An 1880 Paternity Case

Date: 1804 to 1887
Location: Corleone, Palermo, Italy
Surnames/tags: Ligotino Cascio Provenzano

Contents 1 The Story of Lucia Ligotino’s Paternity 1.1 Three Sisters 1.2 Francesca and Salvatore, Carmela and Vincenzo, Giovanna and Giuseppe 1.3 The Youngest Child of Salvatore and Francesca 1.4 Giovanna’s Marriage 1.5 The Young Widower 1.6 Facts of the Inquiry 1.7 After the Inquiry 2 Sources

The Story of Lucia Ligotino’s Paternity

I’ve collected lots of anecdotes from the Church and civil records of my ancestors in Corleone, but this one has come closest to my direct ancestors, involved more individuals, and been most unique among all that I’ve found. A real paternity case, conducted by the Catholic Church after the deaths of the legitimate parents, my fourth great aunt and uncle.^[1]

Three Sisters

The story begins with three sisters.

Giovanna (b. ~1813), Francesca (b. ~1815), and Carmela (b. ~1817), are my fourth-great aunts, daughters of Giuseppe Cascio and Maria Oliveri.

There weren’t just the three, of course. Their oldest brother, Leoluca (b. ~1811), is my third-great-grandfather. He marries twice, the second time to my third-great-grandmother, Salvatrice Ligotino, around 1851.

Salvatrice is the daughter of Carmelo Ligotino (b. ~1802), brother to Giuseppe (b. ~1813) and Vincenzo (b. ~1816), who will marry Leoluca’s sisters, Giovanna and Carmela Cascio. So not only are the sisters involved my 4th-great aunts, but the men are my 4th-great uncles, also by blood.

There are two other sisters in the Cascio family besides the three already mentioned---Emmanuela (c. 1814) and Lucia (b. ~1824)---and two younger brothers, of whom there is no record beyond their baptisms.

Emmanuela marries twice, first on 9 April 1834. Giovanna, her older sister, marries the same month, on 29 April, to Giuseppe Ligotino (b. ~1804).

Francesca, whose fidelity will be scrutinized by the archbishop after her death, marries Salvatore Ligotino in 1837. Salvatore is a first cousin to Carmelo, Giuseppe, and Vincenzo: their fathers are brothers. Unlike Giuseppe and Vincenzo, who, along with their father, are called ‘’borgesi’’ (landowners) in the 1880 High Court record, Salvatore is simply called a farmer. His older sister and brother marry before him, to a brother and sister, the Di Micelis.

Carmela marries Vincenzo Ligotino in 1840. Vincenzo is the younger brother of Giuseppe, Giovanna’s husband. Lucia marries in 1842.

After the deaths of Salvatore Ligotino and Francesca Cascio, on the eve of their youngest daughter, Lucia’s wedding to Giovanni Provenzano, there is a Church High Court proceeding, in which family members are reportedly “thoroughly and repeatedly” questioned, to determine Lucia’s paternity.

Francesca and Salvatore, Carmela and Vincenzo, Giovanna and Giuseppe

Before Lucia is born, the three couples seem as close as their kinship suggests. They all stand as godparents to one another’s children, as is common among siblings in Corleone at this time:

In September 1838, Leoluca and his wife stand as godparents to Salvatore and Francesca’s oldest child, Biagia. The following February, Giuseppe and Giovanna stand as godparents to Leoluca’s oldest son, named Giuseppe after his paternal grandfather.

In January 1841, the year before their first known child is born, Vincenzo and Carmela, already married, stand as godparents to the second daughter of Salvatore and Francesca, named Maria after her maternal grandmother. A year later, Vincenzo and Carmela have their first child, and Salvatore and Francesca are her godparents. That April, Vincenzo and Carmela are godparents to Leoluca’s third son, Biagio.

In February 1848, Vincenzo and Carmela’s third child is born, named Giovanna. Giovanna’s godmother and namesake is her aunt Giovanna, older sister to Francesca and Carmela, and her godfather is Giovanna’s husband, Giuseppe.

I have not found any records of Giovanna and Giuseppe having any children of their own.

The Youngest Child of Salvatore and Francesca

Lucia Ligotino (b. 1855) is the youngest child of Salvatore and Francesca, born the year before her father’s death. On Lucia’s baptismal record, her father is initially recorded as Vincenzo Ligotino. It’s not possible to know when that correction was made: immediately after it was written, or at some time in the next 25 years. Her godparents are Biagio Gennusa and Carmela Catanzaro.

Salvatore dies at age 46 (b. 1810) on 13 March 1856. He leaves Francesca, a 41 year old widow with infant Lucia, and at least three more children the oldest 18 year old Biagia. (I say “at least” because I don’t know if a second son named Leoluca survives childhood)

Giovanna’s Marriage

In February 1872, Vincenzo and Carmela’s daughter, Giovanna (b. 1848), marries Giovanni Provenzano.

