Birth place and parents of Pietro Alburti (1)

Sources

Pyrke, 1943. Long Islands First ItalianItalian Historical Society

Pyrke, 1943. Long Islands First ItalianGenforum transcription.

San Luca, Venice

Related

Person:Pietro Alberti (1)

Background

Pietro Caesar Alburti was an early immigrant to the New Netherlands, arriving there in 1635 on the ship "King David". He is commonly said to have been born in in 1608 in Malamacco, Venice, Italy, and to be the son of Andrea Alburti and Lady Veronica Cremora. Most of the information about Pietro's life and background is based on a short biography by PYrke, 1943. That work is fairly comprehensive, and includes references to specific original sources in both New Amsterdam, and in Venice Italy. His work probably forms the basis for most of what's available in genealogical treatments of Pietro, as on Ancestry.com, or in various articles by the Italian Historical Society in New York, who have been influential in diseminating information about Pietro, as the first Italian to settled in New York. Pyrke is rarely, if ever, cited in genealogical treatments of Pietro, but he nonetheless seems to be the source of most available information in use in the genealogical community.

Independent documentation of the facts developed by Pyrke has not been found, though sometimes Pryke points to New Amsterdam records, without being highly specific.

"Facts"

DOB. Based on Pyrke's findings, we have no explicit records for Pietro in New Amsterdam that give his age. He is known to have appeared in New Amsterdam in 1635, during the administration of Kieft, not long after the community was established (1614). At the time of his first appearance he is clearly an adult, serving as an aide to the Captain of the King David. The King David left Texel, Netherlands, in 1634. At a minimum we can guage his DOB as prior to 1614. As an aide, he is unlikely to have been out of his early 20's, suggesting a DOB no earlier 1600.

Name Variants. Pryke identified a number of names under which Piero was known in New Asterdam records. He notes that the Dutch had difficult both with what for them was a non-standard given name, and for the fact that they did not normally make use of surnames at this time.^[1] In the case of Piero, the unusualness resulted in a number of variants on his name appearing in the records, as noted by Pryke, who conluded referred to the same individual:

Peter Petro Alburto

Caesar Alburto

Caeser Alburtus

Cicero Pierre

Pieter Ceser

Peter Petro Alberto of Venice (toponymic)

Pieter Mallamacque (toponymic)

Pieter Mallamocco (toponymic)

Peter the Italian (toponymic)

Peter Shoorsteenveger (Occupational name)

On balance, considering all of the various names under which Pietro Alburti was known in New Amsterdam records, it seems likely that his birth name was probabably Pietro Caeser Alburto.

POB. The topnymic bynames identified by Pryke as representing Pietro Alburti clearly indicate that he was from Italy (peter the Italian), Venice (Peter Petro Alberto of Venice), and more specifically from Mallamocco (Pieter Mallamacque, Pieter Mallamocco). Mallamocco is a locality within Venice, and at one time was the seat of state for the Rublic of Venice. All five of the toponymics identified by Pryke are consistent with him coming from Mallamocco, Venice, Italy. This would not necessitate that he was born there, but only that he lived there, and let it be known that this was where he was from. Absent contrariant information, stateing that he was born in Mallamocco, Venice, Italy, seems reasonable.

Christening. Pyrke cites information developed by Louis P. de Boer "a specialist in old world antecedants of early American settlers, but does not give a specific reference to his work. ^[2]

According to De Boer fide Pryke, there was a christening record for a "Guilio Caesar Alberti", in the records of the church of San Luca in Venice Italy. San Luca is probably a reference to San Luca Evangelista 1th century church in the sestiere of San Marco in Venice, Italy. This record, gives a christening date for Guilio of 20 June 1608. This date is commonly given by genealogists as that of Pietro Caesari Alburto, without citing a source.

Pryke, however, tells us that de Boer had tentatively identified Guilio as the same person as Pietro Caesar Alburti, despite the slight difference in names (Guilio vs Pietro). Pryke gives the following (in short) as an explanation, of the descrency: According to Pryke, following de Boer, Pietro of our interest was given his birth name by his parents in memory of an older brother who had died. When it came time for christening the name Guilio was substituted for Pietro to avoid "ill omen". This may be true, but it sounds like pure speculation. Direct evidence for such a story would be needed to accept "Guilio Casesar Alburti" as the same person as "Pietro Caesar Alburti". Also, unequivocally using the 20 June 1608 christening date for Guilio, as that for Pietro, is probably unwise. It may be that Guilio was in fact Pietro, and christened on 20 June 1608, but we don't know that since we don't know that these are the same person.

Parents. Pryke identfies Andre Alburti, and Lady Veronica Cremona as the parents of Pietro. This is probably based on the christening record referred to above. Since we can not be certain that the christening record is in fact that of Pietro Caesar Albert of New Netherlands, we can not be certain that Andrea and Veronica are in fact his parents.

Apart from that, Lady Veronica is sometimes identified by genealogists as a "Medici". Some recent genealoigsts believe this is in error, and possibly a distortion by de Boer. Some give her last name as Cremora, which could be a topnymic byname(ie, she came from the town of Cremora). Others hold that Cremora is in fact a surname of a her family Medici Surname Board</ref>

Blue Book

Footnotes

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