Open Questions

1 Rocco Arena's parents — ANSWERED by a sibling pair answered

What is known

The couple the tree names is real. The two children it gives them belong to somebody else. The tree makes Rocco Arena, born 1861, the son of Orazio Arena and Giovana Zirilli, and gives Orazio exactly two children: Rocco and Guiseppe. Act 45 of 1860 gives FRANCESCO ANTONIO ARENA and SERAFINA ARLOTTA a son GIUSEPPE on 5 March 1860; act 228 of 1861 gives the same couple a son ROCCO on 20 December 1861. The same sibling pair, in the same order, on the wrong father. Meanwhile Orazio Arena and Giovanna Zirilli are documented across four years of the register — 1856, 1858, 1859, 1860 — with Domenico, Domenico and Maria Annunziata, and neither a Rocco nor a Giuseppe ever appears. An Ellis Island manifest independently makes Rocco 39 in March 1900, consistent with a birth at the end of 1861.

What has been tried

ANSWERED, 13 September 2026. What remains is above Francesco Antonio, who act 228 calls 'figlio di Filippo' — so FILIPPO ARENA is a documented generation the tree does not have at all. And a lead worth recording: Orazio Arena's first son is Domenico, twice, which on Calabrian naming custom makes HIS father a Domenico Arena. That is custom, not a record.

What would settle it

Antenati — Scilla; every ark 1816-1865 is in data/scilla-arks.tsv.

2 Where was Giovanni Arena born? — ANSWERED, 13 September 2026 answered

What is known

At Scilla after all, on 30 April 1854 — four years outside the window this archive searched. Act 230 of 1892 makes Giovanni Arena thirty-three in October of that year, so this archive searched 1857, 1858, 1859 and 1860 — two years either side — and found no Giovanni Arena born in any of them. The answer is that THE AGE WAS WRONG BY THREE YEARS. His marriage act, Scilla Matrimoni 1885 act 86, makes him THIRTY-ONE in October 1885: born about 1854. And act 76 of the Scilla births of 1854 gives the day — 30 APRIL 1854, declared by his maternal grandfather Giovanni Arlotta, aged seventy-five, who gave the boy his own name. His parents are FRANCESCO ANTONIO ARENA and SERAFINA ARLOTTA, so he is ROCCO ARENA'S FULL BROTHER, which is what the manifest of 1899 said all along.

What has been tried

ANSWERED. The lesson is on the Scilla page: the search failed because it trusted a declared age and looked in the years that age implied, instead of the years the family implied. Three men this archive kept apart — the boy of 1854, the groom of 1885 and the pescatore of 1892 — are one man.

What would settle it

Antenati — Scilla; every ark 1816-1865 is in data/scilla-arks.tsv.

3 Is Giovanna Zirilli one woman or two? open

What is known

The export gives Orazio Arena two wives with the same rare surname and effectively the same forename. @I374@ is 'Giovanna Zirilli', born 1827, mother of Guiseppe Arena. @I455@ is 'Giovana Zirilli', undated, mother of Rocco Arena. Both are married to the same individual record. That is the classic signature of an accidental duplicate — and act 46 of 1859 shows a single couple, Orazio e Zirilli Giovanna, having children at Scilla. THIS ARCHIVE HAS NOT MERGED THEM, and the reason is worth stating: surname endogamy at Scilla is not a theory but an observed fact. The 1913 marriage index alone has Bueti marrying Bueti, Cambareri marrying Cambareri, Larizza marrying Larizza and Vizzari marrying Vizzari. A man taking a second wife of the same surname is exactly the sort of thing that happens here.

What has been tried

Find Rocco Arena's actual birth act. It will name his mother, and either it says Zirilli Giovanna — in which case the two records are one woman and the merge is documented — or it does not.

What would settle it

Antenati — Scilla; the same sweep as the question above.

4 Where is Michele Donato? — ANSWERED, 14 September 2026: Scilla, 3 October 1855 answered

What is known

Born 3 OCTOBER 1855 at Scilla, act 163 — and the search failed because 1851, 1856 and 1859 were read and 1855 was not. The D section of the 1851 Tavola runs entries 65 to 75 — seven Di Franco, two Dormi, one De Marco, one De Alessandro — bounded by the last C at 64 and the first F at 76. The block is complete and there is no Donato in it. Act 162 of 1892 explains it: Michele Donato is THIRTY-SIX in July 1892, so born about 1856. The tree is five years out and the archive had been reading the wrong volume.

