Read 10 September 2026

The Queensland Register

The Registry's historical index is free, it is authoritative, and — the part that matters — it can be searched by a father's or a mother's name. One search returned three of Sebastiano Mazza's siblings.

The Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages publishes a searchable historical index: deaths to 1996, marriages to 1951, births to 1926. Every death and birth entry carries the names of both parents, and the search box will take a parent's name as the query.

That turns it from a lookup into a reconstruction tool. Searching "Salvatore Mazza" in the father field returns the deaths of his children — and each of those names their mother, which is how a family asserted by the tree became a family on the record.

The finding

Michele Mazza was Sebastiano's brother

Michele Mazza landed at Brisbane on the Palermo on 21 April 1925, aged about sixteen, and died the following year. The family tree asserted he was kin and produced nothing to show it. The archive has carried the question since the day it was built: was he the reason they chose Queensland?

The Registry's index answers it:

Michali Mazza · death registration 14 November 1926 · 1926/C/3983 · father Salvatori Mazza · mother Maria Lecota.

Lecota is the index's rendering of Nicotra — and the same search returns Rosario Mazza, born 1899, whose parents are given in full as Salvatore Mazza and Maria Concetta Nicotra. The same couple, spelled properly.

So Michele Mazza was a son of Salvatore Mazza and Maria Nicotra, and therefore Sebastiano Mazza 's elder brother. He came out first, alone, at sixteen. He was dead within nineteen months. Twenty-four years later his family followed him to the port he had landed at.

The archive should say what it still cannot: whether anyone was waiting for Sebastiano in 1949, and whether the family knew where the boy was buried. The index gives a date and a registration number, not a grave. C in the registration means a country event — he did not die in Brisbane.

Four deaths, and what each one proves

Date	Name	Registration	Father	Mother
14 November 1926	Michali Mazza	1926/C/3983	Salvatori Mazza	Maria Lecota
19 March 1986	Rosario Mazza (b. 1899)	1986/2455	Salvatore Mazza	Maria Concetta Nicotra
24 September 1963	Maria Nicotra Mazza	1963/B/61348	John Nicotra	Venera Cassaneti
3 August 1968	Mary Rosa Mazza	1968/B/936	Sebastiano Mazza	Domenica Postamo
24 June 1928	Helen Mazza	1928/B/4850	John Fimister	Jane Stewart
8 June 1986	Mario Mazza	1986/4396	Rosario Mazza	Rosa Grasso
30 March 1961	James Lawrence Mazza	1961/C/1625	Franklin Edward	Margaret June Geaney
1 November 1988	Giovanni Mazza	1988/9150	Angelo Mazza	Fracesca Strano
6 December 1983	Guiseppi Mazza	1983/57702	Stefano Mazza	Grazia Guarerra
31 July 1975	Andrea Mazza	1975/C/4171	Mazza	—
22 February 1978	Josephine Mazza	1978/B/84966	Bastiano Mazzaglia	Consantina Grufrith
10 January 1973	Angela Mazza	1973/B/38514	Francesco Crupi	Maria Vecchio
27 October 1991	Maria Assunta Prostamo (b. 1936)	1991/9389	Gregorio Melluso	Carmela Maria Borello
30 September 1971	Gregorio Melluso	1971/C/6628	Gennaro Melluso	Maria Limardo
8 June 1986	Mario Mazza (b. 1900)	1986/4396	Rosario Mazza	Rosa Grasso
1 November 1988	Giovanni Mazza (b. 1958)	1988/9150	Angelo Mazza	Fracesca Strano
6 December 1983	Guiseppi Mazza (b. 1932)	1983/57702	Stefano Mazza	Grazia Guarerra
18 July 1961	Pietro Crupi	1961/B/45635	Francesco	Maria Vecchio
15 April 1982	Antonino Crupi	1982/52783	Francesco Crupi	Maria Vecchio
17 September 1989	Mario Crupi	1989/57278	Francesco Crupi	Maria Vecchio

Michali Mazza — Lecota is the index's garbling of Nicotra. Makes Michele a SON of Salvatore Mazza and Maria Nicotra, and therefore Sebastiano's brother. C = country event, outside Brisbane.

Rosario Mazza (b. 1899) — Gives Maria Nicotra's full name. Confirms Rosario as another son. Matches the Nudgee interment of 22 March 1986, plot V-0117. His wife is now named: ANGELA MAZZA, born CRUPI, in the adjoining plot V-0116, dead 10 January 1973.

Maria Nicotra Mazza — Confirms the family tree's parentage for her exactly. Matches the Nudgee interment of 25 September 1963, plot V-0044.

Mary Rosa Mazza — Confirms Sebastiano Mazza and Domenica Prostamo as her parents. Matches the Nudgee interment of 10 August 1968, plot V-0165. She was sixteen.

