The Defranceschi Archive
The house at Gologorica, built in 1711, with the builder's tablet over its door.
A family history, kept honestly

Six generations back, a stonemason on an Istrian hill.

Istria · Kvarner · Carnia · and the diaspora — a family written down under eight sovereigns, in four languages, and spelled at least nine ways.

This archive was built by David Defranceski, born in Johannesburg, living in Brisbane — and it runs backwards from him: to Senj, where his grandfather Ivan is buried; to Crikvenica, where the household came ashore; to Gračišće in Istria, where in 1863 a stonecutter's son called Josephus was baptised; and to the mountains of Carnia, where the family says it began and where the documents run out.

It is a public archive with one rule: a living person is named and nothing more — no dates, no places, no photographs. It used to say they were left out altogether, which stopped being true the day the blood-relatives chart drew the living generation in Brisbane. And a second rule, which is harder: every claim says how well it is known. Documented Inferred Family lore

Read the main story

Nine chapters, 1679 to Brisbane — the line this archive descends from, told once, in order, with the document behind every claim. The other three families have pages of their own.

Start at Mione →
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The family tree, openable generation by generation — or search 2,466 people, places, records and plates at once.

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See where it happened

Every place the archive can put a document in, on one map — from the Gorto valley to the Wimmera.

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Seven families, one surname

Where each of them came from, and where each of them went

They are not one family and they never were. They arrive from different directions for different reasons — one for work, one as soldiers paid off in ruined land, one as refugees off a wrecked fleet, and two that the registers hold for generations without ever saying where they came from. And the last of them, drawn dashed at the foot, never came to Istria at all: a fully documented family of the same name that runs from a poor cape in Corsica to the Caribbean, put beside the others so it can be told apart from them.

