1748 (1755) tax record (riveli) for my 6th great-grandmother

JB5150 · Explorer Joined: Sep 13, 2007 Posts: 78 Location: Florida

This is a copy of the 1748 Riveli for my 6th great-grandmother, Giovanna Occhipinti. For those that aren’t familiar with these records (I just learned about them not too long ago myself), they are basically the tax rolls that were prepared at the time. (The LDS films refer to them as the census, just fyi). From what I understand, everything was taxed, including living people, animals and goods. For Sicily, all of the tax rolls are kept in the archive in Palermo which is where I found this record. (The town of Modica happens to have 48 books of about 300+ pages each for the 1748 taxes…and it looks like the tax collector actually didn’t make it to Modica until 1755!)

From what I can tell, Giovanna was the head of the household since her husband, Felice, is deceased. She lists three daughters, Antonia, Teresa and Concetta. Other than that, I can’t really tell what this record says and would really appreciate any help deciphering it! I think these records probably give us the best clues into the lives of our ancestors since we can learn what type of property they had and maybe a little about what they did for a living/cultivated, etc.

Luca

I'm not familiar with this sort of documents because they weren't drawed up for the places where I live and research, but I'll try the same.

Rivelo che fa Giovanna Occhipinti
relitta del fu Felice Guarresi di questa città
all'ufficiale del sig Barone(?) Rossino Commissario Generale
in esecuzione di banno fattole

Beni stabili
Tiene due case piccole ... in questa
città et ... confinante con Pietro Verdi-
ramo ed altri. Secondo l'esti-
mo generale si valuta per 20 ducati(?)
Paga per capitale di ... ... ... di 25

Beni mobili
Tiene per una quantità per uso proprio

Gravezze
Paga ducati(?) 1,5 di censo di proprietà ... sopra
dette case ... ... ...., che al 5 per
100 d'interesse ______ 25

Not too much, but maybe someone else will give you more details.

JB5150 · Explorer Joined: Sep 13, 2007 Posts: 78 Location: Florida

Thanks again for the quick look, Luca. This definitely helps. I'm not familiar with some of these words, so I was reading them wrong, but your assessment makes much more sense. (To me "gravezze" looked like "graverre," but obviously that wouldn't make sense!)

Luca