Beulah Masciorini (1906 -1979)

Beulah was born in 1906, the second child born to Jane Masciorini of Goldsborough. Her birth registration has not yet been found, but on her death certificate her date of birth was stated as 10 August 1906.

Beulah had an older brother, John Antonio Masciorini, born in 1905, (1905/11188). However, John died at 19 weeks of age (1905/3648).

Her mother, Jane Masciorini, married Joseph Scetrini (son of Giuseppe senior) in 1908. (1908/4822).

Beulah had a close association with the Scettrini family, and in particular with Joseph Benada Scettrini. However, it appears that Joseph was her stepfather, as there is an entry for 1906 in the NZSG Illegitimacies collection where her mother Jane Masciorini was granted maintenance from a different man.

We see an early photo of Beulah at Goldsborough School in 1912 , and in a version of this photo from the Peter Tinetti Collection, we see her name handwritten as Beulah Cetterini. (from West Coast South Island History FB group- using a search for Goldsborough.)

Beulah’s mother Jeannie Scettrini died on 6 October 1919 at Otira, aged only 33 years old.
The funeral left Greymouth by train for the Stafford Cemetery, where Jeanie was interred on 9 October 1919. On her death registration there was a Coroner’s Verdict recorded: “That deceased died from Syncope brought about about by alcoholic gastritis”.

Beulah was only 18 years old when she married David Joseph Yorwarth on 23 February 1925 in the Presbyterian Church in Greymouth. Her birthplace was recorded as Reefton. Only her mother’s name is listed, on her marriage registration - Jane Andrietta Mascorini- with the space for her father’s name left blank. David was 23 years old, born in Ross, and a motor mechanic.

Within just six years Beulah and David had had five children, one stillborn:-
Coleen Angelica (1925);  William David (1927); Beulah Jean (1928); Stillborn (1930); and 
Betty Josephine (1931).

From the electoral rolls we can see that in 1928 Beulah Yorwarth is listed as living in Marlborough St, Greymouth. David Yorwarth is listed with the address of 110 Tainui Street, Greymouth, with the occupation of mechanic. (Perhaps this is a business address?) 

In the 1931 roll, both Beulah and David are listed at the same addresses as in 1928, but it would seem that Beulah separates from David this year, as she also appears in the 1931 Supplementary roll for Motueka, with her details given as: Yorwarth, Beulah Jane, Gowan Bridge, married.

Beulah remains living at Gowan Bridge for many years. She appears in the 1943 roll with the same details. And in fact both Beulah Yorwarth and Joseph Beneda Scetrini are listed as living in Gowanbridge on the electoral roll until 1966 when Joseph dies, aged 90.

In the 1938 Wise’s Post Office Directory in the listing for Gowan Bridge we see both Yarworth Buelah and Scetrini Jos B listed. There is also a listing for the store keepers Percy and Ralph Diserens.

This is a map showing where Gowan Bridge is, not far from the Kawatiri turnoff. Both Joseph and Beulah are listed as living here until 1966 when he died. Joseph was living near here in 1928 when building the railway at Pikomanu, while Beulah first appeared here on the electoral roll in 1931.

Near the Kawatiri junction, there is the Kawatiri Historic Railway Walk, which is apparently a short easy walk that goes through a tunnel.

Brian, a descendant of Alice Scettrini, told me that he recalled a Beulah Yorwarth, who lived at the Gowan Bridge Store with a "Dizzy". He said they used to call in when up that way, and the store was a pure delight. Very, very, old style, with a great smell, and farm merchandise hanging from the rafters.  He said that his brother Bill recalled Beulah visiting their grandmother Alice in Greymouth.

Although it appears that Joseph Beneda Scettrini was Beulah’s step-father rather than her biological one, they clearly had a close bond over many years. When Joseph died in 1966, it is stated on his death registration, that he had one female living issue.

In the death notice that was placed in a Nelson paper for Joseph, it is listed that he was the ‘beloved husband of the late Jane Scetrini of Gowan Bridge, formerly of Otira, and loved father of Beulah (Mrs B J Yorwarth, Gowan Bridge.)'

