In the parish church archive in Boca, there exist some very old volumes.The oldest volume, which collects the most ancient dates available today, dates back to 1666. Unfortunately, it is in bad condition and reverend Giampiero Rovarino had to have much respect in using it.
The dimensions are out of the ordinary: inches 9.44x13.77. It is inches 2.36 in thickness. The documents, numbered, should be 284 and the pages should be 586. Unfortunately there are 30 pages missing, here and there (are they lost ? torn out ? by whom ?). The paper is very coarse, a bit spongy.
Naturally, everything is written in latin and rarely is it easy to read and understand. Time has faded many pages, all the writing is very dense !
The title however, also in latin, states the content of the book with clarity: In the book, divided in 4 parts, is written - of the parish church of St Gaudenzio in Boca -
- Those reborn by the sacred font (the baptized).
- Those annointed by the sacred confirmation (the confirmed).
- Those united in matrimony.
- Those deceased.
Every person is recorded with precise dates: the personal name, the family, day-month-year of birth, of baptism (confirmation, matrimony, death), the name of the parents and of godfather (or other witnesses). This first volume (others follow) collects the dates from 1666 to 1720. It is absolutely the most precious of the volumes that are conserved in Boca (those conserved at the town hall are from a century before). Previous documents do not exist because various armies (Spanish, French, Italian, German...) traveled through Boca around the middle of the 17th century and the old archives - at Boca and its outskirts - were burned by the raids of the soldiers.
And so this is why it is difficult, maybe impossible, to date back to the search of our genealogical tree.