Seven families of one surname, and the road each of them took Out of Carnia, for work documented Nine chapters → Senj — Antonio's brother's line, up the coast. Nine graves in the town cemetery and a shipping family — the same Carnian stock as Crikvenica, one headland further north. Senj Germany — Pfullingen — Ivan, born Crikvenica 1925, taken to work in the Reich and issued papers at Pfullingen in Württemberg. The line's hinge: everything after 1945 leaves from here. Germany — Pfullingen Australia — The post-war emigration out of Yugoslavia, and the one destination where the surname is still spelt three different ways inside one family. Australia South Africa — Johannesburg. Thirteen of the seventeen people on earth who spell it Defranceski are here — an English clerk's spelling that became the family's own. South Africa United States — Two separate arrivals: the Eleven of Gračišće sending Basilio to Jackson Heights, and the older Istrian emigration to the mines. United States Argentina — Rotilio, eighth of the Eleven, is said to have gone to Buenos Aires with two daughters. Searched in September 2026 and not found — and the album’s one supporting detail, his wife’s name, turns out to be his sister’s marriage. The register has him at Gračišće, marrying, in 1928. Weaker than it was. Argentina Mione · 1679 — A De Franceschi of Mione on the headmen's list, working in the County of Pazin. The roster also holds eight people of the name at Paluzza, one valley east in the same Carnia — unworked, and the nearest thing this archive has to a second door into the Val di Gorto Mione 1679 Pazin · 1740 — The County of Pazin itself — Pisino, the Habsburg island inside Venetian Istria and the jurisdiction the 1679 Mione man was working in. Kobler has a Giovanni Battista reaching Fiume from this county intorno al 1740; the town's own books run from 1582 and have never been opened here. One accepted record sits at Pisino on no lane at all Pazin 1740 Moncalvo · 1661 — The surname enters the Moncalvo di Pisino baptism book Moncalvo 1661 Gologorica · 1711 — ANNO · DOMNI · 1711 cut over the door of the house Gologorica 1711 Gračišće · 1787 — Joannes Baptista, farmer of house 5 — the line's earliest dated ancestor Gračišće 1787 Poreč · 1800s — Named in this line's own route description for a year before it was ever drawn on it: ten register entries, eight of them accepted, and twenty-one more people on the roster. Parenzo is where the inland parishes reach the western coast. Poreč 1800s Crikvenica · 1892 — The stonecutter's son comes down to the coast between 1892 and 1894 Crikvenica 1892 Svetvinčenat — the castle the name never left documented 1628–1791 · origin inferred Carnian The Svetvinčenat line → Ližnjan — The castle was the head of that line until 28 September 2026. Whether the southern-Istrian group descends from these households, or they are a separate stock of the name, is the open question this archive split the lines apart to stop answering by accident. ⭐ The southern-Istria lane's own first node IS Svetvinčenat, 1657 — so the two are already drawn touching; what is NOT drawn, because it is not known, is descent. Ližnjan Elena · 1628 — The parish's real first page. Alì 21 Decembre / Elena fiola di Fran.co de Franceschi — the earliest dated Istrian occurrence this archive holds, and two sweeps had already read past it Elena 1628 Nadal & Batta · 1666 — M.ro Nadal de Franceschi and M.ro Batta de Franceschi baptising six weeks apart, both styled Maestro, and the godparents around them are the Carnian colony. Artisan, and rising Nadal & Batta 1666 Vittorio · 1674 — Eight years on the same register calls one of them il Signor — the same family, a different word Vittorio 1674 Pascasia · 1737–1759 — Four households of the name baptising at the castle at once — Jacobo × Pascasia, Matteo × Francisca, Pietro × Jacoba and Vittorio × Dominica, with Gasparo × Maria beside them. Jacobo × Pascasia, Matteo × Francisca, Pietro × Jacoba, Vittorio × Dominica, with Gasparo × Maria beside them. Read frame by frame through the fifteen years no index reaches; none of them is in any index anywhere Pascasia 1737–1759 Elena & Fusca · 1766–1773 — The daughters marry out. Elena to a Santalezza of the Albona territory, Fusca to a Jacomini of Parenzo — and a Corva dà Cargna marrying in. The sons stayed Elena & Fusca 1766–1773 Last leaf · 1791 — The last leaf the filmed baptism books reach. Where the filmed baptism books stop. The marriages run on to 1858 and the deaths to 1917, both unread Last leaf 1791 Out of southern Istria — origin unknown documented from 1657 · at Ližnjan from 1815 · origin still not found The Ližnjan page → Zagreb — Grga died here, and thirteen graves of the name are in the city's cemeteries — the largest single concentration in Croatia. Zagreb Monheim — A line drawn on a map years ago from Ližnjan to Monheim, with no note, no date and no name. Corrected in September 2026: the coordinates point at Bavaria, but the town that matters is Monheim am Rhein — and the only private listing of Defranceski in the whole German directory is five kilometres away at Langenfeld. Still lore. No longer sourceless. Monheim United States — Southern-Istrian emigration, separate from the Gračišće one and never yet joined to it. United States France — Two born at Barban in 1924 who died in France — the clearest documented exit from this cluster. France Svetvinčenat · 1657 — Corrected in September 2026: the entries this archive read as Pula 1667 are from the Svetvinčenat register, DGS 005497884. That parish carries the surname from 1657 under twelve different fathers — and everyone who has studied it calls its De Franceschi Carnian. Svetvinčenat 1657 Pula · 1659 — Sixty-three indexed entries between 1659 and 1894 and twenty-three volumes of parish book from 1613, and until today this town was on no lane on this chart. Carlo's book names Franceschi among the noble families of Pola venuti da Capodistria before the plague of 1631. The register writes it as both Pola and Pula, which is why it went missing twice Pula 1659 Fažana · 1770 — Forty-two records and not one of them another family — a cleaner return than any Istrian parish but Ližnjan. Two households: Vittorio × Stella Tamborin and Giuseppe × Giovanna Beluzzi. Natale Mattio, Elisabetta and Irene, whom this archive listed under Pula, are all baptised here Fažana 1770 Premantura · 1809 — A Maria Defranceski at Premantura, and again in 1859 Premantura 1809 Barban · 1924 — Two born here who died in France Barban 1924 Ližnjan · 1815 — ⭐⭐⭐ CORRECTED 12 October 2026 — this node said 1931 and it was out by 116 years. The old note was right that 