Fumone, population today 80 (yes 80) permanent residents.  Ancestry.com has more than 150 persons on its passenger lists giving Fumone as their place of origin.

Famous for its medieval castle and the Prison of Pope Celestino V, today it has boutiques and restaurants that live off the local and foreign tourists who come here for the amazing view and the chance to walk in a medieval town that is still full of atmosphere.

Fumone was part of the Vatican States and civil records here began in 1871 so we are here looking at parish records for Francesca Di Fede, whose civil birth record we have, and  who married into the Alviani family of Trivigliano.

Although there were two parishes originally most of the records are held at the Parish of Santa Maria Annunziata and date back to 1609 for marriages and baptisms. Death records go back only to 1819 which I found a little strange!  We are lucky today as the books are indexed from 1647 making our job much easier.

The records for the parish of San Michele Archangelo held in Santa Maria date from 1659- 1763 so the remainder must still be held in the parish itself.

As in many cases where two people from different towns marry our research stopped after a generation and we suspect we will find the family line in Trivigliano with her husband’s family.  The parish records did not confirm this but we did find the death records of Francesca’s parents and are now able to request civil records which will tell us their town of birth.  Then the journey will begin all over again.