Before starting I’m apologizing to all Brazilians for bring to memory the 1950 FIFA World Cup. I know it was painful and would risk saying that it was more painful than the 7 to 1 against Germany in the recent FIFA World Cup of 2014.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, because don’t follow football-soccer, let me explain. Soccer is the passion of Brazilians. The 1950 FIFA World Cup as well as the 2014 FIFA World Cup, was played in Brazil. The difference is that in 1950 Brazil had the best team of the competition, got to the final and needed only draw to win for the first time the FIFA World Cup. In the final game, Brazil scored the first goal but ended up losing to Uruguay from 2 to 1 at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro in front of more than 200,000 people. It was a disaster of cataclysmic proportions, some people ended up committing suicide. In the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil clearly didn’t have the best team and suffered the biggest defeat of the Brazilian team ever, 7 to 1 against Germany. But despite the enormity of the defeat which is also considered a disaster, Brazil had by this time won the World Cup five times, more than any other country. Therefore, in this case there were no suicides that we know.
That’s why the apology above, but lets start the real story.
It all started when I was trying to figure out the date of Giuliano Carrieri’s death, which had immigrated from Italy to Brazil and had died in São Paulo, Brazil. For those who want to look for family roots, obtain death certificate is very important. A complete a death certificate in addition to the person’s name, date and place of death contains the deceased’s parents ‘ name, place of birth and names of children. In other words a document of paramount importance for genealogical research.
I knew that Giuliano had died in 1950, but did not know the month or the day.
It was then that I decided to call my mother-in-law, Giuliano’s youngest daughter. It was an international call. She also did not know the date, but informed me that he had died on a Sunday and that only the women of the family were at home. The men were all attending the game. I asked what game? She didn’t know.
I thought, 1950, game, all attending, just might be the World Cup. Immediately with my mother-in-law still on the phone, I started an internet search with the parameters: 1950 FIFA World Cup, Brazil, São Paulo, Sunday. Found nothing. The Brazilian team played virtually every game in Rio de Janeiro. I was afraid I wouldn’t find anything, when I thought, wait a minute, Italian family may have gone to see an Italy game. I knew that Italy was also in the competition.
Found, Italy vs. Sweden, Pacaembú stadium, São Paulo, Sunday June 25 1950. That was it! Unfortunately the Italy lost this game for Sweden, 3 to 2 and was eliminated from the World Cup, but now I knew exactly the date of Guiliano’s death. Remaining to know was which registry in São Paulo the death would be registered. São Paulo was already at that time, the largest metropolis in Latin America and had several registries, a serious problem to solve.
My wife had a brilliant idea. She pondered, I think Giuliano’s death is registered in the same registry in which my birth was registered. After all, the dates were relatively close and Giuliano lived in the same location as my parents. This document I had, my wife’s birth certificate. Still with my mother-in-law on the phone, I looked for and found the birth certificate and informed her husband, my wife’s stepfather, the registry location. The next day he went to the registry and obtained the death certificate. It confirmed that Giuliano had indeed died on June 25, 1950.
With the death certificate it was possible to know that Giuliano was born in Polignano-a-mare, in Italy (see article about Polignano) on November 21st, 1878 and also know the names of his parents. That’s how I ended the phone call and how we started the search to find Giuliano’s birth certificate. For this it was necessary to appeal to the Mormons. But that is another story, because this is one already too long…
Has a story to tell? Send us an email and we will post.