Re: census

Posted by Forums' Editor on January 17, 2006 at 19:20:37:

In Reply to: census posted by tom civitello on January 17, 2006 at 18:26:39:

In the past centuries, in Southern Italy, the nearest thing to a modern census was the "Numerazione dei Fuochi", which started many centuries ago and counted the family groups - the "fuochi", that is the people that lived around one fireplace or under the same roof - and the most complete was the catasto onciario ordered in 1742 by King of Naples Carlo Borbone, which is called, to distinguish it from other previous "catasti" the catasto carolino.
After that "onciario" the next census was made by the local "comuni" in 1881. Not many of those manuscript books are still extant, due to the bombings of WW2, and they are often in bad shape. They are not freely accessible. Another census was taken in 1931, but it is also manuscript and not freely accessible. In more recent years of course there have been regular census taken.