1931 was a death year and not a Ližnjan date; what nobody had done was open the parish's own books. Ližnjan Liber Copulatorum, page 1, entry 2 — the second marriage the book ever records: 12 Novembre 1815, house 17, Mario de Franceschi deto Marulin di Antonio, aged 21, celibes, to Maddalena Percouich di Antonio. He was born about 1794 and his father was Antonio. He died in the same house in 1839 — Mattio Franceschi d.to Marulin, agr., ann. 40 — with the byname written on him a second time, in a different book and a different hand. Three generations now stand in a row from these books: Antonio → Mattio detto Marulin (m. 1815, d. 1839) → Antonius (b. 1819, m. 1861). Eleven people of the name are in the burial register alone. Ližnjan 1815 Out of Venice, as soldiers documented The Imotski page → Opačac — The spring at the head of the Vrljika, and the mills the Republic paid Zuane with in 1717. Franceschi property into living memory. Opačac Split — Where the Dalmatian family is today, the particle stripped off by Napoleonic decree — which is why the descendants of a count are called Franceschi. Split Venice — Cittadini originari of the Republic Venice — Zadar · 1359 — Louis I grants nobiles regni Croacie; the family is at Zadar from the 14th century Zadar 1359 Omiš · 1584 — Francesco the Venetian lays the foundations of his house on 18 June 1584 Omiš 1584 Imotski · 1717 — Zuane takes the town and is paid in ruined land on the Vrljika Imotski 1717 Perinuša · 1722 — The mills: six wheels, then eleven, then fourteen Perinuša 1722 Out of Crete, as refugees documented The Seget page → Umag — The town the Seget estate belongs to, the parish church with the arms on a canvas of 1650, and the family tomb with its ironwork dated 1890. Umag Brtonigla — Verteneglio. The second of the western-Istrian holdings, and part of the same estate world as Seget. Brtonigla Koper — Capodistria — where a Venetian war pension out of Crete was ordered to be drawn in 1730, probably because the family was already living at Seghetto. Koper Candia · 1500 — Nicolò castellan of Castel Milopotamo; the family noble in Crete Candia 1500 Taken off · 1669 — ⚠ CORRECTED 12 October 2026. This node read the fleet is wrecked in a storm and the lane called it documented. Five sources on the evacuation were read and not one mentions a wreck. The contemporary relation of the Grand Master of Malta describes the opposite — a negotiated embarkation over 22 days, the Grand Vizier granting extensions and offering to forward the luggage; about 12,000 people left Candia. Morosini surrendered on 5 September 1669, without the Senate's authorisation, and had already decided the refugees would be settled in the uninhabited places of the Adriatic — which is how this family reached this coast. ⚠ The wreck may be family tradition, or a slide from the real Venetian fleet lost in a storm at Psara, 17–18 March 1648 (17 galleys, Grimani drowned), twenty-one years earlier. The whole story is on /seget/. Taken off 1669 Zante · 1670s — Zorzi de Franceschi goes from Candia to Zante Zante 1670s Šibenik · 1674 — and from Zante to Sebenico, drawing a Venetian war pension Šibenik 1674 Seget · 1720 — Marc'Antonio buys the estate; 1724 on the portal, 1732 on the cistern Seget 1720 Vodnjan — five generations, read by eye documented · marriage register indexed nowhere The Vodnjan page → The Poreč hinterland — Kaštelir, Vižinada, Šterna, Tar and Draguč — five parishes in the country behind Poreč and Buje, carrying the name between them on about sixty entries across the register and the roster, with Kaštelir the densest at twenty-seven. No lane on this chart runs through any of them. It is the largest piece of Istria the archive can document and cannot yet explain. The Poreč hinterland Rovinj — Ob.to di Matt.o de Franceschi da Dignano, buried at Rovinj on 27 December 1728 — and in the 1840s Bona Defranceschi, daughter of Dominicus and Oliva Dorligurro, marrying there. The town-name is written down only from outside the town. Rovinj Šišan — A wedding at Sissano in January 1824 witnessed by Pietro De Franceschi di Gio., da Dignano, Tessitore. Šišan Svetvinčenat — Ant.o De Franceschi fu Vittorio witnessing at a wedding held by the archpriest at Sanvicenti in 1826. Recorded as a coincidence of the page and not claimed as a link. Svetvinčenat Pietro · 1770s — Named only in his son's patronymic — Gio. Maria De Franceschi fu Pietro. The oldest man in the line, standing behind a marriage of the 1770s Pietro 1770s Gio. Maria · by 1818 — × Michiela Zambaletta fu Cristoforo. Both dead by 1830, and neither appears in any baptism register on any film this archive can reach Gio. Maria by 1818 Pietro · 1818 — Born about 1776; widower of Veniera Francin, remarries Lorenza Tesser on 30 March 1818 — the first entry this archive found in the book Pietro 1818 Gio: Maria · 1821 — Born about 1799; marries Lucia Bonassin on 9 June 1821, and the entry names his father, grandfather and great-grandfather Gio: Maria 1821 Giuseppe · 1833 — The other household: Giuseppe × Lucia Tromba, parents of Don Stefano the priest, Pietro the ploughman, Cristoforo the weaver and Maria Francesca Giuseppe 1833 Out of Corsica — never in Istria documented · not this family The namesakes → Puerto Rico — Where Napoleón Franceschi's own history takes the Cap Corse family. Not ours, and the page says so. Puerto Rico St Thomas — The Danish West Indies leg of the Corsican trading diaspora. St Thomas Trinidad — The same movement again — Cap Corse to the Caribbean, by sea and by trade. Trinidad Venezuela — Where the Corsican line ends up, and where its own historian wrote it down. No contact with Istria at any point. Venezuela Ersa · 1694 — Pietro Franceschi, 29 June 1694 – 12 February 1771, the first generation on Cap Corse Ersa 1694 Gasparo · 1721 — Gasparo Franceschi, 1721–1799, the second generation Gasparo 1721 Francesco M. · 1750 — Francesco Maria Franceschi, 1750–1828 Francesco M. 1750 Simone · 1826 — Simone Franceschi, born and dead at Ersa, 1826–1907; married Caroline Mattei Simone 1826 Kobler's Giovanni Battista — Contea di Pisino to Fiume, «intorno al 1740» — a candidate join, on evidence short of a document Kobler's Giovanni Battista — Contea di Pisino to Fiume, «intorno al 1740» Medulin — the tree puts the 1815 groom and his son here; the registers put them at Ližnjan — a candidate join, on evidence short of a document Medulin — the tree puts the 1815 groom and his son here; the registers put them at Ližnjan The 1660s godparent circle is Carnian, and Kandler lists Carnian families settled at Sanvincenti — company kept, not a document of arrival — a candidate join, on evidence short of a document The 1660s godparent circle is Carnian, and Kandler lists Carnian families settled at Sanvincenti — company kept, not a document of arrival Real households of the name — not yet placed on any of these lines Rijeka — Fiume, Vitipolis — The largest concentration of the name this archive holds outside Vodnjan, and it was hidden in plain sight: the index writes this one city under three different names — Fiume (52 records), Vitipolis (45) and Rijeka (9). Vitipolis is Latin for the city of Saint Vitus, after Terra Fluminis Sancti Viti, the river of St Vitus whose cathedral stands there. 