Is this an adoption record?

Question

This seems to be a different form, then used for births of married couples. If I’m reading correctly, it looks like the mayor of the town is adopting or recognizing a baby that was found? Can anyone help me translate and understand this? I am not related to them, but in looking for my own ancestors information, I found this and it got me curious. 

https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/ark:/12657/an_ua36016225/LpgXRAl?lang=en

Comments

Actually the link is not showing the exact page of the registry. I was looking at for some reason. I have a screenshot of the exact document I can post, but I can’t figure out how to post it on this form!

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It’s on page 11 of the 1810 birth registry in the link provided- to view you have to skip to that page and be able to read old Italian Cursive

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When you use the Antenati site in English language mode and you copy a link from there, you have to remove the "?lang=en" at the end of the URL, otherwise it won't work.

Answer 1

Hi Gina! No, it's not an adoption record, it's the birth record of a child that was left at the ruota dei Proietti, a foundling wheel widely used in all Europe to give up babies for adoption without revealing the identity of the parents.

The record is signed by the Sindaco, probably because he had the authority to give the foundling a name - he's not adopting it. Tha baby was male and appeared to be 2 days old, no remarkable physical traits. He was named Carlo di Giuseppe (every region/town had its own traditions to name the foundlings).

Regarding the link to this birth records book, it's not indexed yet, so the individual pages do not have a link each, but only one link for the whole book. If you're going to cite it, you need to add the number of the page after the rest. You can also use the very useful Greg Clarke's Antenati Citation Builder that you can find here: https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/clarke11007/antenati.php.

Comments

Yes that’s what I thought I was reading! That the mayor was naming a found baby - found in a wheel LOL

I didn’t know what a rotondo dei proietti was! I support at that point someone in the town would care for the baby or maybe go to an orphanage?

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The record said he was entrusted to a midwife.

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That makes sense! I missed that part I’ll have to look again. I bet the midwife knew who the baby was anyway.. what women these midwives were! (And are!)

Answer 2

Hi Gina

If you want to use Antenati links to a certain page, you need to be at the Italian language page. Then you can just copy the url in your browser.
You can switch the language at the top right side. Only the help and information pages have information in English, so for reading the digitised registers, you don't have useful information in English anyway.
I hope this helps.

Comments

Oh interesting. Ok I’ll switch over. Thank you!