The Legend of Dominic and Anna Impresica and their 17 Children

 

Dominic and Anna in front of their home on
31 Second St., Fitchburg, Massachusetts circa 1940

In my first posted document The Impresica-Costa Family History I found some interesting facts that I wanted to research and confirm.  The first of these is the family lore that Dominic and Anna had seventeen children and of these only 2 survived to adulthood.  

So let's start with the known facts.  Dominic (born: 2 Apr 1849) and Anna (born: 27 Feb 1859) were both from Pietraperzia which is a small town in central Sicily.  They were married on 27 May 1876 when Dominic was 27 and Anna was only 17.  So using records I could find on Ancestors Portal I found the following birth/death records for Dominic and Anna's children:

Dominic Age	Anna Age	Count	Child	Birth	Death	Age at death (years)	Age at death (month)
28	18	1	Concetta	9/2/1877	8/17/1878	0	11
31	21	2	Filippo	2/13/1880	4/14/1966	86	2
34	24	3	Maria Vincenzo	6/21/1883	11/24/1974	91	5
36	26	4	Giuseppa	10/30/1885	7/9/1887	1	8
39	29	5	Giuseppe	1/29/1888	2/5/1888	0	0
40	30	6	Concetta	4/7/1889	11/15/1891	2	7
42	32	7	Giuseppe	9/13/1891	8/22/1892	0	11
45	35	8	Concetta	3/21/1894	8/24/1908	14	5
47	37	9	Santo	11/3/1896	12/1/1896	0	0
47	37	10	Maria Carmela	11/3/1896	12/1/1896	0	0
50	40	11	Giuseppe	5/21/1899	7/16/1901	2	1

I could confirm 11 children were recorded in Pietraperzia town records.  Of these only 2 lived to adulthood (Filippo and Maria Vincenzo).  Does this mean the history is exaggerated?  I am not 100% convinced.

Where are the "other" 6 children?  There is a 30 year span from 1876 - 1906 when Dominic and Anna lived in Italy, so it is possible to have 17 pregnancies during that span.  In fact, children #9 and #10 are twins, so if Anna had another set of twins it is very possible.  I also do not know if the children died in childbirth if they would have recorded the birth with town hall.  All of the children found, the youngest was 7 days old before he died, so there was ample time to record the birth with the town.  Also there are gaps in the records available in Italy, 1893 is missing records as well as records after 1902.  So I cannot prove it - but it is very possible they could have had 17 children.

It is also interesting how they renamed children after other children that died.  So they had 3 Concetta's, 3 Giuseppe's, 2 Maria's, 1 Giuseppa, 1 Santo, and 1 Filippo.

In any case - this must have been extremely difficult to have lost so many children, most of them under 2 years old.  And when Anna came to America in 1906, she was accompanied by her 12 year old daughter Concetta which led to yet another family tragedy - but that will be told in another post.