What has been tried

DONE, AND NEGATIVE. 1856 was read (both volumes: the acts are an_ua2002917, the Tavola is bound separately as an_ua2002920) and so was 1859. Neither has a Donato, and neither did 1851 — three complete D blocks across the whole window his daughter's act allows. Meanwhile 1892 has two Donato households. The surname appears to ARRIVE at Scilla between 1859 and 1892, which makes the next move his MARRIAGE rather than his birth: a marriage act names the groom's comune of birth outright. His eldest son was born 1878, so the marriage is about 1875-77. IT HAS NOW BEEN LOOKED FOR, AND IT IS NOT THERE. The annual indexes have been read ENTIRE for 1874 and 1876 through 1885 -- eleven years -- and 1875, which has no index, was scanned down its margins. NO DONATO MICHELE AMONG THE GROOMS. What those years do hold is a settled Scilla Donato family marrying steadily: Candeloro twice, Carmela, Bruno, Rocco, Michelangelo. So Michele is neither born at Scilla nor married there: he came from somewhere else, already married. THE ONE ROUTE LEFT IS HIS DEATH ACT, which names a birthplace outright -- and the Scilla death series runs to 1943.

What would settle it

Antenati — Scilla; arks for every year 1816-1865 are in data/scilla-arks.tsv.

5 Which ships? — nine down, nine to go open

What is known

Nine were named on 10 September 2026. Nine are still open. Sebastiano Mazza sailed on the Toscana out of Genoa, arriving 4 October 1949; Antonino Polistena on the Surriento out of Naples; Francessco Prostamo on the Roma; the sixteen-year-old Michele Mazza on the Palermo out of Messina in 1925. But Domenica Prostamo — who followed her husband in March 1951 with a son not yet three — is not in the index under Prostamo or under Mazza, and eight others are still unnamed.

What has been tried

She would have travelled under her married name and may be indexed under a misspelling; the index is transcribed from handwritten manifests. Try the voyage instead of the person: find the item for a Genoa sailing reaching Fremantle in March 1951 and read the manifest for the whole family group.

What would settle it

NAA RecordSearch, passenger arrivals index 1898–1972; series K269, Fremantle inwards.

6 Above Franco Antonino Prostamo, born about 1697 open

What is known

The deepest point of the archive, and it stops at an assertion. The Prostamo descent at Briatico runs eight generations and is the best thing in this tree — but nothing above 1697 has been looked for, and the 1697 date itself carries no source. Italian civil registration begins in 1809; before that the record is parish, and the Calabrian earthquake of 1783 destroyed a great deal of it.

What has been tried

The parish registers of Briatico held by the Diocese of Mileto–Nicotera–Tropea, and the Catanzaro state archive's pre-unification series. First, though: verify that the 1697 birth is a document and not a family estimate.

What would settle it

Antenati — Catanzaro; diocesan archive, Mileto.

7 The Buenos Aires Prostamo open

What is known

Twenty-three Argentine events and not one crossing. A branch of the Briatico Prostamo was in Buenos Aires from at least 1903, with children born there into the 1960s, and Giuseppe Prostamo died there. Nothing records how or when they went, or how they relate to the Brisbane line beyond the tree's assertion.

What has been tried

CEMLA's Argentine immigration database, and the Buenos Aires civil registry. The Lerena archive has already worked this ground.

What would settle it

CEMLA; Registro Civil, Buenos Aires.

8 Filippo Arena's marriage to Domenica Costa — ANSWERED, 20 September 2026 answered

What is known

This archive called it pre-civil and lost, and published a WALL saying so, because it believed Scilla's registers began in 1816. They begin in 1809.

What has been tried

Every negative reported for 1816-1819 was correct and the conclusion drawn from them was not. They married at Scilla on 12 NOVEMBER 1815, Matrimoni atto 29, and the act names ORAZIO ARENA and LITTERIA MORABITO on one side and the late GIOVANNI COSTA and MARTA ALFONZETTI on the other. Filippo signed it.

