When I was in Carini i 2005, I went to The Stato and (with my guide) tried to obtain the record of birth for my Great-Grandmother Giuseppa Marciano. The office found and copied this document from The Anagrafe books for her family :

Antonino Marciano and Family Anagrafe

About two months ago I wrote to Carini in the hopes that I could obtain the same for Giuseppa's husband Antonino Leone, also born in Carini (my great-grandfather). Instead today I received this handwritten document which was "abstracted" from the detailed record (see image above) like the one I obtained when I was there 3 years ago.

Vincenzo Leone and Family Storico

The information is incorrect in Five places, Four dates are wrong to begin with, things are crossed out, and I am very dissapointed (I sent quite a bit of money with my request). I just wanted to let everyone know who receives a "Storico" that it is in fact a very rough (and summarized) transcription of an Anagrafe, and depending on the Stato employee, may be quite flawed in content. (I will mention that the record I received when I was there for my Giuseppa matches completely with the original records)

For example... (the dates were wrong)
Vincenzo Leone was born (I have his birth act) Sep 10, 1849
Antonino Leone was born (I have his birth act) May 13, 1887
Rosalia Leone was born (I have her birth act) March 19, 1885
Salvatore Leone was born (I have his birth act) May 23, 1891

James, that is dreadful, but I must admit does not surprise me in the least. For what it's worth, my advice would be to photocopy what you received and send that (with the errors highlighted), with your written complaint, to the Mayor of Carini.

These 'state clerks' should take far more care with such documents but alas....

Be aware though, that with nepotism being as rife as it is within the job market here in Italy, it could be that the clerk in question is related to the Mayor or one of his officers anyway. But the Mayor should at least ensure that you are provided with an accurate copy of the document you PAID for - and make clear in your complaint just HOW MUCH money you sent!

Carole wrote:

James, that is dreadful, but I must admit does not surprise me in the least. For what it's worth, my advice would be to photocopy what you received and send that (with the errors highlighted), with your written complaint, to the Mayor of Carini. These 'state clerks' should take far more care with such documents but alas.... Be aware though, that with nepotism being as rife as it is within the job market here in Italy, it could be that the clerk in question is related to the Mayor or one of his officers anyway. But the Mayor should at least ensure that you are provided with an accurate copy of the document you PAID for - and make clear in your complaint just HOW MUCH money you sent!

When my family made our application for Italian citizenship the documents were thrown out twice due to inaccurate recording of dates and names. The problem does seem to be rife and you do wonder how hard it could be to copy over data?

Worth following up in the manner suggested by Carole, especially as you paid for the service. Am impressed that they released the docs at all - when I tried to get a birth cert in Italy they would not issue it to me (I was present) as I could not prove definitively that the person in question was a relation. At that stage of my research that was quite a difficult thing to do. Later on I used a professional researcher and there was no problem getting the docs released.

Man James..that stinks! All that money and having to wait so long and then you get the wrong info anyway! How about requesting the document again..without sending money and see what happens..

I'd say its time to go back to Carini and give them a piece of your mind! Sorry for your disappointment.

Before you write the complaint letter, bear in mind that it could have been the person who recorded the original document that screwed up, not the clerk who copied the record for you!
It has been my experience that the 'scheda di familglia' that this was copied from was often prepared from verbal information given by persons present at the time (much like our census) so the information is not reliable.

I have no intention of writing a complaint letter. If you look at the Anagrafe I posted at the top (I have two more which are identical to that format from other Great-Grandparents) you will see what she had to work with.

There are dozens of volumes of these oversized books in each Comune (whether they have survived for every comune is another issue, but they did exist as far north as Belluno, and as far south as Palermo, using the same standard printed form).

Every date matches, along with details of who each child married and a reference to the book and page where you can find the child's anagrafe. The dates were not given verbally, there is a citation next to each date with the folio number of the original record of birth, marriage and death.

I realize very very few researchers, even in Italy are familiar with the Anagrafe, because very little has been published on their content (and what has been published tends to be erroneous)

James, I did not look at your 'anagrafe' photo before responding. I work with these documents all the time. You need to remember that when they were initiated around 1865 dates were recorded as they are in a census, by information given by the family member and are frequently off. After that date, the book was used to maintain an ongoing 'stato di famiglia' in the town, so these dates were recorded as they happened. The birth was registered and then recorded in the 'book'. Same with marriages. Things are often crossed out because the person got married and was moved to another page, usually that of their in-laws, or to the USA or another town. They did not survive in every town and they do take different forms in some towns.