He was also listed as the grandfather of eight grandchildren:
Colleen (Mrs Granger, Stoke).  Jean (Mrs D. James, Picton).  Betty (Mrs E Blain, Nelson)
Nola (Mrs N Yanko, Auckland).  Dorothy (Mrs A Bradley, Murchison). Sandra (Gowan Bridge)
William (Huntly). Neville (Murchison). And also as Great-grandfather of 18, and Grt-grt-grandfather of 2.

After Joseph died, Beulah moved into Nelson. In 1969 her address was listed as 26 D’Arcy St, Richmond, and she was listed as a widow.

 Joseph was buried in the Marsden Valley Cemetery, Nelson, on 6 September 1966 in Block 01C, Plot number 118, aged 90 years. Beulah died in 1979 and was interred in the same plot on 13 October 1979. They have a shared memorial plaque, where Beulah Jane Yorwarth is described as Joseph’s ‘beloved daughter’.

 

Payn-Scettrini-Heneberry NZ Descendants

 Recently we started a Payn-Scettrini-Heneberry NZ Descendants Facebook page. It's for descendants of Giuseppe Scettrini & Catherine Heneberry, and Frank Payn & Johanna Scettrini. It'll hopefully become a place where cousins from different lines of the family can share information and ask questions about our shared family history. It's a private group, but all descendants are welcome. 

The address is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2186077118570688. You have to apply to join but we are pretty quick approving people usually. At the date of this post, we have 37 cousins as members.

 Our Facebook header photos show- Giuseppe Scettrini, Catherine Heneberry, 
Frank Payn and Johanna Scettrini.

Baptisms of my 3x-great-grandparents

 I have started looking closely at the Corippo parish register on Family Search, and have been writing up the entries along with translations of the bits I can manage. Here are the baptisms of my 3x-great-grandparents, Maria Johanna Scilacci, and John Scettrini.

Maria Johanna, like most family members, was baptised in Corippo. However John was baptised in Vira Gambarogno, which was a pasturage area at a lower altitude, closer to Locarno. All parties to his baptism were from Corippo though.

 

Corippo Ancestry- using Images on Family Search, 2025

In the 1990s when I first started researching my Scettrini ancestry, I was able to order a Corippo parish microfilm into the Family History Centre here in Palmerston North. 

I spent many evening/weekend hours going through that microfilm, writing out entries that I thought might be relevant, using my School Cert Latin to work out the basics. It wasn’t possible though to get very many images of the entries. Later I wrote out ancestral names and dates on numerous pieces of paper, and sorted them on the lounge floor so I could put together a family tree.

I was reasonably confident with my tree, and thought I had been careful in what I put together. But the parish register was all in Latin, and there were a few things I wasn’t sure that I had completely right. One of those things was that I thought my Giuseppe Scettrini’s grandfather, also a Giuseppe, had two marriages, both to a Maria Caterina Gambetta, but each of those women had a different father. The other confusion was that my 3X-grt-grandparents on the Scettrini-Scilacci line seemed to sometimes be using the name Beneda as part of their Scettrini surname, or even to replace it.

I was very fortunate quite a few years later to be contacted by Rae Codoni, from California, who had done extensive research into his Codoni family from Corippo, and as part of this had drawn up a huge draft Scettrini tree. He was able to confirm that yes indeed, there were two different women named Maria Caterina Gambetta who married Giuseppe Scettrini senior. And indeed, there were so many Scettrini families in Corippo, that some did start using other names with their surname to differentiate themselves from each other.
Rae Codoni was actually descended from the first marriage on 4 Feb 1788, of Giuseppe Scettrini to Maria Gambetta, daughter of John Jacob Gambetta. Our family is descended from his second marriage to Maria Gambetta, daughter of Joseph Antony Gambetta.

Then at some stage it was no longer possible to access microfilms via a Family History Centre, and none of the parish register information was available online. It was magic for me to find out the other day that these images from the parish register are now available via Family Search in the images search section!

The images from the parish register can be found on Family Search at: 

https://www.familysearch.org/records/images/search-results?place=3057713

In images search, you put in Corippo, Ticino, Switzerland, and then use the image group number 008342031 (Item 6 of 8) to find most of the records below.