What would settle it

Answered by Antenati, Scilla Matrimoni 1815 -- and then by the marriage BUNDLE behind it, processetti 1815 n. 29, which gave both spouses' baptisms and her father's death of 1790.

Open since 20 September 2026.

9 How far above Filippo Arena does the Arena line go? — ANSWERED, 20 September 2026 answered

What is known

To his great-grandparents, in the 1720s, and the route was three annual Tavole and one death act rather than a parish archive.

What has been tried

Three brothers for Filippo were found in the marriage Tavole of 1821, 1828 and 1838; the 1838 one writes «FU ORAZIO», which bracketed his father's death to ten years; the 1830 death Tavola found the year and the act gave the day. ORAZIO ARENA died 12 July 1830 at seventy-nine, «figlio del fu FILIPPO ARENA e della fu SANTA UNGARO».

What would settle it

Answered. Above Filippo the elder and Santa Ungaro there is no civil register: that is the parish books of the Chiesa Matrice at Scilla, which the 1815 marriage bundle names by title and custodian.

Open since 20 September 2026.

10 Where was Maria Nicotra born? — ANSWERED, 21 September 2026: MASCALI answered

1

What is known

Born about 1875. The family tree says Piedimonte Etneo; her 1963 Queensland death registration names her parents as John Nicotra and Venera Cassaneti and gives no place.

What has been tried

FOURTEEN consecutive Piedimonte Etneo annual birth indexes, 1870-1883, every N section read in the original. The Nicotra are there the whole time and never produce her. A Catania hypothesis was invented to explain the silence and has been retired.

What would settle it

SETTLED BY HER OWN BIRTH ACT. Mascali, Nati 1875 atto 144: born 8 DECEMBER 1875 at half past nine in the evening, contrada Sopra Pietrafitta, to GIOVANNI NICOTRA and VENERA CASSANITI. The Piedimonte sweeps were in the wrong comune: her father was «domiciliato e residente a MASCALI» (Piedimonte Matrimoni 1872 atto 20) and a wife went to her husband's town. The tree's «Piedimonte» is her MOTHER's comune.

Open since 20 September 2026.

11 Nudgee: plots, sections and dates — ANSWERED, 10 September 2026 answered

What is known

Closed the day the archive was built.

What has been tried

The Archdiocese's own deceased register gave a plot, a register number and exact dates for NINETEEN people here, corrected the tree in six places, and showed that all four grandparents lie in consecutive plots V-1026 to V-1029.

What would settle it

Answered by the Brisbane Catholic Cemeteries interment register. It is on /nudgee/.

Open since 10 September 2026.

12 Is Salvatore Mazza in the Sicilian birth registers? — ANSWERED, and the answer is no answered

What is known

Not in nine indexes across three comuni. A negative, and a useful one.

What has been tried

Nine annual indexes read -- Piedimonte Etneo 1877 to 1881, plus Mascali 1879 and Giarre 1879. Five Mazza births in all of them and NO SALVATORE ANYWHERE. LATER OVERTAKEN: he is NATI 1873 ATTO 3, born 5 January 1873, and the 1879 index has now been read whole and holds no Salvatore either -- so the tree's year was six out and the nine negatives were all in the wrong place.

What would settle it

Answered by Piedimonte Etneo, Nati 1873 atto 3, found by following the father rather than the year.

Open since 10 September 2026.

13 Was Michele Mazza kin? — ANSWERED, 10 September 2026 answered

What is known

Yes. He was Sebastiano's elder brother.

What has been tried

The Queensland death index gives «Michali Mazza», 14 November 1926, registration 1926/C/3983, father «Salvatori Mazza», mother «Maria Lecota» -- the index's garbling of NICOTRA. The same search returns Rosario Mazza, born 1899, whose parents are given in full as Salvatore Mazza and Maria Concetta Nicotra.

What would settle it

Answered by the Queensland historical index. So the sixteen-year-old who landed at Brisbane on the PALERMO in 1925 and died nineteen months later was Sebastiano's brother, and the family followed him to the port he had landed at.

Open since 10 September 2026.

14 Who were the Polistena of Arneytown? — ANSWERED, 10 September 2026 answered

What is known

One soldier and his wife, in one grave -- not three people.

