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Prizzi Death Records, 1648-1700
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© Noah J. Graf, 2023
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This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
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I: General Introduction and Source Materials
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The Roman Catholic parish records for the Comune of Prizzi in Sicily (Palermo province) were microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah in 1999 and were digitized and are currently hosted through the FamilySearch website. They can be accessed either through the FamilySearch catalog webpage (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/975783) or via the FamilySearch collection page for "Diocesi di Monreale, Catholic Church Records, 1531-1998" (https://www.familysearch.org/search/image/index?owc=MGSR-T3K%3A351041701%2C351041702%3Fcc%3D2046915). Most of the original parish records contain either original indexes of varying quality or were transcribed and indexed in a second copy (also filmed and digitized) by Fr. Pietro Campagna, the Archpresbyter of Prizzi, during the early 20th century. However, the death records for Prizzi from the years 1648 - 1700, which were filmed and digitized, contain no original index and were never transcribed. This indexing project seeks to fill that void.
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Extant death records for Prizzi begin in September 1648. Records for the deaths of children under the age of 7 were kept separately from records for all other persons age 7-and-up. However, death records for children under age 7 were only kept through August 1653. From that time through the year 1700, the only death records available are for persons age 7-and-up. To match this convention, the present transcribed index separates the records for children under 7 and persons 7-and-up into separate spreadsheet tabs.

From September 1648 through August 1657, the original death records were written in Italian/Sicilian. From September 1657 through the year 1700, the records were kept almost exclusively in Latin. Transcriptions here are made directly from the original text, without adjustment for language.
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II: Transcription Conventions and Notations
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Both in the Italian/Sicilian records and in the Latin records, the recording priests made extensive use of scribal abbreviations, including for given names and occasionally even for surnames. In the present transcribed index, abbreviations for surnames (where intelligible) are expanded to the full form, with any emendation noted by the use of [ text in brackets ]. Abbreviations for given names, however, are not expanded to an assumed full form, since the spelling of names, even in the more standardized Latin, was highly variable. Given names with abbreviated forms in the original are here transcribed with a period to approximate the original text as best as possible (e.g., "Vin.us" = "Vincentius" in Latin = "Vincenzo" in Italian). Scribal abbreviations in the name of the church or place of burial are treated similarly.
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Any [ text in brackets ] indicates an emendation of text either omitted in the original but reconstructable or else no longer legible in the original. Any text followed by (?) indicates an uncertain reading. An asterisk * directs the reader to a relevant note in the "Additional Notes" column.

The letters U and V are distinguished in this present index, in keeping with the Italian language's distinction of the two in both pronunciation and in (printed) graphical representation by the 17th century. Latin, as it would have been spoken in the Italian church in the 17th century, would also have distinguished the two letters in pronunciation. This convention is adopted even where the two letters may not be distinguished in the handwritten original records, which is due to the variable graphical distinction between the two letters in Latin, even to the present day.
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Conversely, the letters I and J are not distinguished in this present index. Only I / i is used. This convention is in keeping with both 17th century Italian as well as Latin, where the J / j form is considered a specialized form of I / i (an "allograph") rather than a separate letter in itself. In both languages, the pronunciation of the two forms is proximate, thus contrasting with U and V which were not pronounced similarly in either language. In addition, this avoids any confusion both with the English language J- sound and also with archaic Sicilian forms of names containing a soft G- sound. The latter occasionally appears in 16th and 17th century records spelled with a J- but clearly pronunced like the Italian soft G- (this apparently is the influence of French and Catalan orthographical conventions on pre-modern Sicilian). Accordingly, names that might appear to contain J / j in the original text but actually contain I / i, especially Latin forms, are transcribed solely with I- (see, e.g., "Ioseph", "Ioannes", "Iacobus").
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Researchers should take note that surnames are otherwise transcribed exactly as written. They are not adapted to any standardized modern form. Alternate phonetic spellings and usages with prefixes "De/Di" or "La/Lo/Lu" should be checked by those researching particular individuals or families.
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III: Using This Index
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The present transcribed index is arranged in chronological order by default. If adjustments are subsequently made and users wish to restore the chronological order, they may sort the spreadsheets by the Chronological Control # in Column A. To read the spreadsheet in alphabetical order by surname, sort by the Alphabetical Control # in Column B. Note that alphabetical sorting in the present transcribed index does not take account of editorial notations — [ ], (?), * — or alias surnames that may be listed in the original record. However, it does take account of the use of periods to indicate abbreviations in the original (for example: "Picoraro, Io.es" appears before "Picoraro, Ioannes"). Names that are [*illegible*], [*no longer extant*], or omitted in the original [N.N.] appear at the top of the alphabetical sorting.

Column C contains a hyperlink to the original record image on FamilySearch. Column D contains the image page from the FamilySearch digital collection. Surnames and Given Names appear in Columns E and F, respectively. In the age-7-and-up spreadsheet, honorifics appear in Column G.
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Columns H-J in the age-7-and-up spreadsheet, and Columns G-I in the under-age-7 spreadsheet, list the date of death. The decedent's sex appears in Column K (7-and-up) or Column J (under-7); and the decedent's listed age and calculated year of birth appear in Columns L and M (7-and-up) or K and L (under-7). Ages should be used with caution and are more likely to be estimates rather than absolutely precise.

In the age-7-and-up spreadsheet, Column N lists the decedent's spouse. If no spouse is mentioned in the original, but the deceased's marital status is, then that status is listed in Column N instead. The names of the decedent's parents, if listed, appear in Columns O and P (7-and-up) or in Columns M and N (under-7). The church or place of burial listed in the record appears in Column Q (7-and-up) or in Column O (under-7). Finally, any Additional Notes appear in Column R (7-and-up spreadsheet) or in Column P (under-7 spreadsheet). Filters may applied to any or all columns.
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IV: Author's Note
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It is hoped that the transcription conventions adopted and described here, and the system of organization created for the present index, will prove clear and useful to genealogists and other historical researchers. In the course of transcribing the original records, every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the transcribed data, but some errors may remain. Any such errors are the responsibility of the author alone.
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