US.

The church photo on this blog is the church where they were baptized and married – Chiesa di San Nicola.

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