Italian translation help please on a family tree?
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 at
10:53 pm
My cousin sent this from italy..I do not understand..anyone speak italian that can help will be so much appreciated..here it is...
Pizzorferatto-domenico-Antonio
Fu Luigi
Santengelo-Agata
Fu-Domenico
What does Fu mean?..PLEASE HELP..trying to make a family tree..thank you
what does that mean though it was?..did they change names?..please help
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Tagged with: agata • change names • cousin • family tree • italy • luigi
Filed under: Italian - Written and Spoken
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as far as i understood this means that this person is already death. like the former…..
FU = it was.
http://world.altavista.com/
fu means " it was"
Fu in this case means "the late" meaning that the person is dead. It’s "the late Pizzorferatto-domenico-Antonio Luigi" and "the late Santengelo-Agata Domenico"
Somebody else correctly said that ‘fu’ means ‘was’, meaning that the person is dead.
It was common at those time in Italy to have 3 names: You would have your name, your godfather’s name and your grandfather’s name.
I guess it’s the case here for Pizzoferrato Domenico Antonio Luigi.
‘Fu’ indicates which one of the 3 names was actually used.
So in this case, I think ‘Pizzoferrato Domenico Antonio fu Luigi’ means that he was usually just called Luigi.
The word "FU" was used (and sometimes in very small municipalities is still used) to point out the dead parents.
It means
Pizzoferrato (surname) Domenico Antonio (names)
FU (son of, father is dead)
Luigi (he’s the father of Domenico Antonio, surname is obviously the same)
The same is for Agata, Domenico was her father that was dead when the document was written. Surname for both is Santangelo.
This system was used because, in pre computer age, in very small towns there were maybe just 10 surnames and it was common in Italy to give newborn babies the name of one grandparent. So, if Santangelo Agata was living in such a place, there could have been a lot of Santangelo Agata, adding the name of her parent (Domenico) helped to sort out who actually she was.
With a living father the name would have been
Santangelo Agata
DI (daughter/son of, parent is alive)
Domenico.
So, DI and FU both indicates the name of your parents the 1st used for parents alive when the certification was written, the latter for dead parents.
Andrea G gave an excellent answer