106 records in all, 22 of them accepted — though 65 are spelt Francetich and only 20 Defranceschi, so most of the pile is a Croatian surname that may be nobody's. Kobler found three separate stocks in the civic registers and refused to join them to one another. One — Valentino, venuto dalla Carnia, a citizen in 1739 — is almost certainly the Carnian family. The other two are not placed. Read on the register, 20 September 2026, and one of the three is no longer a guess. Valentino's marriage entry of 28 February 1737 calls him D.num Valentinum de Franceschi ex Carnia in the clerk's own hand — two years before the citizenship, and no longer only Kobler's word. A second household then surfaced on the same film: Joannes Baptista × Magdalena, whose son Josephus Aloysius, born 24 May 1748, is almost certainly the Giuseppe who heads the Rijeka chain. That is the household the dotted line points at, because Kobler's correspondent claimed a Giovanni Batt. De Franceschi venuto dalla Contea di Pisino… intorno al 1740 for the Gologorica family — this archive's own. The bridge is drawn dotted because nothing joins them yet: the test is Magdalena's maiden name, and it is in the County of Pazin's books, not Fiume's. Rijeka — Fiume, Vitipolis Medulin — Medolino — ⭐⭐ 1825 CONFIRMS THE NIL FROM A SECOND DIRECTION. Slaven Bertoša's study of the Pula confirmation lists of October 1825 (Državni arhiv u Pazinu, Elenco Cresimati 245) prints the surnames village by village. Medulin's seventeen are Cukon, De Marin, Garbin, Gasparin, Grakalić, Jukopila, Kirac, Lavrić, Lazarić, Lorencin, Marinović, Mihaljević, Misdaris, Privrat, Radošević, Rakić, Vojnić — every one of them a name read off the Medulin death register, and no Defranceschi among them. A register and a confirmation roll, independently, say the same thing. ⚠ But the same lists put the name four kilometres away: De Franceschi stands at Premantura and at Fažana in 1825 — both already stops on the southern-Istrian lane. ⚠ A LEAD, NOT A FACT, on why Medulin's registers read the way they do. A 2025 article claims Morlach families were transported from Dalmatia to Orcevano near Medulin in 1612. If true it would explain the solid wall of Croatian patronymics in the books below — a planted population. It gives no archival reference, its onomastics are speculative, and it misplaces Zeta. To be verified in the Provincial Archive of Istria before it is believed. ⭐⭐⭐ AND A SECOND, A WOMAN. Page 33, 16 November 1873: Maria (Defranceschi) Ant. Verinic uxor, aged 78 — a Defranceschi daughter married into Medulin, born about 1795. The brackets are the scribe's maiden-name convention and the next line proves it: Maria (Vrinic q. Nic.) vid. Georgii Lorenzin. So the name reached Medulin by marriage even though no Defranceschi household stands in the parish's own books — which is the daughters' villages pattern already tracked at Pomer, Krbune, Galižana and Labin. Three Defranceschi of one generation now stand around these two villages: the Ližnjan groom of 1815 (b. ~1794), the soldier who died here in 1833 (b. ~1793), and Maria (b. ~1795). ⭐⭐⭐ 12 OCTOBER, LATER STILL — THE NAME IS IN A MEDULIN REGISTER AFTER ALL. The deaths book Liber Defunctorum (HDA inv. br. 158), page 12, year 1833, entry 43: Mathæus Defranceschi q. Ant. fil. miles — son of a dead Antonio, a soldier — died 19 December 1833, aged 40, of chronicus morb[us]. Forty in December 1833 means born about 1793, which is the year the family tree already carried for him. A man this archive held as tree-only, with no document behind him, is now in a register. ⚠ It is a VERIFICATION, not a discovery, and the difference matters. His roster row already carried the ark 3:1:3QS7-L99X-KCP6 — the very frame the entry is on. The lead was in this archive's own data and nobody had opened it. ⚠⚠ HE IS NOT THE LIŽNJAN MAN. The deto Marulin groom of 1815 was still alive to be buried at Ližnjan in 1839, an agricola; this man was dead by December 1833, and a soldier. Two Mattheuses, each son of an Antonio, four kilometres apart, both dying at forty, six years apart — the exact shape of a false join, and it is refused. ⭐⭐ MEDULIN — raised by David on 12 October 2026, and the archive cannot yet answer it. Medolino is Medulin, five kilometres down the cape from Ližnjan. Two things point there and neither is proof. First, the only two people this roster places at Medulin are tree-only — Mattheus Defranceschi b. 1793 d. 1833 and Antonio Defranceschi b. 1819 — and those dates are the Ližnjan founders: the 1815 groom was 21, so born about 1794, and the baptism book has an Antonio born 15 September 1819. The tree says Medulin; the registers say Ližnjan; nobody has opened a Medulin register to adjudicate. Second, the 1861 Ližnjan marriage of Antonius Defranceski gives his bride as Fosca nata Lazarić … nata e Medolino — so traffic between the two parishes is proved, in that direction at least. ✔ 12 OCTOBER, LATER THE SAME DAY — THE OLDEST OF THE FOUR BOOKS IS NOW READ END TO END, AND THE NAME IS NOT IN IT. All 24 frames of Rođenih 1648–1649, vjenčanih 1666–1704 (waypoint 9R29-T3D, Arhiv JAZU Sign. VIII-158, film roll 24 item 2) rendered at native resolution and looked at. Not one Defranceschi. What is there instead is the finding: Medulin in these years is a village of Croatian patronymics and nothing else — Radonovich, Micaglievich, Gracalich, Grubisich, Golemovich, Stefanelich, Marinovich, Surionich and thirty more. The only Italian names in the whole book are the clergy and one gentleman godfather. There is no Italian-surnamed household at Medulin at all between 1666 and 1705. ⭐⭐ But the book settles the place-name, in the parish's own hand. D. Pietro Binussi Piev.o di MEDULINO — the incumbent styling his own cure — and Io Piero, Pre di MEDOLIN, 23 November 1666. Medolino is Medulin, and that is now the parish's own word for it, not an inference. ⭐⭐ And Ližnjan is all over this book from 1666 — ten times. Godparents da Lisigna, a bride married in from Ližnjan in 1671, and Io Pre Ant.o de Lorenzin, PIEV. DI