Giovanni (Giuseppe Salvatore) Ruffinu

This article provides a reconstruction of evidence from Nule and Ozieri to establish the identity of our ancestor, the father of Giovanni Maria (Giomaria) Ruffinu. I make the claims in this article without proof, but assert them as the most logical interpretation of the available evidence. Its basic claim is that our ancestor appearing as Giuseppe Salvatore Ruffinu in Ozieri is in fact a man named Giovanni Ruffinu born in Nule.

The Nule "matricola" records from the 1830s-1850s (see thumbnails to the right) indicate that Luigi Ruffinu, muratore and Grazia Coloru had a son named Giovanni born c. 1825. Giovanni appears in those records year after year until disappearing after the 1851 entries. That sequence of household records contains no son of Luigi named Giuseppe Salvatore.

The following year, in Ozieri in 1852, a man named Giuseppe Salvatore Ruffinu (explicitly described as the son of Luigi Ruffinu and Grazia Coloru from Nule) marries Mattia Culeddu. This is the last year in which Luigi's family appears in the Nule "matricola" records. We may guess, then, that Giovanni left Nule c. 1851 for Ozieri, and that his family followed him the following year.

In 1855, the Ozieri baptism records record the baptism of Antonio Francesco Ruffinu, whose mother is Mattia Culeddu. This baptism record originally gave Antonio's father's name as Giuseppe Salvatore, but this is corrected to Giovanni. In 1857, the Ozieri baptism records record the baptism of Giovanni Maria (Giomaria) Ruffinu, whose mother is Mattia Culeddu and whose father's name is given as Giuseppe Salvatore.

In 1860, when Luigi Ruffinu alienates some of his land in Nule to his children, Giovanna, Nicolo and Gio Antonio, Giovanni (Giuseppe Salvatore) is not part of this transaction.

Giuseppe Salvatore is named as Giovanni Maria’s father in the publication of the latter’s marriage to Pietruccia Lai.

I cannot find Giuseppe Salvatore in Ozieri's Italian civil death indices, which indicates that he died before 1866, or did not die in Ozieri. Indeed, I see no adult male Ruffinu dying in Ozieri at all, only children. Could he have died in Nughedu? I did not find him in the cemetery there during a visit in 2007.

Antonio Francesco had at least six children, Giovanna, Matteo, Pietro, Caterina, Pietro and Pietruccia. The latter’s daughter married Achille Deledda, whom we met in Ozieri in March, 2007. Achille’s children are therefore be descendants of our ancestors.

Giovanni married Mattia Culeddu.

Children from this marriage were:

Giovanni Maria (Giomaria) Ruffinu (*).

Antonio Francesco Ruffinu was born circa 1855 in Ozieri.