52 Ancestors Week 9: Females

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 9 and for March is "Females." March is Women's History Month. What better time to write or record someone about one of your female ancestors!

Look who's pretty in pink.

     I wonder when the color pink became associated with females. I'll have to look it up. Anyway! March is indeed Women's History Month and what better way to kick things off than with a blog all about the ladies in our tree. They could skate their way into your heart like my grandmother did last week for my grandfather. OR they could be a strong woman handling a bunch of kids by herself like my 2nd great-grandmother, Lucie Cadran. I have a very eclectic group of ladies in my tree and it's hard for me to pick just one of them to talk about sometimes because they are all pretty strong and awesome! So, I'm going to do things a bit differently this week. This week I intend to blow some minds. Did you know that in Europe most women keep their maiden names when they get married?

Mmmm...Fancy mid 19th century penmanship.

    It's true! It's a centuries-old practice that predates any feminist movement. Take a look at this recently discovered birth document for my 3rd great-grandmother, Angela Gatto for example. Angela was born on March 7th, 1856 in the Calabrian town of San Pietro a Maida to laborer Antonio Gatto and his wife, Maria Ciancio. 

     In Italy, it was very common for a woman to keep her maiden name after she got married. The same could actually be said for Quebec and predominately Catholic countries like Mexico and Argentina. The only notable exception is Spain since they often hyphenate last names (derived from BOTH parents) or use the letter "y". For example someone could be named Maria Francesca Rodriguez y Lopez". It's important to keep this in mind when you research roots in those places. I wish could say it makes things easier to research because it doesn't necessarily put genealogy into "easy mode" all of the time. All it is is a useful tip to finding the mother's birth. I say this because you might find a LOT of "Maria Ciancios" in town.  Look at the birth document again. Do you see the word "ventisei" after her name? That's her age. Maria was twenty-six when she gave birth to Angela.

    Based on her age we can deduce that Maria was born sometime in either 1829 or 1830. All you would have to do now is check the births in town for those years to see if your hunch is correct. There are some caveats, though. She might have embellished her age at the time of her daughter's birth so she might be older or younger than she said the day her husband presented the baby to the people at the commune office. It's a hunch and sometimes it's a good one. You just need to do some digging. She may not even be born in that town. It's a gamble. But, it's odds I am comfortable playing. Never tell me the odds! 

    Later documents sometimes have her father's name if you're lucky. You might be better off looking at marriages because you would find the names of all four parents and if they were living at the time of the wedding. However, birth documents like the one above can still bear delicious fruit and can help you on your genealogical adventure.

She died two years after I graduated high school.
I wish I could've met her. =(

    The practice continues to this very day. When you look at this stone for Angela's granddaughter, Caterina Tedesco, you will see her maiden name carved into the marble. At first glance you might think she never got married. That is not the case here because she married a man named Francesco Papatolo. I know this because I have talked to cousins who descend from the couple and when I send a card via snail mail, I make sure to always use the maiden name of the person I send the card to as well as my cousin's name. It's just polite.

    This isn't to say EVERY Italian woman you meet is going to have their maiden name. There are exceptions and these days Italy gives women an option to take their husband's name if they so desire. Most don't. Most even keep their maiden names if they go to another country on Europe. It really depends. Okay. That takes care of Europe. But, what if an Italian woman goes to America?

Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco

    The answer here is quite simple. Let's look at Caterina's sister, my great-grandmother Maria. She married Vincenzo Ferraiolo in Italy, right? Yes. It happened in 1921. Eight years later she got on a boat with her two kids and set sail for America. When she landed, she decided to take her husband's last name and that was the end of it.

    If you were to research her in America, you would probably have better luck looking for her as "Maria Ferraiolo" rather than "Maria Tedesco". In a way, that makes things a little bit easier because the last name "Tedesco" is just so incredibly common like "Coppola".

    That's all well and good and everything. But, you might be wondering why this practice of keeping the maiden name is in use. I've found that there are several reasons and are very valid! Check it out:

1. They see no reason to change their name, much like men often see no reason to change theirs.

2. Objection to the one-sidedness of this tradition.

3. Being the last member of their family with that surname.

4. To avoid the hassle of paperwork related to their change of name.

5. Wishing to retain their identity.

6. Preferring their last name to their spouse's last name.

7.To avoid professional ramifications.

    A lot of these might seem like relatively modern reasons for choosing to keep the maiden name. If we go back to Italy in the 1850s, the reasons might change just a little bit. The name of her father could hold a special meaning to her. There could be other women in the village with the same last name and doing this could ease confusion.  It could also have something to do with tradition. Remember Italy at the time was not unified and though many customs changed since unification in 1861 some remain the same.

    I remember having this discussion with my friends in WikiTree's Italy Project and it's one of the many inspirations for creating this blog entry. We never really figured out the origin of this practice. Does it really matter? In the long run, it doesn't. We all decided it's a helpful bit of information for when you research in Italy or most other predominately Catholic countries. To learn more, check out this Wikipedia article.

    I personally like the practice because while it may seem like genealogy is put on "easy mode", there's still a challenge in finding her parents. I haven't found Maria Cianco's parents yet and I'm sure I will some day. They're out there just waiting to be found! I'm going to keep searching and I hope everyone learned something from this week's blog!

See ya next time!