Rovinj
The name from 1619 — and the man «da Dignano» buried at Christmas 1728, three weeks after his wife.
Rovinj carries the name from 1619, when a Pietro De Franceschi is buried — the entry this archive holds from another direction as «morì ser Piero di Franceschi da Pola», 27 May 1619, and its earliest dated Istrian record until the Svetvinčenat baptism of 1628 was found.
It does not carry it from 1569. The 1569, 1583 and 1592 entries that a surname search returns are Fracischetto, Francoscheto and Franceschero — three other families, and a caution against reading a fuzzy match as a date.
The household that can be followed is Mattio De Franceschi and Elisabetta, who baptise Martino in 1722 and Benedetto on 23 October 1726. Isabetta is buried on 4 December 1728 and Matto on the 27th of the same month — three weeks apart. And the archive already held that second entry from outside: «Ob.to di Matt.o de Franceschi da Dignano». A man described by the Rovinj priest as from Dignano had been in the town long enough to baptise two sons there, and buried his wife three weeks before he was buried himself. That the Isabetta of 4 December is the wife rather than a daughter is an inference from the 1722 and 1726 entries, not a statement of the register.
Twenty-one records of ours out of twenty-five indexed, 1619 to 1864, across twenty-nine volumes opening in 1553 — the largest unread register in Istria that carries the name.