On a side note, and to illustrate how complicated these relationships can get, in 1875 Leonardo Cascio, the son of my 3rd-great-grandfather Leoluca (from his first marriage), marries his cousin Salvatrice Ligotino, Giovanna's sister. She has the the same first and last name as Leoluca’s late second wife.

Lucia’s mother, Francesca, dies at age 63 (b. 1816) on 18 July 1879.

The Young Widower

In November, Carmela’s daughter, Giovanna, dies at age 30, leaving Giovanni Provenzano her widower.

Some time in the next year, Giovanni and Lucia, Francesca and Salvatore’s youngest, post their intention to wed. Typically this is done in the weeks leading up to a wedding, and takes a month. It’s not clear from the notes how it became elevated to the office of the Archbishop, but it seems likely to me that it developed from the requirement of a fairly common dispensation.

Lucia and Giovanna are not only first cousins but also second cousins, sharing a common grandfather, Giuseppe Cascio, and a common great-grandfather, Vincenzo Ligotino. Giovanna and Lucia’s mothers, Carmela and Francesca, are sisters. Their fathers, Vincenzo and Salvatore, are cousins. Because Lucia is related to Giovanni’s late wife, there is a routine investigation by the Church, and the formal requirement of a dispensation to be granted by the office of the archbishop.

I’ve found many couples where there is such a dispensation written into their marriage record: cases where a widow marries the sibling of their late spouse, some where the bride and groom might have been cousins of some degree. There are some where I can’t tell why there was the need, but the dispensation was granted and the couple wed.

And then there is Lucia’s baptismal record.

The High Court inquiry is dated October 1880.

Facts of the Inquiry

According to the record, Giovanna’s father, Vincenzo, stands accused of having had relations with Francesca, Lucia’s mother, who has recently died. Salvatore died when Lucia was a baby.

Salvatore’s cousins, Vincenzo, age 70, and his older brother, Giuseppe, age 75, are the first to be interrogated.

Vincenzo testifies that he knows only one couple by the names of Salvatore Ligotino and Francesca Cascio. Salvatore was a clerk at the time, and so was not present for Lucia’s baptism. There is mention of a midwife. The notes are difficult to translate, and I am not certain what the family traditions were for baptism. I imagine they were conducted in the church, not at home, except in those records where the midwife baptizes an infant in imminent danger of death. Infant baptisms in my family are conducted on the same day, or within a day or two, of birth. I imagine the mother makes this trip, if she is able.

Although much of the record is hard to understand, the conclusion of the Church in the matter of Lucia’s paternity is clear: Lucia is the natural and legitimate daughter of Salvatore Ligotino and Francesca Cascio, a married couple who once lived in Corleone.

Lucia and Giovanni marry in November, 1880, directly after the trial’s conclusion.

After the Inquiry

Lucia has two brothers, Leoluca and Giuseppe, who marry sisters. The first of them to marry a Cannaliato sister is Giuseppe, who is already a widow in 1879. His marriage requires a dispensation for consanguinity, though it’s not clear why. Leoluca marries another Cannaliato sister for the first time in 1881, after Lucia’s paternity inquiry.

If the error in Lucia’s baptismal record was discovered while compiling the records for Lucia’s marriage, it may have kicked off an inquiry. Was it solely the Church’s explorations that led to the hearing, or was someone outside the family spreading rumors? Did someone within the family oppose Lucia’s marriage, or her father’s honor?

Carmela, whose daughter dies at age 30, may have resented her sister, Francesca, if she suspected her own husband had an affair with Francesca, or even if the rumor was circulating.

Although there are other marriages where widows marry close relations of their late spouses, this may not always meet with everyone’s approval. That Lucia would want to marry Giovanna’s widower may have only served to increase Carmela’s sense of grief and loss.

In contrast to the evidence of a long standing grudge between Carmela and Francesca, there seems to be an especially close relationship between Carmela and their older sister, Giovanna, the namesake of Carmela’s recently deceased daughter.

Giovanna may have felt torn loyalties between her sisters, and their daughters. She and her husband were godparents to the late young woman. She has no children of her own. And it is not her husband who is suspected of fathering her late sister’s youngest child.

Two months after the High Court proceedings Giovanna, age 67, and then her sister, Carmela, age 63, die within five days of one another. They are both survived by their husbands. Carmela’s husband, Vincenzo, dies at age 76 (b. 1811) on 11 May 1887.

Giuseppe Ligotino, Giovanna's widower, dies at age 85 (b. 1804) on 22 September 1889.

Sources

1. ↑ First page of letter regarding High Court hearing into paternity of Lucia Ligotino, in 1880-89, Corleone, volume of Church matrimonial documents, "Italia, Palermo, Diocesi di Monreale, Registri Parrocchiali, 1531-1998," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-159314-109478-77?cc=2046915&wc=MGST-HZ9:351041801,351041802,351698601 : accessed 05 Aug 2014), Corleone > San Martino > Documenti matrimoniali 1880-1889 > image 4 of 468; citing Archivio della Diocesi di Palermo.