Non-noble ancestral documentation: how far back can you go?
I’ve been belatedly working to take all the images of old documents I’ve saved to Ancestry and convert them to "Sources" that their tree rating system will recognize. It’s made me interested in the earliest concrete dates I can fix for my decidedly non-noble ancestors.
So far, the oldest individual in my tree is a woman named Antonella di Micheli alias La Ferla, my 13th great-grandmother. I don’t know her maiden name or exact date of birth, but I found her (very hard to read) death record. She died on December 29, 1602 in Monreale at the age of 70.
Meanwhile, the earliest birth (well, baptismal) record I have is a 12th great-grandfather, Antonino Capizzi, who was baptized in Monreale onOctober 28, 1564. (I know his parents’ names, but nothing about their births or deaths.)
For some reason, I always figured that, before a certain time period, knowing someone’s exact dates of birth or death was only possible for the nobility or wealthy. I was super surprised to realize how far back I could go with confidence — not just in terms of knowing people’s names and relationships to one another, but exactly when they were born and died.
I’m curious to hear what other people’s experiences have been. What’s the oldest birthday (or death date) you could celebrate for one of your ordinary ancestors?