What has been tried

The VA's Nationwide Gravesite Locator gives JOSEPH POLISTENA, PFC, US Army, Second World War, 29 January 1917 to 15 February 2012, Section O3 Site 8647, and SANTA POLISTENA, 17 December 1920 to 8 September 2008, entered as his wife in the same site.

What would settle it

Answered by the Gravesite Locator. It also confirms the build's merge of the tree's two «Joseph» records into one man, and corrects Santa's death from 9 August to 8 September -- the American 09/08/2008 read day-first.

Open since 10 September 2026.

15 Does Rosario Mazza join the hundred and ten? — ANSWERED, 10 September 2026 answered

What is known

Yes. The archive's largest question, closed.

What has been tried

Salvatore Mazza's act of birth -- Piedimonte Etneo, Nati 1873, atto 3 -- names his father «ROSARIO MAZZA DI MARIANO», aged twenty-eight, and his mother «Leonarda Bonanno di Gaetano». Three marriage proclamations and two further birth acts give the same couple sons named Salvatore, Giovanni, Orazio, Gaetano, Santo and Ignazio; the tree's unattached Rosario has a wife called Leonarda and sons Orazio, Ignazio and Giovanni. One man.

What would settle it

Answered by Piedimonte Etneo, Nati 1873 atto 3. All hundred and ten are the families of Michael Rocco Mazza's great-great-uncles.

Open since 10 September 2026.

16 Where was Giovanni Nicotra born? — the certificate says GIARRE and Giarre does not hold him open

1

What is known

Maria Nicotra's father. Married Venera Cassaniti at Piedimonte Etneo on 7 October 1872 (Matrimoni atto 20), and the publication certificate in the allegati prints «nato a» separately from «residente a» and fills them GIARRE and MASCALI. He is THIRTY-ONE in October 1872 and TWENTY-EIGHT in December 1875 — already six years apart in three, so the birth window is not trustworthy. His father is ROSARIO NICOTRA, a bracciante of Mascali, with VENERA MURABITO; both alive and unmarked by «fu» in 1872.

What has been tried

FORTY-FIVE annual index years read at the N section, in three comuni, every one checked into the next letter or read whole. GIARRE Nati 1838-1848, eleven years, main run AND the appendices that sit past Z: he is in none of them, and the only Nicotra across the decade is a Dottor Don with a Donna wife. MASCALI Nati 1839-1848, nine years — NOW MARKED PROVISIONAL, because Mascali's clerks do not write their sections in alphabetical order and those years were cleared at the M-to-next-letter junction. RIPOSTO Nati 1838-1848, eleven years, including the torn 1841 tail closed through its supplement volume. RIPOSTO Matrimoni 1835-1846 and MASCALI Matrimoni 1835-1847, twenty years of marriage Tavole read whole, looking for his parents' own wedding. NOT ONE ROSARIO NICOTRA.

What would settle it

HIS OWN BIRTH ACT, or his parents' marriage. THREE READINGS SURVIVE AND THE THIRD NOW HAS A DOCUMENTED PRECEDENT. (1) BOTH HIS AGES ARE WRONG and he was born outside the read decade — the windows either side are 1833-1837 and 1849-1853, and neither has been touched in any of the three towns. (2) HE WAS REGISTERED AT RIPOSTO though he called himself of Giarre: Riposto Matrimoni 1844 atto 39 shows NICOTRA SALVADORE, «patria GIARRE», marrying at Riposto and registering his children there, which is that pattern with an act number. (3) «GIARRE» IS LOOSE FOR A FRAZIONE: the same Don Alfio Nicotra is entered «of S. Giovanni» at Riposto in 1838 and «of Giarre» at Giarre in 1844, and San Giovanni Montebello is a frazione of Giarre. That is the only reading that needs neither of his ages to be wrong. The cheapest next test is SALVADORE NICOTRA'S OWN BIRTH ACT at Giarre, about 1815-1824, which would say whether Alfio, Simone and Rosario are brothers.

Open since 21 September 2026.