LISIGNAN officiating a marriage recorded in the MEDULIN book on 9 October 1666. The two parishes' priests served each other's altars. Traffic between these two villages is not a hypothesis; it is a documented habit a hundred and fifty years before the 1815 marriage. And Lazarich — the 1861 bride's own surname — stands here as a Medulin family in 1701 and 1705. ⚠ Two openings were NOT read: frames 21 and 22 carry GLAGOLITIC pages, and this archive cannot read the script. They are unread, not nil. ⚠ And Medulin's births begin only in 1801, so a man born about 1794 is in no surviving Medulin birth register — which is the structural point below, unchanged. ⚠ The FamilySearch index puts only FOUR records of the name in Medulin's four books — which is evidence of very little, because the index demonstrably misses entries the page carries, and this archive's own harvest of it was cut short by a rate limit on exactly the field married-out daughters live in. One of the four names a Tomas Defranceschi who appears nowhere else here. ⚠ Why it matters structurally: Ližnjan's books begin in 1815 and the first Defranceschi in them is a twenty-one-year-old marrying in — those volumes cannot say where he came from. Medulin's marriages run 1666–1704 (waypoint 9R29-T3D, 24 frames), which is the only register in reach that predates the question. Its births start only in 1801, so a man born about 1794 is not in them. None of Medulin's four books — 193 frames — has ever been opened by this archive.** Medulin — Medolino Kaštelir and Tar — No longer a scatter. Read by image rather than by place text, Vižinada, Kaštelir and Tar hold the same people: Giulio De Franceschi × Maria Ceselin, whose son Francesco Napoleone is baptised at Vižinada in 1818 and buried from Kaštelir's register decades later, and Angelus × Lucia-Antonia Rodella, whose son Julius is baptised at Kaštelir in January 1866 and buried at Tar in March 1870, aged four. One family across three parishes, joined by name and date rather than by any document naming two of them at once — so it is still off every lane, but it is no longer unexplained. Kaštelir and Tar Dubrovnik — Ragusa — Fifty-six records, and until today no page at all. The city parish and Pile outside the western gate carry more of the name than any Dalmatian place but Omiš, and not one of those records writes Dubrovnik in its place field — they were found through the films their images sit on. A Marietta Defranceschi, daughter of a Pietro, marries a Matteo Persich and baptises children in the city in 1863 and 1871. Ragusa was a separate republic with its own patriciate; nothing joins this to the Venetian line at Zadar and Omiš, and it will not be joined on the strength of a shared surname. Dubrovnik — Ragusa The daughters' villages — Pomer, Krbune, Medulin, Galižana, Labin — five parishes that hold no De Franceschi child at all, only De Franceschi mothers. Lucia × Matthaeus Lazar at Pomer, six children 1870–1884. Mariana × Vincentius Marziol at Krbune, in the County of Pazin. Dominica × Antonius Zustovich at Labin, five children 1853–1866. Catharina × Antonio Micoli at Barban — and the same couple at Vižinada eight years earlier. The surname keeps its sons and loses its daughters; these are the villages it lost them to. The daughters' villages Sovinjak — A hill parish above Buzet holding two burials and nothing else: Zuane Franceschi in 1759, son of Gio Batta Franceschi, and Sebastiano De Franceschi, born and buried on 6 August 1783, son of Gio Battista De Franceschi. Twenty-four years and one Christian name apart — a father twice bereaved, or a grandfather's name coming round again. Sovinjak is not one of the parishes in the filmed collection this archive has walked, so the question stands open on the page rather than closed in a book. (Draguč, named alongside it here yesterday as equally unfilmed, is filmed — three volumes — and holds none of the name at all.) Sovinjak Bakar — Twelve people, one household across three generations, from before 1772 to a death in 1819 — Dominus Giovanni Battista son of Dominus Francesco, styled Dominus, a citizen-class family. Nothing on the page ties them to Gologorica, to Gračišće, or to Kobler's Fiume stocks, and this archive will not join a fourth household to them on the strength of two common Christian names. Bakar Rovinj — The earliest dated Istrian record this archive holds — morì ser Piero di Franceschi da Pola, 27 May 1619 — plus a Rovinj household across three generations from Giacomo to Piero Anto in 1736. Neither is joined to any lane. It is also where Carlo De Franceschi was married at his own bedside in 1852. Rovinj Attached to no line here — a different stock of a very common name Brazil — The largest cluster of the surname anywhere — Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo. Veneto and Trentino, not Istrian: the in-law names are Marcato, Busatto, Poletta, Raminelli, Barbiero, Negri, Catteri, Facco. Brazil Ticino — Italian-speaking Switzerland, over the border from Lombardy. A different stock of the same ordinary patronymic. Ticino Michigan — Domme De Franceski, born in Italy 1880, at the Penn Iron Mining Company at Norway, Michigan, with a wife born in Switzerland. Nothing joins him to Istria. Michigan — the commonest patronymic in Italy
Click or tab any dot — the stops tell you what the document behind them says, and the destinations on the right tell their own story and link to it. Click a second time to go there.
The teal river is the one this archive descends from, and the only one that arrived on foot looking for work. The green river at the foot is drawn dashed because it never came to Istria at all — a fully documented family of the same name that goes from Cap Corse to the Caribbean, put here so that a Franceschi found in Puerto Rico or Caracas can be seen for what they are. A dotted end-point means the attachment is family lore, not a document — Argentina hangs off Carnia only on the word of a reunion album, and Monheim is a pin on a map. A dotted curve drawn across the picture is a candidate join, on evidence short of a document, and there are three: Kobler’s Giovanni Battista reaching Fiume from the County of Pazin, Ližnjan reaching Medulin down the road, and the Carnian godparents standing at Svetvinčenat. Under the rule, directly below the line this archive descends from, are the households it will not pretend to have placed: eight real, documented households of the name that belong to nobody yet — Rijeka, Medulin, Kaštelir and Tar, Dubrovnik, the daughters’ villages, Sovinjak, Bakar and Rovinj. Brazil, Ticino and Michigan, below them again, are somebody else’s entirely.

