The first document where we found a case of emigration is a birth record of 1871: Aquilina Libonati was not declared, as custom, by her father but by the obstetrician. The reason is noted in the same certificate; "the father is resident in America". We counted one hundred and twenty eight similar cases, but it is possible that the wording "father absent from town" could also mean that the father was emigrated.
The archives of birth contain a very succint situation about any family, but some times we can sense the deep melancholy people felt even in an event that should have been a happy one. In a birth record we read that the father died on the ship going to Rio of Plata; in an other one, a day near Christmas, the baby was not presented to the officer, as the law was prescribing, because it was snowing, and no parent was declaring since the mother was in bed, and the father "in the Americas". The plural form of the continent and no mention of the country demonstrate the lack of knowledge of the lands where people were emigrating.
In reference to the argument of geographic knowledge, some ten years earlier the town council deliberated a very curious purchase, nearly a presentiment of the future presence of our citizens in those far lands. In 1856, under the Bourbonic government "..His Majesty [king Ferdinando] is so kind to order the purchase of the book: General Guide of the navigation from Rio of Plata to Peru ". In an other part of our work we were ironical about such a purchase by a very inland town in Calabria, likely as a favour to the author of the book. Nowadays reflecting about the thousands of European people who, some ten years later, reached the south America's coasts, where they supply the main labour to the numerous "fazendas" (farms) in that immense land, the purchase of the book (and of second volume three years after), convinces us it was the beginning of an interest in the former spanish and portuguese colonies.

Back to the registrations containing notes of emigration, in a transcription of a death happened on May 20th, 1872 aboard the brig "D'Amico" of the Castellammare di Stabia's navy, sailing from Cette to New York with a wines' cargo, we read that "the passenger Francesco Miciele fu Vincenzo, married and born in San Marco district of Cosenza ... died for a cerebral concussion owing to a fall from the bed ... After 24 hours the body was put (fu messo a mare) in the sea".
In the Eighty years many families were already settled abroad, mainly in Brazil, and from the parishes of that State the certificates of baptism were sent to the municipality of San Marco Argentano for the registration. The mangled names of parents and witnesses made the persons become others, compared to their original surnames. Sometimes the religious holiday, instead of the day, was the date of birth, and the godfathers' names, always italians, reveal the strong bond that joined the emigrants, who married among themselves. It happened sometimes that the religious marriages were not recognized in Italy, and so wifes and husbands, coming back to Italy, discovered that they were not married here; and if they had a baby in Italy he was registered as son of only father. We can imagine the deep shame of the mother, foreign abroad and unknown woman in her country, when her name not appeared in the baby's birth record. The parents had to get married again in the civil register to be a regular family. This is only the begin of a work about the S.Marco's emigrants; we hope to extend it with stories that their descendants will send us.

We thank all persons, living abroad, that contributed to complete their family page or sent us informations, photos, and books for our work. To all them our best regards and the wish that they can learn of the town which their ancestors left more than a century ago.

Here is a list of people either born abroad or whose father emigrated.

 

 

Notes about emigration from San Marco Argentano in the nineteenth century