17 Generation seven on the Nicotra side — whose children were Rosario Nicotra and Venera Murabito? open

1

What is known

Named once, in Piedimonte Etneo Matrimoni 1872 atto 20, as the groom's parents: ROSARIO NICOTRA, bracciante of MASCALI, and VENERA MURABITO, contadina. NEITHER IS MARKED «fu» in an act that writes «fu» for a witness two lines above, so both were alive in October 1872. They appear in no register this archive has opened.

What has been tried

The restauration marriage Tavola is the right instrument and it has been used: it names BOTH SPOUSES, ALL FOUR PARENTS and THE COMUNE EACH SPOUSE CAME FROM, so their own marriage would hand over the whole generation in one row. RIPOSTO Matrimoni 1835-1846 (twelve years) and MASCALI Matrimoni 1835-1847 (eight years) are read whole. GIARRE Matrimoni 1840 and 1844 are read. Rosario is in none of them.

What would settle it

Their marriage act, or a death act for either of them. GIARRE Matrimoni 1835-1843 and 1845-1846 are unread with containers already banked — work-list row 181 — and are the obvious next place, since Giovanni's own certificate names Giarre. AND NO DEATH HAS BEEN SOUGHT FOR EITHER OF THEM, in any of the four towns: Mascali holds 78 Morti volumes, Giarre 147 and Riposto 71, and not one has been opened. A death act after 1866 names the deceased's parents, which would reach generation eight.

Open since 22 September 2026.

18 One photograph, two people, and the proband has none — ANSWERED, and it was a bug answered

2

What is known

data/photo-manifest.json carries 133 images. Three reach no page because they hang off duplicate xrefs the export merges away — and two of those three, angela-mazza-1.jpg (@I21@) and michael-mazza-1.jpg (@I20@), are BYTE-IDENTICAL: sha256 7ec58416d96612f0, 1,358,459 bytes, 3072x2304. One photograph is filed under two people's names. Meanwhile Michael Rocco Mazza (@I26@), the person this archive is named for, has no photograph published at all, and the canonical Angela Mazza (@I27@) publishes a 132x161 THUMBNAIL as her first image while a 3072x2304 original of somebody sits unused in photos/living/.

What has been tried

ANSWERED 9 OCTOBER 2026, and the framing in this row was wrong. A photograph tagged to two people is not a puzzle — that is how the export records a picture with two relatives in it, and the same rin MH:P48 on both rows says so plainly. The real fault was in build.py: it attached photographs by the RAW xref, so an image the export hung on a person who is a duplicate reached nobody, because the duplicate has no page and the surviving person was never told. @I20@ and @I21@ merge into @I26@ and @I27@. Canonicalising the xref restores that 3072x2304 photograph to Michael Rocco Mazza, who had none, and to Angela Mazza; a byte-identical twin for one person is then dropped by content so nobody is shown the same file twice. Nothing needed identifying. What the hashing DID find was worse and is fixed in the same pass: one MyHeritage stock collection graphic filed 22 times under 22 names for 11 people, nine of whom had no other image.

What would settle it

Nothing. It was a line of code, not a question for a relative. What is still worth a reader's eye is the captioning: almost none of these photographs are identified, and that remains the most valuable thing anybody can send.

Open since 9 October 2026.

19 A SIMONE NICOTRA IS FOUND AT GIARRE IN 1820 — but his wife is written MARIANNA DAIDONE, and Rosario's death act says MARIANNA MUSUMECI open

1

What is known

Rosario Nicotra was born about 1800 AT GIARRE and his father was SIMONE, husband of MARIANNA MUSUMECI — both «fu» by 1890, and both known from one line of one death act (Mascali Morti 1890 atto 35). Simone is the deepest name this archive holds and has no act of his own. GIARRE NATI 1820 ATTO 198, read in the original 11 October 2026 (container 03PBQXV, canvas 201): «è comparso SIMONE NICOTRA, DI ANNI QUARANTAQUATTRO, di professione CONTADINO, domiciliato NEL QUARTIERE S. ALFIO di questo Comune ... la stessa è nata da MARIANNA DAIDONE sua legittima moglie, DI ANNI QUARANTA», declaring a daughter ROSARIA born 13 April 1820 and baptised on the 24th; documents at foglio 263. SO THIS SIMONE NICOTRA WAS BORN ABOUT 1776 and his wife about 1780. He would have been about twenty-four when Rosario was born, he is a contadino as Rosario was, and he is at Giarre as Rosario was. THE FORENAME MARIANNA MATCHES EXACTLY AND THE SURNAME DOES NOT. «Daidone» is plainly written in the 1820 act and «Musumeci» is plainly written in the 1890 one; neither reading is strained and both were re-read as full-resolution crops. THE SAME TAVOLA ALSO GIVES, in the generation above and beside: CIRINO NICOTRA, contadino, born about 1740 and dead by April 1820 (Giarre Matrimoni 1820 atto 30), and MASTRO SEBASTIANO NICOTRA, FALEGNAME, born about 1770 and alive in July 1820 (atto 80). Giarre held several Nicotra households at once — two more fathers named Rosario Nicotra appear in the 1820 and 1821 birth indexes, by two different wives.

