Testing the 1697
The archive's largest claim is eleven generations to Franco Antonino Prostamo, born at Briatico about 1697. Four of those generations rest on nothing at all, and they are not testable online.
This archive has said since the day it opened that its deepest line is the Prostamo of Briatico — nine generations to 1697, reached through a grandmother, and deeper than the surname it is named for.
On 10 September 2026 the same family tree was found to be six years out on Salvatore Mazza's birth, six years out on Orazio's, four on Alfonso Prostamo's, and wrong about the town where Salvatore died. A tree with that error rate is not a source, and the 1697 rests on it entirely.
So it was audited.
Generation by generation
| Gen | Who | Born | Standing | What supports it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Franco Antonino Prostamo | 1697 | untested | Family tree only. No source. Pre-dates civil registration (1809) and FamilySearch's Briatico coverage (1880–1910). Not testable online. |
| 2 | Antonino Prostamo | 1726 | untested | Family tree only. No source. |
| 3 | Pasquale Prostamo | c. 1753, at Pizzo | documented | HIS DEATH ACT, AND THE PROOF OF THE DESCENT. Pizzo, Morti 1829, atto 7: PASQUALE PROSTAMO, MARINARO, VEDOVO DI CATERINA MAJO, born at Pizzo, of the Castello quarter, died there on 13 January 1829. THE DESCENT IS NO LONGER AN ASSERTION: a certified extract of this very act was filed in Domenico Prostamo's marriage papers at Briatico in June 1849 as the groom's «fede di morte dell'AVO PATERNO» — so Pasquale was Domenico's paternal grandfather, which is to say ANTONINO's father. TWO DOCUMENTS DISAGREE ABOUT HIS AGE: the original register says SETTANTACINQUE (75, born c. 1753); the chancery's own certified copy of 1849 says SESSANTACINQUE (65, born c. 1763). This archive carries the original's figure. His own parents' lines in the act are blank, and he married before civil registration began in 1809, so the generation above him is probably not reachable online at all. |
| 4 | Antonino Prostamo | c. 1781, at Pizzo | documented | NAMED IN THREE DOCUMENTS AND DEAD IN A FOURTH. He declares his son's birth at Pizzo on 2 April 1814, «ANTONINO PROSTAMO di anni TRENTADUE, di professione MARINARO, domiciliato alle Moli», with his «legittima moglie MARIA FRAGALÀ di anni ventisette». He is «il fu Antonino» in the Pizzo marriage banns of April 1849 and in his son's Briatico marriage act of 14 June 1849. AND HE DIED IN THE CHOLERA: Pizzo's separate REGISTER OF CHOLERA DEATHS for 1837, atto 327 — «A dì 31 Dicembre anno milleottocento trentasette ad ore due di notte è morto ANTONINO PROSTAMO di anni 56, marinaro, domiciliato alla Ripa della Marinella, marito di MARIA FRAGALÀ del Pizzo». Fifty-six on the last night of 1837 and thirty-two in April 1814 both put his birth about 1781; the family tree says 1785. |
| 5 | Domenico Prostamo | 2 April 1814, at Pizzo | documented | BIRTH DATE NOW EXACT, AND HE WAS REGISTERED UNDER ANOTHER NAME. Pizzo, Nati 1814, atto 285: born at ore diciotto on 2 APRIL 1814 in his father's house «alle Moli», to ANTONINO PROSTAMO, 32, marinaro, and MARIA FRAGALÀ, 27 — and christened in the register ANTONIO Prostamo. On 14 June 1849, the morning of his wedding, he and four witnesses swore an ATTO DI NOTORIETÀ before the sindaco of Briatico that the man entered in the 1814 register as Antonio «chiamasi effettivamente DOMENICO PROSTAMO, e questo è stato sempre il suo effettivo nome». In that act he is «figlio del fu Antonino, di anni TRENTACINQUE» — thirty-five, where his marriage act the same day says thirty-six. He married GIOVANNA VENTRICE, 21, of Briatico. The family tree's 1820 is six years out. |
| 6 | Alfonso Prostamo | c. 1862 | documented — tree wrong | Aged 24 in January 1886 and 25 in May 1887, so born about 1862, not 1858 as the tree says. A MARINARO — a sailor, not a contadino. Married Caterina Melluso, 21, daughter of Leone Melluso, on 21 May 1887 at Briatico. |
| 7 | Francessco Prostamo | 16 November 1900 | tree only | Not yet found in the register; FamilySearch's Briatico coverage reaches 1910 so his birth act should be reachable. |
| 8 | Domenica Prostamo | 3 May 1928 | documented | Nudgee burial register. The tree said March 1928. |
Two generations proved, and a sailor
Alfonso Prostamo's marriage — proclaimed 16 January 1886, celebrated 21 May 1887 — does the work of two generations at once:
…è comparso Prostamo Alfonso, di anni ventiquattro, Marinaro, residente in Briatico, figlio del fu Domenico, Marinaro, residente in vita in Briatico, e di Ventrice Giovanna, Filatrice, residente in Briatico. È pure comparsa Melluso Caterina, di anni ventuno, contadina, figlia di Leone…
The clerk adds that the couple produced «la copia dell'atto di morte di Prostamo Domenico, genitore dello sposo», and that Giovanna Ventrice appeared in person to give her consent — a widow, standing in the Casa Comunale at Briatico in January 1886, putting her mark to her son's marriage.
They were sailors. Both Alfonso and his father Domenico are marinari, not contadini — which is what you would expect of a family on the Tyrrhenian coast, and which the family tree does not record.
And Alfonso was born about 1862, not 1858. Twenty-four in January 1886, twenty-five in May 1887. Four years out, in the same direction as every other tree date this archive has tested.
The 1697 is not proved, and it is not currently provable
The line is now documented as far back as Domenico Prostamo, dead before 1886. Above him, four generations — 1697, 1726 — have no source whatever.
They are also, for now, untestable. Italian civil registration begins in 1809; everything above Domenico is parish material. FamilySearch's Briatico full text covers 1880–1910. Antenati's Catanzaro holdings for these comuni do not reach the eighteenth century either. And the Calabrian earthquake of 1783 destroyed archives across the province — which is the very reason a line claiming to reach 1697 there should have been treated sceptically from the start.
What this changes on the site. The archive will go on saying the Prostamo are its deepest line, because they are. It will stop saying nine generations to 1697 as though that were established. The honest statement is: documented to Domenico Prostamo, a sailor of Briatico dead before 1886; asserted, by a family tree of demonstrated unreliability, for four generations above him.
What would settle it: the parish registers of Briatico, held by the Diocese of Mileto–Nicotera–Tropea, and the pre-unification series at the Archivio di Stato di Catanzaro. Neither is online. The queue →