So let's go back to our friend, Domenico (here on the left), and try to learn something from the cold documents about his earthly journey. We know when and where he was born, and the names of his parents. We proceed to search the archive for Sassa
from the nearest available year (1865) and go backwards looking through the books of births, marriages and deaths. We find Cesare, his brother, born in 1865. The archives have the real records of birth, that looks more or less like this:
"In the year 1865, on the day seventeen of the month of October, at twenty-one hours, in front of us Antonio Maria Signora, mayor and Official of Public registers of the municipality of Sassa, District of L'Aquila, Province of L'Aquila, appeared Antonio Fiamma of thirty eight years of age, job miller,
domiciled at Mulino Ruscio di Sassa, who presented a male, and we recognized and he declared that he was born of he himself, giving this declaration, of 38 years old and as above as a job, domiciled as above, and from Emidia Dionisi, of thirty-five years of age, spinner as a job, domiciled in her
husband's house, on the day sixteenth of the month of october of this year, at 3 hours, in the house of Mulino Ruscio, where they are living. The declaring party declared that he wanted to give the infant the name of Cesare"
We get from these words a picture of this family, living in a mill, the mother working at home with the traditional "spinning" job of the women of previous centuries. There's also a hint to the place where they were living, a red mill ("mulino ruscio") We check on the area maps from the Land Registry Office: and there it is, the "Mulino Ruscio", and is such a landmark in the area that has also given its name to the small sreet and the road leading there.
From the age of the parents we infer a date of marriage. So the search continues backwards, and another brother is found, Angelomaria, in 1861.
And finally, BINGO! The marriage act of Antonio and Emidia, in 1859, celebrated in the church of Santa Giusta di Sassa (picture on the right). Now, the law requires, for a marriage to be celebrated, the extracts of births of the two parties and the presence - or acts of deaths - of the parents. These documents are usually contained in a separate book, where with some patience and time they are found
And we get a whole lot of names and dates: the four parents, the acts of birth of Antonio and Emidia, the act of death of Antonio's mother. From now on the search must follow two separate lines, one for each of them. There's no trouble in finding Emidia's birth (and a whole lot of sisters and brothers, as well as the marriage of her parents, a second jackpot). As to Antonio, though both siblings are found (four of them) and the marriage of his parents, in 1819, he himself, who ought to be born in 1826, cannot be found, until we go forward again and check Antonio's marriage act, and find he was not born at Sassa, but in L'Aquila.