Helen Mazza — THE TROVE FUNERAL NOTICE, NAMED AT LAST. The Brisbane Courier of Tuesday 26 June 1928, page 12, carried "Mazza.—The Funeral … Lut-wyche-road, Wooloowin … to the Nudgee R.C. Cemetery" — a second Mazza death this archive did not hold. This is it: a death on the 24th, a funeral on the 26th. Her own parents are Scottish, so Mazza is her married name. WHICH Mazza she married is not shown, and she is not in the Nudgee rows this archive holds. A candidate, not a relative.

Mario Mazza — Probably the groom of 1924 — his father a Rosario, his son a Rosario, which is the same naming rule this family uses and the reason the two households are easy to confuse.

James Lawrence Mazza — Son of the 1944 marriage below. An anglicised Mazza household, unconnected here.

Giovanni Mazza — A third Queensland Mazza household. No link shown.

Guiseppi Mazza — A fourth. No link shown.

Andrea Mazza — The index gives only the surname for the father and a dash for the mother. Carried because the surname list is now complete and this is one of its seventeen.

Josephine Mazza — Born a MAZZAGLIA and died a MAZZA. The Mazzaglia surname already runs through this index beside the Mazza — Mario Mazza married Peppina Mazzaglia in 1924 — so the two families married more than once.

Angela Mazza — THE ANGELA BURIED BESIDE ROSARIO, IDENTIFIED — AND SHE IS THE TREE'S «ANGELA CUPO». The export carries Rosario Mazza's wife as ANGELA CUPO, born 1900 at Catania and DIED 1973 AT BRISBANE, with no parents. The Nudgee register interred an Angela Mazza on 13 JANUARY 1973 in plot V-0116, beside Rosario in V-0117; this registration puts her death on 10 JANUARY 1973 and names her parents FRANCESCO CRUPI and MARIA VECCHIO. Three days, one woman, and CUPO IS THIS DATA'S GARBLING OF CRUPI — the same hand that wrote «Lecota» for Nicotra and «Postamo» for Prostamo. A CORRECTION OF MY OWN: this row first pointed at «angela-mazza», who is a different and LIVING woman — Frank Mazza and Nancy Arena's daughter, married to Reinhard Muller. The identification was right; the person it was hung on was not.

Maria Assunta Prostamo (b. 1936) — THE FIRST PROSTAMO EVER FOUND IN THE QUEENSLAND INDEX. Born 1936, died 27 October 1991. She was born a MELLUSO and died a PROSTAMO — a Melluso married a Prostamo a second time, two generations after Alfonso Prostamo married Caterina Melluso at Briatico on 21 May 1887. Trove independently has her: «Prostamo, Assunta Maria, 3 Frank-street, Graceville», naturalised 4 July 1966 and gazetted that November. Two sources, one person. How she joins Alfonso's line is UNTESTED — a Melluso marrying a Prostamo in Brisbane is a strong hint, not a descent.

Gregorio Melluso — Maria Assunta's father, and with him two more names: GENNARO MELLUSO and MARIA LIMARDO. Limardo is a Potenzoni surname — it appears in the Potenzoni birth index of 1818 — which places this Melluso household in the Briatico-Potenzoni district rather than the Agrigento Melluso that Geneanet is full of. C = a country registration, outside Brisbane.

Mario Mazza (b. 1900) — RESOLVES A HOUSEHOLD THIS ARCHIVE CARRIED AS UNJOINED. The index already held a Mario Mazza marrying Peppina Mazzaglia on 29 October 1924 and their son Rosario born the next year, noted here as «not this family so far as anything shows». This is almost certainly the same Mario — born 1900, died 1986 — and it names his parents at last: ROSARIO MAZZA and ROSA GRASSO. Still not joined to Salvatore Mazza's household; but it is now a named family rather than a loose pair.

Giovanni Mazza (b. 1958) — A Brisbane Mazza household new to this archive: ANGELO MAZZA and FRANCESCA STRANO. No join shown.

Guiseppi Mazza (b. 1932) — Another household new to this archive: STEFANO MAZZA and GRAZIA GUARERRA. No join shown.

Pietro Crupi — ANGELA CRUPI'S BROTHER. Same two parents as her own registration of 1973 -- FRANCESCO CRUPI and MARIA VECCHIO -- and this one gives the father as «Francesco» without a surname, which is how the index often renders him. Not in the family tree and not in this archive until today.

Antonino Crupi — A SECOND BROTHER. «Antonino Crupi», the same parents again. A Marriage of an ANTONINO CRUPI is registered on 24 August 1940 (1940/C/3314) and is very likely his.

Mario Crupi — A THIRD BROTHER, and the last of the four. Same parents. A MARIANO CRUPI marries on 31 January 1940 (1940/C/349) -- Mario and Mariano are the same name in these records, so that is probably his.