However, the people from Corippo sometimes migrated to a pasturage level at a lower altitude closer to Lake Locarno and those records might be found at Vira (Gambarogno) https://www.familysearch.org/records/images/search-results?place=3060031&page=1

I found a baptism I was looking for in 008191155 (Item 3 of 6) which had baptism records from 1774-1826.

I intend to spend some time this year going through the images and documenting our Scettrini ancestry using them. Just as a taster- this is the baptism of my 2X-grt-grandfather, Giuseppe Scettrini- Joseph, son of John Scettrini and Maria Johanna Scilacci.

Maria Catterina Margherita Scetrini di Giovanni Beneda

 I was delighted to discover recently that the parish records for Corippo, Ticino, Southern Switzerland, have now been digitised from the parish microfilm that you used to be able to get in Family History Centres a long time back. Back then I ordered in the Corippo microfilm and wrote down as many 'likely' entries as I could, but it wasn't possible to get many images copied and printed. I will now be able to go through the parish records at a much more leisurely pace, and take screen shots as I wish...

Just as a sample of what is available, here is the 1839 baptism record of Maria Catterina Margherita Scetrini di Giovanni Beneda. She was the first sister born to Giuseppe Scettrini, my great-great-grandfather, who was born in 1835.

A rough translation follows:

Maria Catterina Margherita Scetrini di Giovanni Beneda
In the year of our Lord 1839, on the 25^th day of February, Father John (priest?) of Locarno (by licence?) have baptised an infant (?) born of John Scetrini and Joanna Scilacci, legitimately (married?), and the name given was Maria Catherina Margherita.
Godparents were Antonius Scilacci (son Gugliermus?? not sure) and Joanna Maria wife of Joseph Codoni, all of Corippo.

It's found on Page 68 of the Family Search microfilm at:  https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSTT-D335-B?view=explore&groupId=M9MH-J1C&grid=on

Notice how the surname here is Scettrini di Giovanni Beneda. There were so many Scettrini families in Corippo that they were sometimes distinguished by a ‘nickname’- in this case Beneda for our Scettrini line. Giovanni is the father of Maria Catterina Margherita, and also of our Giuseppe. In some later entries, the surname is rendered Scetrini-Beneda, or even just Beneda.

 

Scettrini is the spelling used in Ticino today. In the registers/census etc in the 1800s, various spellings are used- depending on whether the entry is in Latin or Italian; and if in Latin, what case of the word is being used. I'm grateful for the three years of Latin I did in high school that has helped me to work out many of the parish entries.

NZ Cemetery Info- Summarised by Family Line

Sometime ago I started summarising NZ cemetery information for each family line. Then I stopped, and only recently discovered that I had finished all the paternal family lines, but hadn't finished any maternal ones!

So I have been quite busy in the last fortnight with summarising two of my NZ maternal lines. I finished my grandparent's family- Lalor-Payn, then got into the Payn-Scettrini maternal line. (Next I have the Scettrini-Heneberry and Lalor-Rowland lines to do.)

There are four different pieces I have done for each family. Firstly, I make a summary table of the particular family line, starting with the grandparents or great-grandparents at the top, then followed by the various children and their spouses. Next I do a table for each person/couple that has names, position of the grave in which cemetery, and a small photo of the headstone if there is one. My third part of the process involves a larger photo of each headstone, together with a transcription. There's a final section where I have put cemetery maps where they are available, and have highlighted where the family grave is.

Here are some 'excerpts' from the Payn-Scettrini tables.

It was a chance to find out the 'gaps' in my knowledge, and in some cases it was a little surprising to find some 'errors'. In FindAGrave for instance, I had managed to assign a great-aunt into the wrong cemetery- but that is fixed now.

Now I need to share the info with cousins, and especially the 'extended' cousins. And next time I am in the South Island, and more especially on the West Coast, I will have the info I need to go and visit of these family graves. I was at Karoro Cemetery in January, and was aware that my knowledge about where certain great-auntys' graves were wasn't good enough to find their last resting places.

Direct Ancestors- one page summaries

It's my plan to write a one page summary about each of my direct ancestors, (using Ahnentafel numbering.) Some family lines I can go back further than others to find these of course. The plan is then to put the summary in a plastic sleeve with a copy of birth/baptism, marriage and death registrations where I have them. (This will alert me to gaps I need to try and fill as well.)

Although the page is my own design, I got an idea for doing something like this from a presentation given by Fiona Brooker of Memories in Time. 

I have been working on collecting that BDM information for my great grandmother, Johanna Scettrini (who married Francis Davis Payn.) It was only late last year that I finally got Johanna's birth registration printout from Australia. The Scettrini name is so often misspelled in so many different ways, but I happened to see a "Groamina Leetrini" spelling on an Ancestry index, and lo and behold, it was her.
Then in the past few weeks, I ordered a printout of her death registration. I was preparing a talk about cemetery listings for a local genealogy event at the library when I realised Johanna was missing from the index of the Hokitika Cemetery burials where I expected to find her. For a while I had dreadful thoughts that she might by lying in a pauper's grave in Greymouth, though family all thought she was in Hokitika Cemetery with her husband Frank. But the printout of her death registration arrived and confirmed she was buried in Hokitika as we all thought. (Now I am in the process of trying to get her name added to the index.)

So Johanna then became the first person I wrote a one page summary about, and her bdm info is neatly filed with the summary. She has the Ahnentafel Number 15.

Any bets on how long it will take me to finish this task??! I have also written one about her father as well now, Giuseppe (Joseph) Scettrini, (Ahnentafel Number 30).

Kumara Sketch Map

In January 2023 I spent time on the West Coast, and in particular, exploring around Kumara, Larrikins and Goldsborough where my Payn, Scettrini, and some of my Lalor ancestors lived.

I am a great mixer-upper of left and right, and whenever I had visited Kumara, I always found myself confused about directions. Cycling along parts of the West Coast Cycle Trail though, helped me put everything into the right place in my mind. Hopefully this sketch map will help me recall the lay of the land for any future trip.

 On the Cycle Trail, I emerged into Kumara from the Greymouth end, and found myself within a short distance from where my Lalor grandparents, and my Uncle Jack, lived. It reminded me that my Uncle Jack had told me once that the old Tramway had passed nearby- and I know that at least part of the cycle route traverses it.

Uncle Jack told me there used to be two Payn-Scettrini houses up at the top of Boundary Rd, and I knew that my Scettrini 2x-great-grandfather lived up there: family photos show him there as an old man. Now there is one house up the top there, fully renovated. Next door it is hard to tell if any of the old house is left, as there is a lot of bush on the section.

 I took the liberty of wandering through part of this second section though, and found myself coming out onto the Larrikins part of the cycle trail! That was a lightbulb moment of how things fitted together in the landscape. 

Next day when I cycled the Larrikins part of the route, from the old Theatre Royal Hotel up to the road leading to Callaghans and Goldsborough, I recognised when I was passing the back of the two Scettrini sections.

According to family stories, Scettrini sisters Johanna (Payn) and Nellie (Baretta) used to live up on Boundary Rd next door to each other. There is an architect’s sign outside the renovated house.  One of my cousins, a Baretta descendant, grew up in Kumara and has told me that Ellen Baretta née Scettrini lived in the house that is still standing.

Somehow I had also been confused as I knew that “Payn’s Track” near where Frank Payn was goldmining was on the other side of the main road, and I had thought that was Larrikins too. A more careful re-reading of some of the material the West Coast Historical Museum prepared for our Payn-Scettrini family reunion in the early 90s showed me he was in fact mining later in a different place from Larrikins. I had walked Payn’s Track on a previous West Coast visit- I must re-walk it next time I am in Kumara.

Next I took the road that led me to Goldsborough and Stafford. I am grateful to various people on the West Coast South Island history FB group, who helped me with information before my trip south. It helped me clarify where Larrikins was, and also where Big Dam was, near Goldsborough, the first place where the Scettrini family lived before they moved to Kumara.

I had hoped I might perhaps walk or even drive up a road I could see on a map for Big Dam Hill. But when I arrived I discovered there was current mining activity up there, and access wasn’t possible. At least I now have a clear idea of where it was in relation to the main Goldsborough settlement. It shouldn’t be surprising that Giuseppe Scettrini, from a mountain village in Ticino, should choose to live in such a wild and hilly place.

 

Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2022

For the first time, I am participating in GeniAus end-of-year blogging challenge, so here goes! 

