235 corrections is too many to arrive at cold. This is what moved, when, and what the record was — including the things this archive got wrong and had to take back.
What the records gave and what this archive had wrong are different things, and the chips below keep them apart — reading a register for six hours and finding nothing is a day's work and no discovery. Every retraction is still on the page where it was first argued, with the reasoning that led to it. Nothing has been quietly deleted.
found MARIANNA DAIDONE is in no Giarre death Tavola. The first pass had read M and N together, because they sit side by side, and skipped D in every single year — and an Italian death index files a married woman under her MAIDEN name. Eight years rule D blank outright; 1841 gives the letter a whole empty page of its own.
found Neither Simone nor Marianna died at Mascali either. But both surnames LIVE there, which Giarre could never show: SIX Nicotra decedents, and in 1841 the first DAIDONE decedent found anywhere in this project — Angela Dajdone, aged fifty, «nata in Mascali».
found ALFIO NICOTRA, died 13 May 1869 aged SEVENTY-THREE, «nato in Giarre», «figlio del fu GIUSEPPE e della fu CATERINA, morta in Giarre». He is the father named in both the 1848 and 1851 Mascali Nicotra acts, so GIUSEPPE NICOTRA OF GIARRE stands in Simone's own generation. A brother is the natural reading and is NOT proved.
found Two widows alive at Mascali in 1828 and named by their children's acts: MARIA NICOTRA, widow of Carmelo Tomarchio, and DONNA SANTA DAJDONE, widow of Don Domenico Bassi. Neither ever appears as a decedent in the fifty-one years swept afterwards.
found «ALFIO NICOTRA D'ANNI SETTANTA, SPOSO DI ROSA PAPPALARDO … FIGLIO DI FU GIUSEPPE e di FU LEONARDA PENNISI». This archive had inferred that identification from the Tavola and never checked it against the act. The act confirms it — and proves there are TWO Alfio Nicotras, born about 1772 and about 1796, who must not be merged.
found No Nicotra groom in any of them, so Simone had no son who married at Giarre in those years. A marriage act names BOTH sets of parents, which is why this was the right book. 1851 turns out to be ordered by the groom's FORENAME, so a surname search finds nothing while appearing to work.
found The Tavola mapped from its start for the first time. Its D section had never been reached and is now read — no Daidone. Its N section is NOT unread: the binder put 1856's N-to-Z run where 1854's belongs, so the letters are not in the volume at all.
did This archive recorded 1850's missing index as recovered from «the duplicate deposit» and called it the first time the two-deposit rule had paid. That container is labelled MACCHIA — a different comune. The year is now marked unread and the sweep stands at 39 of 41 years, not 40.
did They are split into their own file, and both build tools now know Macchia exists. The tell had been visible all along: those volumes' PATRIA column names Milo, Macchia and Dagala, which are Macchia's hamlets.
did The second copy was always the neighbouring town.
did They were added to the data, every gate passed and the deploy went green — but `npm run build` does not rebuild people.json, so none of them reached the site. The archive went from 698 people to 707 once the root chain was actually run.
did This page's own opening line said «Sixty-two corrections» while the stat box three lines below it rendered 235, and the home page offered «Sixty-two people across ten generations» where the ancestors data says 93. Both are now derived from the data instead of typed.
found Rocco Arena married Generosa Costa in DECEMBER 1888 — and his own act names his parents: «figlio di FRANCESCO ANTONIO e di SERAFINA ARLOTTA». The correction this site argued for on five circumstantial supports is now a document.
found Generosa Costa's parents for the first time: ANTONIO COSTA and ANNA ARLOTTA. Her mother is an Arlotta, like Rocco's own mother — the two families are tied twice over, and Rocco and Generosa may have been cousins.
found Two of Rocco's brothers married seven weeks apart: Giuseppe to Maria Martello on 12 September, Giovanni to Concetta Russo on 29 October. Act 73 writes the father out in full, which proves «Antonio Arena» is Francesco Antonio.
found ARENA FORTUNATO, ten days old, died at Via Grotte 70 on 1 October 1891 — a son of Giovanni and Concetta Russo, born about 21 September, and not in the family tree.
found Mariano Mazza, 30, bracciale, son of IGNAZIO and GIUSEPPA PULVIRENTI, married Agata Catalano of Macchia. Recorded as a LEAD, not a fact — the bride's given name and the groom's age both sit awkwardly.
did They run 1866–1913 — forty-eight volumes — alongside 46 of banns and 81 of deaths. The error had blocked at least three searches.
did FindMyPast already had it. Two free indexes of the same manifests disagree about who is in them.
found Rosario Mazza and Leonarda Bonanno married 30 April 1871 — both single, both born there, both braccianti. All four parents named, hers for the first time anywhere: Gaetano Bonanno and Anna Cavallaro.
found Rosario born 2 June 1845 at eleven in the morning, declared by his father Mariano, 36, a bracciale, with Maria Catalano, 36. The tree says 1850.
found Leonarda Bonanno born 7 November 1843. Gaetano Bonanno dated to about 1807, Anna Cavallaro to about 1805.
found Giovanni Arena born 30 April 1854, declared by his grandfather GIOVANNI ARLOTTA, 75, marinaro, «figlio del fu DOMENICO» — the deepest name in this archive.
found Giuseppe Arena married Maria Martello on 12 September; Giovanni Arena married Concetta Russo on 29 October. Two of Rocco's brothers, seven weeks apart, both sons of Francesco Antonio Arena and Serafina Arlotta.
did Giovanni Arena is Rocco's BROTHER, not his cousin.
did The birth search had failed because it trusted a declared age three years out.
did The argument built on that reading — that Rosario named a son Orazio — is withdrawn.
did They run 1866–1913, forty-eight volumes, and the error had blocked at least three searches.
did It was found months ago, on FindMyPast. Two free indexes of the same manifests disagree about who is in them.
Nothing of that kind.
This page is curated, and it has a hole in it. It records the days somebody sat down and wrote them up, not every day the archive moved — and between 14 September and 11 October 2026 more than three hundred commits landed that are not described here. The honest record of those is the commit log and What Has Been Read, which is generated from the data and cannot fall behind it. If the newest date above is far behind today, trust those two and not this.
For Michael is the list itself, grouped by kind, with the source for every line. Scilla and The Mazza carry the acts and the arguments. Open Questions says what is still not known and what would settle it, and What Has Been Read says which volumes have been opened — including the ones that came back empty.