And two marriages

Date	Name	Married	Registration
2 December 1939	Maria Mazza	Rosario Coco	1939/C/4207
8 January 1949	Rosario Mazza	Annie Vergina Di Mauro	1949/B/20688
29 October 1924	Mario Mazza	Peppina Mazzaglia	1924/C/2959
20 July 1944	Franklin Edward Mazza	Margaret June Geaney	1944/B/61253

Maria Mazza — Confirms this archive's Nudgee identification of "Maria Coco, 1922-2012" as Maria Mazza.

Rosario Mazza — Not in the family tree. Whether this is the 1899 Rosario, and how it sits with the Angela buried beside him at Nudgee, is unresolved.

Mario Mazza — Not this family so far as anything shows. Carried because the surname is searched often and this household keeps turning up: Mario and Peppina's son Rosario is registered the next year.

Franklin Edward Mazza — See the 1961 death above.

Where it points next

Rosario, born 1899, dates his father

This archive still cannot find Salvatore Mazza's birth — six years of the Piedimonte Etneo register, plus Mascali and Giarre, and he is in none of them.

The Queensland index has just handed over the way in. Rosario Mazza was born in 1899 to Salvatore and Maria Concetta Nicotra. An Italian birth act states the declaring father's age. Find Rosario's act of birth — Piedimonte Etneo, 1899 — and it dates Salvatore to within a year or two, which turns a blind sweep of the register into a single lookup. The queue →

Method

familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au — free to search, no account needed; images are paid and were not bought. The form's useful fields are Father's/parent's name(s) and Mother's/parent's name(s), which work on births and deaths only. Search the parent, not the person, when you are trying to find siblings. Spellings in the index are as the clerk wrote them — Michali, Salvatori, Lecota, Postamo — so search loosely and expect the surname you want to be mangled.

27 September 2026 · Trove API v3 · Commonwealth of Australia Gazette

Seven naturalisations, and what a gazette notice is worth

A Trove API key arrived on 27 September and unblocked a source this archive had been shut out of for eight days — not by Trove, but by its own search page, which accepts a query and never paints a result. The Commonwealth of Australia Gazette prints certificates of naturalization, and for a family that landed in 1949 those are close to what an electoral roll would give.

They are thinner than that hope. A notice is a name in an alphabetical list and a date — no birth date, no address, no former nationality. There is nothing in one to tell two men of a name apart, and these towns produce a Maria Polistena by the dozen. So 4 of these 7 are candidates and none is a join; 3 are names the family's own export does not contain at all.

Surname	Given	Gazetted	In the tree	What it is, and is not
Prostamo	Angela	16 November 1961	no	No Angela Prostamo in the family's export. A new name, and the only one in this sweep that is.
Prostamo	Antonino Giacomo	16 November 1961	Antonio Giacomo Prostamo (b. 1934)	CANDIDATE, NOT A JOIN. The tree has an ANTONIO Giacomo Prostamo born 1934; the gazette prints ANTONINO Giacomo. Same distinctive middle name, same surname, right country, right decade. A gazette gives a name and a date and nothing else — no birth date, no address in this notice — so there is nothing here to disambiguate two men of one name with.
Prostamo	Assunta	3 November 1966	Maria Assunta Prostamo	CANDIDATE. This archive already held «Maria Assunta's gazettal of 4 JULY 1966 at 3 Frank Street, Graceville», found incidentally through the web interface. This notice is dated 3 NOVEMBER 1966 and prints ASSUNTA without the Maria. Two dates four months apart for one woman is either two notices or two readings, and which it is has not been established here.
Polistena	Maria Luisa	22 January 1959	no	Not in the export under that compound name.
Polistena	Maria	13 March 1969	Maria Polistena (b. 1923)	CANDIDATE. «Maria Polistena» is the commonest possible name in this family's towns and the archive holds more than one. Not attached.
Polistena	Annunziato	20 March 1969	no	MASCULINE. The export holds a «Nunziatta Polistena», feminine, and these are not the same name. Recorded as a separate person until an act says otherwise.
Melluso	Francesco	6 July 1961	Francesco Melluso (b. 1901)	CANDIDATE. The tree's Francesco Melluso was born in 1901 and would be sixty at this gazettal, which fits a post-war migrant naturalising. Nothing in the notice tests it.

And the better thing Trove turned up is not in this table. Its archival category surfaces Queensland State Archives item records, and four are Nicotra wills — Salvatore Philip 1955, Leonarda 1962, Vincenzo 1965, Filippo 1966, all in Supreme Court (Northern) Ecclesiastical Files (Wills), series S6220, all open access. A will names the deceased, the death date, the address, the occupation and the beneficiaries. All four are Townsville district, and so are the only two Nicotra family notices in the whole newspaper sweep. Whether any of it is Maria Nicotra 's family is unknown and nothing is attached. Work list, row 185 →