Two Misseri brothers lose their wifes and one of the brothers also loses a son all on the same day.
When doing family history research, sometimes you can find events that are all connected, but you may never know the full story of what happened. This is the case when I found an unknown and new "Misseri" to add to the family tree. I was using FamilySearch's "Full-Text" Search feature and during the process, I discovered a birth record for Salvatore Misseri born on 21 Oct 1887 in Carini, Italy.
The birth record says Salvatore died at birth, so naturally I decided to double-check to see if a death certificate was created for him (there wasn't). Many times, if I baby dies during childbirth or very shortly afterwards, the clerk would just make a note on the birth record that the infant died, which is exactly what happened with Salvatore Misseri in 1887.
But when I went looking for Salvatore's death certificate, I noticed that his mother, Antonia Gaetana Purpura, died on the same day he was born 21 Oct 1887. This happens sometimes; a mother and infant died because of complications during the birth. But what makes this story even more intriguing is that right below, on the same page, I saw another person with the surname of Purpura who died on 21 Oct 1887. It turns out to be Crocifissa Purpura, the older sister of Antonia Gaetana Purpura. And now to make the story even crazier, Crocifissa Purpura was married to Angelo Misseri who is the younger brother of Bernardo Misseri, the husband of Antonia Gaetano Purpura and the father of Salvatore Misseri.
Now back to the beginning of this article I mentioned connecting the dots but not knowing the full story. I wish I knew what happened that caused two adults and an infant all dying on the same day. The records can give you important clues but, unfortunately, they can't tell you the whole story.
A lesson learned through this research is that you need to stop and take some time to look at the other people on the page before and after the record you are researching. You never know what you might find.
The FamilySearch records are below.
Here is the birth record for Salvatore Misseri:
Here are the death records for Antonia Gaetana and Crocifissa Purpura:
