https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/38439 Mon, 13 Apr 2026 04:11:30 GMT 2026-04-13T04:11:30Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18060 Title: Guide to searching Maltese ancestors Authors: Wyatt, H. V. Abstract: For much social, historical and medical research, a basic tool is the availability of data about the people. Malta is fortunate in the time-span and details of its records. Church records in Malta began in the sixteenth century and the government Public Registry [PR] started in 1863 so that searching for ancestors is possible. The records are complementary, but are also incomplete and frustrating. While in the past much historical research has looked at earlier times, I have assumed that the most useful period is from 1863 when the PR records give the occupation of the parties. The church records give details of consanguinity. Some useful and interesting information is provided with regards to genealogical studies in Malta. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18060 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18059 Title: Une forme d’acculturation de la communaute maltaise de Monastir : la consignation charaique du partage successoral du Maltais naturalise Anglais Francisco dit ‘chokkou fils de Paolo Cassar’ Authors: Regaya, Mourad Abstract: The present study is based on a nineteenth century unpublished notarial document discovered by chance. This records the activities of a Maltese merchant living in the coastal town of Monastir in Tunisia, naturalised English subject and named Fransisco, son of Paolo Cassar, and known as Chokkou [Cikku in Maltese – edit. note]. Most importantly, the recorded distribution of the estate in great detail has now allowed us to reveal several matters of primary importance: the successful integration of this merchant in his host town (Monastir); his marriage with Adélaide, a Jewish woman –which in itself is an an indication of the permeability of the Jewish community in relation to other social groups; the continous success in the consolidation of his welfare and interests through his matrimonial alliances both with the Maltese (Diacono, Debono) and the French (Carmélia Cassar married to Napoléon Sezoni, vice-consul of France in Monastir); the importance of foreclosures in the constitution of the Maltese patrimony by the end of the nineteenth Century. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18059 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18058 Title: The state of Maltese economy at the end of the eighteenth century : considerations based on the deeds of a local notary : Stefano Farrugia Authors: Marco, Elena di Abstract: After 268 years under the Order of St. John, in June 1798 Malta was taken by Napoleon’s Republican soldiers in less than a week and General Bonaparte clearly showed his genius, reorganizing the administration of the country. These events have inevitably attracted the attention of several scholars, who have studied the entire Maltese administrative apparatus during the brief French rule on the island, without however going into financial details. As a matter of fact, two years (the length of the ‘French period’ in Malta) are not enough to properly assess the economic balance of a state. A few historians have tried to analyse the Maltese economy both under the Knights and under the British government, but no one has consulted notaries’ documents as a key primary source for reconstructing the economic and social history of Malta during the French regime. In actual fact, notarial contracts allow researchers easy access to large amounts of relevant data, which provide historical evidence of economic and social life. I have already adopted this research methodology to create an outline of the financial market of Udine (a city in the north-east of Italy) during the first Austrian rule (1798-1805); my findings have been revealing, since they anticipated the “land revolution”, so called by Carlo Zaghi, who was the first to use this definition and after him many other historians, by stating that the massive transfer of the nobility’s estates to the emerging middle class was determined by the radical changes introduced by Napoleon. In my study I demonstrated that, although undoubtedly promoted by the French, it was actually the result of a long process of transformation, which started before the Napoleonic rule. As will be shown in this paper the Maltese vicissitudes fit in perfectly with this historical picture. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18058 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18057 Title: Les Francais d'Algerie cinquante ans apres : l'histoire a l'epreuve de la fiction Authors: Spiteri, Richard Abstract: Algerian independence in 1962 sparked in that country a mass exodus of Biblical proportions of French Europeans. This paper purports to survey how Pieds-Noirs fare in French fiction literature today, that is a half century after these dramatic events. Despite Evelyne Sellés-Fischer’s lament that children of Pieds-Noirs eschew any interest about the life their families led in French North Africa, in fiction literature the situation is totally different. French readers are spoilt for choice between sagas of Pieds-Noirs families, political novels, romans à these, memory novels, memoirs about the return to the land of birth and mention must be made of the plethora of autobiographical works by Pieds-Noirs. Perhaps the most remarkable of Pieds-Noirs authors of Maltese lineage is Pierre Dimech born in Algiers. The writings of Dimech bear witness to the resilience of an author who turned the trauma of 1962 into a blessing after his discovery of the land of birth of his ancestors, that is the Maltese islands. Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/18057 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z