The seven families, the eight households still unplaced, and which diaspora belongs to whom →

Eight hundred years, four countries, seven families

What they were living under, and what they were up against

The ancestral places do not share a past. Gologorica was Habsburg from 1374 and Italian between the wars; Senj was never Italian at all; Mione was Venetian for three hundred and seventy-seven years. Red above the lanes is the people of the name. Ochre below is the wars, plagues, treaties and regime changes they were lived through. Hover or tab any marker and it tells you what it is.

Family events 1185 — Mione first recorded, 15 June 1199 — Gračišće first recorded 1288 — Vinodol Law codified at Novi 1412 — Frankopan grants the Crikvenica monastery to the Paulines 1486 — Bishop Paskazije of Pićan consecrates the Gračišće chapel in his birthplace 1511 — A Gorto man buys a share in a weaving shop at Motovun 1540 — Carlevariis of Luincis dictates his will at Pićan 1582 — Pazin baptisms begin — the oldest register in the county 1590 — Gaspar de Franceschi, warship owner at Omiš 1617 — Uskoks expelled from Senj 1644 — Gologorica baptism register begins 1667 — Gračišće baptism register begins 1679 — Zuane De Franceschi of Mione, weaver in the County of Pazin 1711 — De Franceschi house built on the Gologorica square 1715 — Zuane Ivan Franceschi shelters 600 Imotski refugees 1717 — Imotski taken; the Perinuša estate granted 1739 — Valentino Defranceschi, from Carnia, made a citizen of Fiume 1740 — Giovanni Battista Defranceschi arrives from the County of Pazin 1775 — First Gračišće status animarum 1786 — Joseph II dissolves the Pauline order at Crikvenica 1806 — Napoleonic decree strips the nobiliary ‘de’ in Dalmatia 1809 — Carlo De Franceschi born at Moncalvo, 16 October 1848 — Carlo elected deputy for Pisino to the Imperial Constituent Parliament 1854 — Carlo expelled from the imperial magistrature as 'a known apostle of Mazzini' 1868 — Camillo De Franceschi born at Parenzo, 3 August 1890 — Camillo sentenced to two years for irredentist activity 1920 — Treaty of Rapallo — Istria to Italy 1945 — 25 Defranceschi families counted in Istria, 1 October 1956 — The exodus is largely complete Central Istria Gologorica Aquileia · Gorizia Habsburg — County of Pazin Austria–Hungary Italy Yugoslavia Croatia Southern Istria Pula, Svetvinčenat Patriarchate of Aquileia · communes Republic of Venice Austria — Küstenland, diocese of Pola Italy Yugoslavia Croatia Senj & Vinodol Senj, Crikvenica Frankopan lords Croatian crown → Habsburg Military Frontier Yugoslavia Croatia Carnia, Friuli Mione, Ovaro Patriarchate of Aquileia Republic of Venice Austria Kingdom of Italy → Italian Republic Dalmatia Omiš, Imotski Croatian–Hungarian crown Republic of Venice Austria–Hungary Yugoslavia Croatia scale expands → 12001400160018001850190019502000 What they were up against 1348 — The Black Death reaches Istria and Dalmatia. Whole villages of the interior are abandoned; the depopulation is what later pulls in settlers from the mountains and the Balkans. 1382 — Trieste puts itself under the Habsburgs. The line between Venetian and Austrian Istria begins to harden into the border this family will spend four centuries either side of. 1420 — Venice takes Friuli and coastal Istria from the Patriarch of Aquileia. Carnia becomes Venetian; the County of Pazin stays Habsburg. 1463 — The Ottomans take Bosnia. Raiding parties begin to reach Istria within a generation. 1493 — Krbava Field. In the same year Imotski falls to the Ottomans, and stays theirs for 224 years. 1508 — The War of the League of Cambrai. Venice and the Habsburgs fight it out across Istria itself, village by village. 1511 — Plague, earthquake and war together. Venetian Istria is so emptied that the Republic begins organised resettlement. 1615 — The War of Gradisca — the Uskok War. Venice against Austria, fought on precisely the frontier that runs between Gologorica and Svetvinčenat. 1630 — The great plague of northern Italy. Manzoni's plague; it reaches the head of the Adriatic. 1669 — Candia falls. Crete is lost after twenty-one years of siege, and refugees come west — the migration the Umag family's own tradition claims. 1714 — The Ottomans declare war on Venice. The Republic loses the whole Peloponnese in a hundred days. 1717 — The Venetian offensive in Dalmatia. Imotski and Vrgorac are taken. 1718 — Passarowitz. The Dalmatian frontier drawn now is, with adjustments, the Croatian–Bosnian border today. 1788 — Joseph II suppresses the bishopric of Pedena. The lease the Gologorica family had held from every bishop since about 1700 simply ceases to exist. 1797 — Campoformio. Venice is extinguished after a thousand years, and Istria and Dalmatia pass to Austria. 1806 — The French. The Illyrian Provinces; the nobiliary de struck off by decree; conscription, land taxes and roads. 1815 — The Congress of Vienna restores Austria. It will hold this coast for a hundred and three years. 1848 — Revolution across the Empire. An Istrian Diet is convened; Carlo is elected to Vienna and comes home a marked man. 1866 — Austria loses Venetia. Italian irredentism sharpens, and the Adriatic lands become the object of it. 1882 — The Oberdan affair at Trieste. Irredentist politics turns to conspiracy, and the police files thicken. 1914 — The First World War. The Isonzo front is fifty miles from Gologorica; Istrian conscripts go to Galicia and to Salonika. 1918 — Austria–Hungary dissolves. Italian troops occupy Istria and the Kvarner within weeks. 1920 — The Treaty of Rapallo. Istria, Zadar and the islands become Italian; Sušak and the coast do not. 1922 — Fascism. From 1927 Croatian schools in Istria are closed and Slavic surnames are Italianised by decree. 1943 — Italy capitulates in September. The Germans occupy the Adriatic Littoral; the partisan war and the first reprisals follow. 1945 — Yugoslavia takes Istria. Summary killings, the foibe, and the beginning of the exodus. 1947 — The Paris peace treaty gives Istria to Yugoslavia. The Free Territory of Trieste is created and does not work. 1954 — The London Memorandum settles Trieste. By 1956 the exodus of the Italian-speaking population is largely complete. 1991 — Croatian independence, and war. The last political frame this family's places have lived under.

Hover or tab through a marker — red above for this family, ochre below for the world around it.

Aquileia · Gorizia · FrankopanRepublic of VeniceHabsburg / Austria–HungaryNapoleonic 1805–15ItalyGerman occupation 1943–45YugoslaviaCroatia

The full timeline, with lives and pressures →

Recently found

What the last stretch of work turned up. The research log has the rest.

Sept 2026
Svetvinčenat, from 1666
A rebuilt sweep of 18,840 records found a third Carnian household of the name, in Venetian Istria — two children to the font in one autumn, sixty-eight years before the household book anyone had looked at.
Sept 2026
What they actually were at Gologorica
Not tenants. They held the lease on the bishop of Pedena's «affitto fermo» and collected it, renewed by every bishop, until the see was suppressed in 1788.
Sept 2026
The day they sailed
Anton's index card reads «Emigré Australie le 8.3.49», stamped CM/1 destroyed. That is the morning Zdravko, Ruža and the child left Germany for good.

Open questions →

There is no single Defranceschi family

De Franceschi means only ‘of the Franceschi’ — the household of a man called Francesco. The name was therefore invented independently, many times over, wherever an Italian-speaking clerk needed to tell one Francesco's sons from another's. Seven families are followed here and four of them have an origin in documents. A fifth, Svetvinčenat, is Carnian by inference — Kandler’s list and the company its godparents kept, which is not a document of arrival. Two have no origin at all: southern Istria, where the one clue pointing north was tested and discarded, and Vodnjan, which was a number in a 1945 cadastre until its marriage register — indexed nowhere on earth — was read by eye in September 2026 and gave up five generations. Beside them sit eight clusters of real households that must belong to one of the seven and cannot yet be told which — and a great many people who simply share the commonest patronymic in Italy.

That is this archive's organising idea rather than its disappointment. And it means being strict about three different things: a family is an origin; a station — Gologorica, Crikvenica, Senj, Pfullingen — is a stop on one family's road, not a family of its own; and a namesake in Corsica or Brazil is not a relative until a document says so.

The seven families, and everything that is not one →

Where this family can actually be put

Istria, the Kvarner, Carnia, and the places the name went afterwards. Every dot is a place this archive can put a named person in. The coast and the borders under them are real — Natural Earth, clipped to this frame — which for this archive matters more than most: the whole argument here is which empire held which town, and the borders are drawn.

istriadalmatiakvarnertrentinodiaspora
49 places across Istria, the Kvarner and Carnia
11 places sit beyond this frame, shown on the edge

The line itself, eight generations

The rivers above are seven families, six of them arriving in Istria and one that never did. This is the one this archive descends from — Gologorica to Gračišće and out — with the generation the family chart asserts and no register names marked where it falls.

1
1750 → 1829
Giovanni Defranceschi
as the register writes — Joannes
b. 1750 d. 1829
Not named
this generation’s wife is in no source the archive holds
Gologorica → Gračišće family

The joint here will not bear weight. Carried on the family's own descent chart; no register page names this generation yet.

