Tampa Midwife Records of Maria Messina Greco
Births from 1908 to 1939
See my article in Tampa's "Cigar City" magazine's May/June 2007 issue

The records are comprised of about 62 palm-sized notepads.  Most of the early years take up one or two books, then later three to four books.  The years from 1935 to 1939 are contained in one book.

The post-it notes were added by the LDS church when they microfilmed the records.  The original labeling can be seen above the post-it note.  All the entries are written in Italian by Maria Messina Greco, none of the entries record the year of birth of the child, only the day, month and time.  The year must be determined from the cover or the first page of the book.

The surprise to me was the large notebook seen at the top, it was not on the microfilm roll that I viewed.  It is apparent that at some point in time, somebody sought to translate the records to English and type them out.  This notebook contains easily read records from 1908 through 1912.  The pages are very fragile and thin, typed on both sides.  Those for 1912 being at the back of the book, crumbling at the edges.

See the progress so far on transcribing and posting these records

Below is a close up scan of the top half of the first page of the typewritten translation, 1908.

Below is a scan of a page from 1909.  This is not typical quality, it's one of the rare pages written in ink.  Most are written in pencil and are extremely light. 

Note that children were listed in this format:

Given name(s) /  Surname / "di"   Father's given name / "anni" Father's age / Father's origin
Mother's given name / maiden surname / "anni" Mother's age / Mother's origin
"Giorno" birth date / "ore" time of birth
Address of birth
Then a notation as to how many children the mother had and how many were still living.

In the early records, 1908 and some 1909, every entry has been "X" out.  I suspect it meant the fee was paid.  Then in later books such as this one, the red slash probably indicates this.  Later, each entry has the actual fee written in red.  Most were $15 to $20.  (The lower rates were often accompanied by a notation such as "C. Cubano" (Circulo Cubano), "B. Publico" (Beneficia Publico?) probably indicating membership in these medical benefit programs.

There was hardly a day that Maria did not deliver a baby.  Many days she delivered up to 4 children.  One particular day I found she had delivered children at 4am, 11am and then twins at 9 and 9:15pm.  In my conversation with Adele Greco, she told me that her husband, Salvatore Greco (1st cousin of the Salvatore Greco who was married to Maria Messina) always spoke of Maria as a remarkable woman.

If you believe your Hispanic or Italian ancestor may have been born at home, in Ybor City during this time period, chances are they were delivered by Maria Messina Greco.  I am willing to do lookups, but PLEASE, only for specific dates or at most, narrow down to a few months period.  The records are extremely tedious reading and I have many "irons in the fire" right now!  My goal is to one day index and/or scan them all, it could take years. 

I am told that there is a photo of Maria Messina Greco at the Ybor City Museum.  I plan to visit soon and take a picture of it if I am allowed to, then post it here.  Ultimately, I will donate the books to the museum if they are interested in having them.

Meet Salvatore Greco (1st cousin of Maria Messina Greco's husband Salvatore) and his wife Adele.  Gracious donors of the original books.

NOTE:  I am no longer in possession of the midwife records.  I turned them over to Tampa's Cigar City Magazine editor a couple of years ago and they are in the process of transcribing the records.  The project is near completion.  When complete, the information will be posted to a website.  Afterward, the originals may be turned over to the USF Special Collections department for preservation and display.

(Jan 2009)

Many years ago these records were sent to the Latter Day Saints church library in Salt Lake City and were put on microfilm.  These microfilms are available for viewing in the LDS Family History Center on Lutz Lake Fern Road near Gunn Highway in Lutz. 

7851 Lutz Lake Fern Rd
Odessa, Hillsborough, Florida, United States
Phone: 813-926-3596
Hours: T 10am-2pm; W 9am-1pm; Th 1pm-9pm; Sat 9am-1pm.
Closed: Fri., Sun., Mon. and major holidays.

The films are catalogued as:

Email me  Danny Perez