Deaths –Torricella Peligna from 1809 to 1865

Following are tables of the civil record death indexes for  each of the years 1809 to 1865. On each of those pages you will find an index to the microfilmed records of deaths in Torricella Peligna during that year. This material was provided by Janet DiPastena with the kind permission of The Genealogical  Society of Utah. The index is in alphabetical order by decedent’s name. Other information includes date of death, age, spouse, parents’ names, and where available: paternal and maternal grandfather’s names, children of deceased, other relatives of deceased. The microfilm record number is also provided to facilitate research. The LDS microfilm reel number is shown at the top of each page, and the full death act record may be viewed an an LDS Family History Center.

On the original death records, there are always two people listed who reported the death.  Often, it gives the relationship of those individuals to the deceased.  Those names and relationships are shown in the “Other relatives of deceased” column, exactly as listed on the original.  However, through the years, we’ve discovered that sometimes, especially when the deceased is a child, that relationship information is actually the relationship to the parents, rather than to the deceased.  For example, the relationship may be listed as “brother”, when it is actually “uncle”.  Also, the relationship “nephew” or “uncle” can often really be a great-nephew or great uncle.  In other words, these relationships are great clues, and sometimes are often very exact, but sometimes they are not perfectly exact.

Note: The year 1817 shows a particularly high death rate in Torricella. There were 238 deaths including 146 in the last four months alone, whereas the year before there were only 108 total. 1817 was a year of death almost everywhere in Abruzzo, and probably other regions. The spring of 1817 followed two long winters and years of bad harvests, so famine was the first killer. Nursing mothers did not have milk, children, youth and old people died of disease and epidemics as a consequence of malnutrition. Many old people died because they stopped eating to leave the food to the family.

1810