The Archivio Di Stato Di Cosenza is one of the most interesting genealogy resources I've explored. I guess I feel this way because no other site on the web has Italian records useful to me. Granted, it's only focused on a Provance in Calabria, but both of my paternal grandparents were born there. I've written about the Archivio Di Stato Di Cosenza a couple of times, but never had much success actually using it - until now.
Of course I haven't found my grandparents yet (Antonio Agazio/Marietta Rota), but I'm getting closer because today I found my grandmother's father (Pasquale Rota). I confirmed the record was his by date of birth (31 July 1849) with the known location - the town of Pedace. The database contains many digital copies of the actual records, but my great grandfather's only had a brief transcription containing very interesting information.
Here's what I learned today from this brief transcription: Pasquale Rota was a twin (the record contained the word "Gemello." I also learned Pasquale's father was Daniele Rota whose profession in Italian was "Bracciale." From what I could find out, this word actually means manual laborer. Pasquale's mother was Felicia Antonia Cava who was a "filatrice" (a spinner). When I went back to the list of search results, a couple lines down from my great grandfather was the name Pietro Maria Rota born on the exact same day as Pasquale, and upon opening up the record I found the same parents - here was my great grandfather's twin.
Of course knowing the names of the mother, father and brother opens up three new lines of research for me. Not bad for a morning's worth of genealogy.
