I posted this question on another forum but realized this one is probably the correct one. Any idea what the occupation "Potellaro" refers to?

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*Note* I made your attachment a link so that the board would go back to a normal size. Hope you don't mind! ~nuccia~

It does not look like Potellaro, I would rather read Posellaro, and I do not have a translation for Posellaro either.

From the four words in the pic I would read Giuseppe Lo Bianco Posellaro d'anni and I would say that Posellaro is a second surname, since it begins with a capital letter.
I suggest that you post the entire document so that we may compare the letters and better understand...

Does'nt look like the "s" in Giuseppe. Can you post the document? Will try to check a list of occupations.

Aether

If it's an occupation I can think to "patellaro" (padellaro), but the capital letter suggests a surname: I read Potellaro.

Luca

Aether wrote:

Does'nt look like the "s" in Giuseppe. Can you post the document? Will try to check a list of occupations. Aether

Luca wrote:

If it's an occupation I can think to "patellaro" (padellaro), but the capital letter suggests a surname: I read Potellaro. Luca

I believe that the full document may help...

Check <Surname finder>:
I found Potellaro as a surname, and also Padellaro as a surname in Sicily.

List of occupations in Italy did not list either.

Aether

Thanks for replies but I am 100% sure it is an occupation not surname. There are about 5 people in the town of 300 households with that occupation. I know it is not a surname since for example in the Catasto, the index lists the above person with surname Lo Bianco with the other 4 people also having different surnames.
Also if it was a surname then it would be strange that they are the only 5 people without an occupation classification which goes against the purpose of the Catasto Onceiro.

This is another example.

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Please post an entire page...

Maybe I should take a step back and explain. The Catasto Oncieri were a tax census done for every town in Southern Italy at around 1752 (excluding Sicily). The format is consistent among all documents and incredibly detailed. It tells the household name, his occupation, his wife or brothers/sisters living with him and also his kids and age. It also goes into great detail on what the person owns (so that it can be taxed) to the level of how many sheep!
This information is sitting in the Naples Archives and mostly not available online. My families towns Catasto was over 800 pages long. It would cost around 4-600 USD to get a researcher in Italy to photocopy it for you (in my case I found others from my town and we shared the expense).


So each individual household starts out with the head of household, his occupation and then his age.

My reading of Italian is above average (for a non Italian) but I just can't figure out what that occupation is (searched extensively on Internet already). Perhaps is in an outdated job but I would image that others researching their own towns Catasto Oncieri would have come across this word.


I give an example of another one with a known occupation of 'Massaro' which is farm manager.

So you can see 'Massaro' is not the last name , d'Agostino is , just as 'Potellaro' is not the last name, Coluccio is.

It also may be a handwriting issue. For example there is another section in my towns Catasto that is written by someone else. In the above case the slightly different handwriting shows.

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Luca wrote:

If it's an occupation I can think to "patellaro" (padellaro), but the capital letter suggests a surname: I read Potellaro. Luca

It just might be Padellaro. What occupation is that?

Thanks Luca!!! I took your advise and found out what Padellaro is finally!!!!

It is a maker of frying pans.

I have noticed that sometimes they used to write a 'd' like a 't' in the document. For example one of the rich nobles in the towns last name was 'Amaduri'. However in various places in the Catasto they write it as 'Amaturi'.

I am familiar with the Catasto and also The Sicilian Riveli (which is basically the same type of document, although taken much more regularly starting in the late 1500's)

you can see an example of the family portion of the 1653 Carini (PA) Riveli here: Carini 1653 Riveli

I am fortunate enough to have available online my great-great grandmother's town's Catasto extracted and online for Crispano (NA). I have just looked through the entire site and find nothing even similar to "Patellaro" . You can have a look yourself here:

Crispano (NA) 1753 Catasto onciario

May I ask what town these pages are from?

Jim

jron wrote:

Luca wrote: If it's an occupation I can think to "patellaro" (padellaro), but the capital letter suggests a surname: I read Potellaro. Luca It just might be Padellaro. What occupation is that?

Funny enough,
I looked this up this morning and found that same occupation in Italian Genealogical Records but I was waiting for the entire document to post it.

Next time, I will post it anyway....lol

jron wrote:

Maybe I should take a step back and explain...

I know what a Catasto Onciario is.
The purpose of having the entire page was to understand the handwriting, by comparing the letters.
Btw I'm glad that you finally got your answer.

jron wrote:

Thanks Luca!!! I took your advise and found out what Padellaro is finally!!!!

Visto che sai leggere l'Italiano dai un'occhiata a questa pagina: 209.85.135.104/search?...&gl=it

Ciao
Luca