Birth dates. It’s so easy now for us to trust the accuracy of them. Especially natively born ancestors. But for the immigrant generation it’s another matter entirely. We contend with language barriers, no formal records, recollection (or the lack thereof) and lazy census takers.
Take Peter Pantoliano, for example.
- His WW1 Draft card reads: 29 Jun 1873
- His Social Security Claims reads: 28 Jul 1885
- The 1910, 1920 & 1940 censuses suggest 1873
- The 1930 census suggests 1872
- His headstone reads 1873
Apparently the 1900 census is incomplete (Peter is not in it) — which is a good thing because it is notoriously inaccurate — but it lulls you into thinking that it’s authoritative because it gives birth information as month/year.
Guess what. It’s all wrong. Peter’s birthday is 28 Jun 1871.
For the longest time I wondered how the “Ancestors from Campania” site got such detailed information on the 2nd generation of the Pantoliano family. Recently I discovered that the Registrati dello stato civilie di (vital records of) Monte San Giacomo exists.
Whomever created that website must have gone through several thousand scans (of varying quality) of birth, marriage and death records between 1866 and 1910. That range covers Maria, Maria Giuseppa, Antonio, Pietro and Michele Pantoliano. It also explains why the site lists Pasquale according to his 1900 census birthday and doesn’t list Carmella at all. Frank and Anna were born in the US.
Using the archive I was able to find the birth records for the all the Italian born children, except Pasquale and Carmella — as the 1864/5 books are apparently too destroyed to be viewed — as well as the death record of the toddler Michele.
Peter’s record:
The rest of the scans are loaded in the photo archive.