The evidence show ↓ hide ↑

Carried on the family's own descent chart. The Status Animarum entry for his son calls that son Joan. Bapt. Defranceschi, and the next generation is styled q. Joannis — son of the late Giovanni — so a Giovanni stands at the head of the line. The 1750–1829 dates come from the family chart, not yet from a register page. What is no longer in doubt is the place: the Klenovica register of 1890 records Gallignana as this family's zavičaj, its inherited commune, four generations downstream. There is now a candidate for him too, and he is not simply Giovanni: the Joannes Baptista Defranceschi who headed casa 31 at Gologorica, husband of Theresia née Grach, whose son of the same name was baptised on 13 August 1787. If that identification holds, the family chart's Giovanni is a Giovanni Battista, and behind him stands the Leonardus who gives the casa-31 branch its byname «detti Leonardi».

2
1787 → 1846
Giovanni Battista Defranceschi
as the register writes — Joan. Bapt. Defranceschi
b. 13 August 1787 d. 1 September 1846
agricola — farmer
Francisca Salomon
the Salomon line
b. 17 March 1797
Gračišće (Gallignana), house 5 married 1819 documented
4 children recorded Antonius carries the line show ↓ hide ↑
Raymundus 9 October 1823 Antonius 20 September 1825 Carries the line Joannes 30 June 1833 Franciscus 26 January 1840
The evidence show ↓ hide ↑

Status Animarum of the parish of Gallignana, house 5. Name, condition, birth, marriage and death in the ruled columns; wife and four sons beneath him. And a candidate for his baptism has now been read off the Gologorica film: a Joannes Baptista Defranceschi baptised at Gologorica, house 31, on 13 August 1787, son of Joannes Baptista and Theresia née Grach — the same name and the same day. It is an inference, not a proof, and it is set out with its objections on the Gologorica line.

DAPA ZM34K 217, M01072071 — Supplied by the Pazin State Archive, 24 June 2021
3
1825 → 1894
Antonio Defranceschi
as the register writes — Antonius Defranceschi q. Joannis
b. 20 September 1825 d. 4 August 1894
lapicida — stonecutter
Maria née Fernasar
the Fernasar line
b. 17 October 1832
Gračišće (Gallignana), house 19 married 25 November 1856 documented
5 children recorded Josephus carries the line show ↓ hide ↑
Antonius 6 August 1856 Josephus 22 March 1863 Carries the line Leopolda 6 November 1865 Catharina 3 February 1869 Modestus 15 June 1875
Brothers and sisters · 3 show ↓ hide ↑
Antonio’s · 3
Raymundus9 October 1823Joannes30 June 1833Franciscus26 January 1840
Maria’s · none recorded

Her line has no archive of its own yet, so the register names her parents and nobody else.

The evidence show ↓ hide ↑

Status Animarum, house 19, with the cross of death before his name. He is styled q. Joannis, which welds this household to house 5. His trade comes from the 1863 baptismal entry for his son, where he is entered as lapicida. His eldest son Antonius, born 6 August 1856, is the man at the head of the chart the American branch printed for its first reunion in 2012 — the same date, to the day. That family's eleven children went to New York, Buenos Aires, Tuscany, Slovenia and Croatia.

DAPA ZM34K 217, M01071656 — Supplied by the Pazin State Archive, 24 June 2021
MKR Gračišće 1841-1899 — Certified copy supplied 26 April 2021
4
1863 → 1951
Josip Defranceschi
as the register writes — Josephus
b. 22 March 1863 d. 1951
vešti klesar sada tvorničar — skilled stonemason, later a factory worker
Anna Kalanj
Anna’s people, and the parish nobody has opened
b. 3 January 1864, at Klenovica in the Vinodol
Gračišće → Crikvenica Kalanj, at the Blažević Archive ↗ The Blažević Archive ↗ documented
5 children recorded Anton Rudolf carries the line show ↓ hide ↑
Anton Rudolf 20 January 1890 Carries the line Marija Stjepanka 8 Dec 1892 – 29 Sep 1905 Ivan November 1894 Zorica 14 December 1896 Marija Oct 1905 – 4 Feb 1906
Brothers and sisters · 4 show ↓ hide ↑
Josip’s · 4
Antonius6 August 1856Leopolda6 November 1865Catharina3 February 1869Modestus15 June 1875
Anna’s · none recorded

Her line has no archive of its own yet, so the register names her parents and nobody else.

The evidence show ↓ hide ↑

Baptised at Gallignana on 23 March 1863, born the day before, son of Antonius the stonecutter. He is the generation that leaves Istria for the Kvarner coast: his son is born in **1890 at Klenovica**, in the Vinodol — **not at Crikvenica**, which this page said until 17 September 2026 and which the generation below it contradicts in its own evidence. The family identifies his wife as Anna Kalanj, and her own baptism survives — Ledenice register, entry 2 of 1864, daughter of Josephus Kalanj and Rosalia née Perković, at Klenovica house 22, in the Vinodol valley directly above Crikvenica. That is very probably the reason a Gračišće stonecutter's son ended up on that stretch of coast: he married into it. The 1951 death date is the family's. The Crikvenica death register of 1906 gives his trade: «vešti klesar sada tvorničar» — a skilled stonemason, now a factory worker. His father Antonius was a lapicida at Gračišće. The stone came down to the coast with him.

MKR Gračišće 1841-1899, entry 23 — Certified copy, Pazin State Archive, 26 April 2021
Ledenice baptisms, entry 2 of 1864 — Anna Kalanj's own baptismal entry
5
1890 → 1943
Anton Rudolf Defranceski
b. 20 January 1890, baptised 9 February d. 1943
Ursula, born Kovačina
the Kovačina line
b. about 1890
Klenovica, house 22 → Pfullingen documented
5 children recorded Ivan carries the line show ↓ hide ↑
Pepe — Petar 15 June 1913 Zdravko 1 April 1921 Ivan 24 or 25 June 1925 Carries the line Anka dates unknown
Brothers and sisters · 4 show ↓ hide ↑
Anton’s · 4
Marija Stjepanka8 Dec 1892 – 29 Sep 1905IvanNovember 1894Zorica14 December 1896MarijaOct 1905 – 4 Feb 1906
Ursula,’s · none recorded

Her line has no archive of its own yet, so the register names her parents and nobody else.