What has been tried

Mascali, Giarre and Riposto marriage Tavole for the whole 1820s, read whole: two Nicotra grooms, both at Giarre in 1820. Giarre Nati 1820-1848, 29 years: Simone appears ONCE, in 1820. GIARRE MORTI 1820-1860, thirty-nine of its forty-one years, READ TWICE OVER FOR THREE SURNAMES — first for NICOTRA with MUSUMECI free beside it, then a second pass over the D section for DAIDONE, which the first pass had skipped in every year. NEITHER SIMONE NOR MARIANNA IS IN ANY OF THEM. THEN MASCALI MORTI 1820-1872, FIFTY-ONE OF ITS FIFTY-TWO YEARS, swept for Nicotra and Daidone. NEITHER OF THEM IS AMONG THE DEAD OF MASCALI EITHER. BUT MASCALI IS WHERE BOTH SURNAMES ACTUALLY LIVE, which is the thing Giarre could never show. SIX Nicotra decedents there (1848, 1851, 1862, 1868, 1869, 1872), and in 1841 the FIRST DAIDONE DECEDENT FOUND ANYWHERE IN THIS PROJECT — ANGELA DAJDONE, aged fifty, «NATA IN MASCALI», daughter of the late Giuseppe — against forty years of Giarre holding not one Daidone of any kind. TWO WIDOWS OF THE RIGHT GENERATION WERE ALIVE AT MASCALI IN 1828 and die nowhere in the sweep: MARIA NICOTRA, widow of Carmelo Tomarchio, and DONNA SANTA DAJDONE, widow of Don Domenico Bassi. THREE CORRECTIONS RECORDED AGAINST THIS ROW. Its first version sent the next search to GIARRE NATI 1796-1800, a register that does not exist because every Giarre civil series begins in 1820. Its second said the D section had not been read; it has. Its third said MASCALI MORTI BEFORE 1873 was the place to look; it has now been looked at, and this is what it holds.

What would settle it

GIUSEPPE NICOTRA OF GIARRE IS THE NEW NAME TO CHASE, and he comes from the best document the sweep produced. MASCALI MORTI 1869 ATTO 63: ALFIO NICOTRA, died 13 May 1869 AGED SEVENTY-THREE so born about 1796, «NATO IN GIARRE», «FIGLIO DEL FU GIUSEPPE e della fu CATERINA [surname illegible], MORTA IN GIARRE». This Alfio is the father named in BOTH the 1848 and 1851 Mascali Nicotra acts. SIMONE WAS BORN ABOUT 1776 AND ALFIO ABOUT 1796, SO GIUSEPPE NICOTRA OF GIARRE STANDS IN SIMONE'S OWN GENERATION — a brother or close kinsman is the natural reading and IS NOT PROVED. What would test it: Giuseppe Nicotra's own death at Giarre, which would name HIS parents and so Simone's too if they are brothers. CAUTION ON THE SAME ACT: in the body the surname cannot be separated from NICOLOSI, though the index is unambiguous; and the mother's surname is illegible and is NOT the Leonarda Pennisi of the known Giarre household, since this wife is a CATERINA. ALSO STILL OPEN: Giarre Morti after 1860, not banked; GIARRE MORTI 1854, unread in every letter; and MASCALI MORTI 1831, faded past reading with no duplicate deposit in existence. NOT USEFUL: Rosario's own birth, about 1800 and therefore parish-only.

Open since 11 Oct 2026.