Italy/Croatia/Austria newspapers, 1869

[scuda]

I'm hoping someone here has the ability to access (and understand) newspapers from Italy or Croatia or Austria from January 1869. If so, I'd be interested in any reports of the wreck of the Pace (described as an Austrian barque) of Fiume which took place in Bideford Bay on 28th December 1868. Most British papers carried detailed reports of the rescue attempts, but they didn't give the names of the crew members who died (most were saved). I am trying to add some background to the information on the headstone of the Mate, Serafino P Turcich, in Northam churchyard, and the British papers are no help. I suspect he was the brother or son of the captain who survived and whose name was given in one report as Gidoma Turwick, in another as Turcich.

The inscription reads as though Serafino himself is from Fiume (the transcription is correct, it actually appears as Fuime on the headstone, but I imagine it was intended as Fiume):

Sacred
In the memory of
Serafino P. Turcich
Of Fuime
Mate of the Austrian Barque
Pace
wrecked on the Northam Sands
Decr 28th 1868
Aged 21
Also
three of the Crew of the Same ship
interred adjoining
this Grave
R.I.P.

Can anyone help, please?

scuda

[Merry]

Do you know if more than four crew died or is that the total number?

Deaths Mar 1869
Andre Pio 19 Bideford 5b 383
Furuch Serafins Peter 21 Bideford 5b 383
Prischich Giovanni 22 Bideford 5b 383
Zambelli Fausto 25 Bideford 5b 383

These seem the most likely, most likely registered at the same time.

[scuda]

I think that's all Merry. Reports at the time spoke of 17 on board and all but 3 saved. The deaths you found (thanks, I'd missed them), plus the headstone show that 4 died. Maybe the fourth died later, I must see if I can find any record of that. Anyway, that seems like all of them.

scuda

[Mary from Italy]

I'm not aware of any old Italian newspapers online; there are some Official Gazettes, which include 1869-70, but I can't find anything about the wreck, and anyway Fiume would have belonged to Austria then, I think.

[kiterunner]

You could try on here for Austrian newspapers:
http://anno.onb.ac.at/

[Mary from Italy]

This site has Italian newspapers from 1867, but I'm not getting any hits for Serafino.

http://www.archiviolastampa.it/

[scuda]

Thanks for the Austrian and Italian links. I've tried searching for various names, but I can't locate any articles. I hope those sites are still adding to the newspapers they have available - I'll search again later in the year, just in case.

Mary, I know Fiume has changed nationality from time to time, which is why I wasn't sure which country's newspapers to try. I was hedging my bets by mentioning all three. I would expect the wreck to have been mentioned in the Austrian papers, anyway, and I think the crew members were probably Italian (the names don't look Germanic to me), so I would expect a mention in Italy, too.

I'll put it on the back burner for a while and hope something turns up later.

scuda

[Mary from Italy]

Turcich isn't an Italian surname - I would guess it's Croatian.

[scuda]

Turcich isn't an Italian surname - I would guess it's Croatian.

That's useful to know. I did wonder about that initially, but I had a feeling that most of these eastern European names which end with an 'ich' sound (or perhaps that should be 'itch'), are written with just 'ic' at the end.

scuda

[Shona]

Well, I never knew that - Fiume is the Italian name for Rijeka.

[Mary from Italy]

That's right.

There's a really bizarre historical incident associated with Fiume:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_D'Annunzio

[scuda]

Fiume seems to have had rather a complex history in terms of nationality. As far as I can see, in 1868 it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, rather than Austria as I was thinking of it. I've been looking at the trees on Ancestry and the surname Turcich seems to have come from Austria, Yugoslavia or Croatia (which, of course, was part of Yugoslavia) - as Mary said, it is not an Italian surname.

scuda

[Rijeka]

Serafino Turcic is of course Croat. He was born in Lovran near Rijeka.
(21 February 1848.–28 December 1868.)
Father: Anton Turcic , maritime captain, born 1797
Mother:Antonija n. Marusic (9 May1801.–21 July1855)

Source : The inhabitants of the eastern part of the Lovran historic town core in XIX century
http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=218556, page 90 and 91

When you see that surname ends with ich or ic he or she is Slav.

When you see Austrian barque, it is most likely Croatian barque. It is from a period of Austria-Hungary rule. Austria doesn't have a seashore.

[scuda]

Thank you for all the info, Rijeka, that's very helpful.

scuda