The evidence show ↓ hide ↑

Entry 9 of the Klenovica baptisms for 1890: Anton Rudolf, legitimate, son of «Josip Defranceschi i žena Ana Kalanj rodjena», at house 22 — and in the column for the parents' place of origin, «Gallignana u Istriji». That is the zavičaj, the inherited Austrian commune of legal settlement, and it is the register itself stating that this coastal household's home commune was Gračišće. Fifty-seven years later he is on the Pfullingen list of foreigners, and a certificate of 1950 gives his birth as 20 January 1890 at Crikvenica — the same day, the same man, the coastal parish named by its market town rather than its village.

Klenovica baptisms 1890, entry 9 — Names both parents and gives Gallignana as their place of origin
Arolsen Archives, ITS — Pfullingen list, 10 March 1947; municipal certificate, 28 February 1950
6
1925 → 1995
Ivan Defranceski
b. 25 June 1925 d. 30 October 1995
Hedviga, born Blažević
the Senj line — Papić · Prpić · Pilipić · Blažević
b. dates withheld
Crikvenica → Pfullingen → Senj The Blažević Archive ↗ documented
Brothers and sisters · 4 show ↓ hide ↑
Ivan’s · 4
Pepe—Petar15 June 1913Zdravko1 April 1921Ankadates unknown
Hedviga,’s · none recorded

Her line has no archive of its own yet, so the register names her parents and nobody else.

The evidence show ↓ hide ↑

On the Pfullingen list as Iwan, born 24 June 1925 at Crikvenica — but **the card, not the list, is right: 25 June 1925**, ruled by David on 17 September 2026, and the Arolsen indexers preserved the disagreement, carrying him four times over as *Iwan*, *JVAN*, *IWAN* and *JWAN*, twice under each date. His own German sickness-fund card gives 25 June and puts him at Brunnenstraße 7, Pfullingen, entering work on 21 October 1941 as an unskilled hand. He was sixteen. He went home, married Hedviga Blažević, and is buried on his own coast under polished granite cut with a plain cross and the name in Croatian orthography: IVAN DEFRANČESKI, 1925–1995.

Arolsen Archives, ITS — Pfullingen list; Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse membership card
7
2026
Ivan Defranceski
d. 2026
Cheryl Anne Defranceski, née Lerena
dates withheld
Senj → Johannesburg → Brisbane The Lerena Archive ↗ documented
The evidence show ↓ hide ↑

Died in 2026. The same name in three languages — Ivan in Croatian, Giovanni in Italian, John in English: one man, three registers. **His birth date is not yet in this archive**, which is the next thing it should hold about him.

8
David Defranceski
living — named only
Not named
this generation’s wife is in no source the archive holds

The full spine, with the register page under each generation →

The families who married in

Seventy-four surnames married into this one, each routed to the empire that held its town. The marriages, in full →

The Hungarian Littoral7

  1. Kalanj4
  2. Bellinich3
  3. Cosulich3
  4. Ottochian2
  5. Sablich / Jablich1
  6. Kovačina
  7. Peschle

Austrian Istria — the Küstenland25

  1. Bergamo17
  2. Schifich7
  3. Grach / Grah6
  4. Orlis / Ortis5
  5. Buich4
  6. Skoko4
  7. Michelcich3
  8. Michelich3
  9. Mihecich3
  10. Vojnić3
  11. Allacevich2
  12. Bubich2

and 13 more, all named below

Carnia and Friuli14

  1. Cerlon12
  2. Francin8
  3. Bonassin6
  4. Dorliguzzo6
  5. Tamborin6
  6. Cleva4
  7. Elegnan3
  8. Carlutto2
  9. Ceselin2
  10. Clagnan2
  11. Corva2
  12. Samburin2

and 2 more, all named below

Venice and the Veneto31

  1. Chersin8
  2. Malusà8
  3. Primus7
  4. Frezza6
  5. Vellico6
  6. Franca4
  7. Martechini4
  8. Bembo3
  9. Minio3
  10. Padovan3
  11. Patovan3
  12. Percesino3

and 19 more, all named below

Defranceschi — the families who joined this one, by indexed marriages. Every one of them is named in full further down the page.

What this archive has established

There is no single Defranceschi family

Seven families carry the name and this archive follows all seven. They are not one family, and the weight of the surname in a parish is not evidence of kinship with any of them. All seven, compared →

Eight sovereigns, four languages, nine spellings

The same people were written down under Venice, Austria, France, Austria again, Italy, Yugoslavia and Croatia. Most of what looks like a different family is a different clerk. The name →

Gračišće, 1863

A stonecutter's son called Josephus baptised on an Istrian hill — the oldest link in this descent that rests on a register rather than on a tree. The line, act by act →

Every number here is a link

165 places, 1,031 people placed and 422 register volumes are reachable from the map, and each figure on this page opens the page that earns it. The atlas →

The archive in numbers

Every one of these is a link to the page that earns it.

1,477
people published, each carrying what is known of them and how well
See the evidence →
18,840
records read to build the census of where the name actually was
See the evidence →
1,508
register entries transcribed and set out one by one
See the evidence →
667
searches written down, 72 of which found nothing — a negative result is still a finding
See the evidence →
258
claims this archive has corrected or withdrawn, kept visible
See the evidence →
~10
of the name left in Croatia today, against 25 families in Istria in 1945
See the evidence →

What is still missing

36 questions this archive cannot answer — thirty open, six blocked. When Agostino De Franceschi of Gorto lived; whether anything is carved on the 1711 house; whether the Valentino and Giovanni Battista lines are one family; and whether the Dalmatian Franceschi are related to this one at all. The two hundred kilometres between Mione in 1679 and Gologorica in 1711 remain the one thing this archive cannot prove. All of it, with the searches that have already failed, is at Open questions and Searched.

Nothing here is taken on trust because it appears in a family tree. Where a record has been seen, it is cited; where it has not, the claim is marked. See Method.