1: I was happy to go back to my local genealogy branch meetings after a Covid absence. (I was really looking forward to going to the Lower North Island Irish Research Day as well, but managed to end up in isolation with Covid when it was on!) 

2: In 2022 I was particularly proud of writing about Fr Patrick O’Riordan who served as a priest in NSW- my first cousin twice removed. I had seen him mentioned in a newspaper when he visited another priest-cousin in New Zealand, but hadn’t managed to find out much about him. Suddenly, one bit of information from Andrew Redfern, a fellow Twitter-er, broke open the floodgates of information! 

5: A new genealogy book that sparked my interest was Chris Paton’s “Tracing your Scottish family history on the internet”, and I hope to delve into this more in 2023. 

6: A geneasurprise I received was this beautiful photo of my maternal grandmother, Rose Payn, that my cousin sent to me. I think she is probably a bridesmaid for one of her sisters in this photo, around 1912 or so.

7: In 2022 I finally met a third cousin from a Scettrini line that I hadn't had any contact with. 

8: Locating the birthplace of my great-grandmother Mary Burke in a rural area near Abernethy, Perthshire, Scotland, gave me great joy. Doing a Pharos course by Chris Paton gave me the confidence to use maps from the National Library of Scotland effectively, and led to this discovery. 

11: An informative newspaper article I found was one that told me Fr O’Riordan’s brother was killed in an ambush in 1921 in Ireland. This led to more research and discovering a military archive that contained a huge amount of information about his family, when they applied (unsuccessfully) for compensation after his death.

12: I was pleased I could contribute to my local genealogy branch by taking over as editor of the monthly newsletter. I am thankful to the long-time editor who thought to ask me to do this, and had faith that I could do it. 

14: I got a thrill from opening someone’s eyes to the joy of genealogy when I was able to go from an Irish marriage entry a friend had obtained from an old family Bible, to a whole heap more information about her family in Ireland. 

20: Another positive I would like to share is that I finally worked out how to search on Trove effectively, by using Advanced Search. This has helped me find the information I wanted, instead of being overwhelmed by 1000s of results! 

Thanks GeniAus for setting this opportunity up.

Trip Prep!

ADDENDUM- POSTSCRIPT!
Well the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.... the world is in pandemic, and my trip is not to be. Hopefully, in a few years when I retire I can do this...

I've been having a stay-cation these hols as I save for my trip over to Europe. Quite a few of the things I'll be doing have a family history reason behind them, and I have organised some 'paperwork' to take with me.

For a few places that my family came from, I can find the family address quite precisely. But for most others, it is just a 'general area' that I'll be visiting. But either way, I am really looking forward to this exploration, and recording some of it for others in the family.

Here is a bit of a (vaguely) chronological outline of where I hope this genealogical journey will take me.

-Italy- Florence- to visit the WW2 grave of Robert Clarence Fleming, my maternal first cousin once removed.
-Switzerland- Ticino- to explore Corippo, Val Verzasca, the place of my Scettrini forebears.
- France- to visit the war graves and battle places of two great-uncles who died in WW1- James Riordan and John Francis Payn.
-Jersey, St Martin- where my Payn-Mourant ancestors come from.

 

-Scotland, Perth and Fifeshire.  Perth is where my Burke/Flynn family came to when they left behind the Famine in Ireland. Fifeshire is where the Philp family came from, particularly from Strathmiglo, though they moved around. I wonder what will be at 134 High St in Perth now. I am sure it would have been a tenement then, with dozens of children playing in the street nearby.

 And then I finally reach Ireland in late June, home of the bulk of my ancestry. There are many places to go...

Strabane, Co Tyrone- for my Arbuckle family, many of whom ended up making their home in Australia.

Ballyporeen, Co Tipperary, for my Heneberry origins. (Again many other descendants are in Australia.)

Kilkenny- not sure exactly which area, but possibly near the northern end of the City of Kilkenny, for the family of James Lalor.

Cullane South, Ballylanders Parish, Co Limerick. This is where my Riordans hail from. I have found maps from Griffiths which I think pinpoint their farm, and I am looking forward to visiting the area.

Ballinadrideen, south of Charleville, where my Malone grandmother came from. 

Co Mayo- Derrycraff, Aghagower- the origin of my Burke/Flinn ancestors. 

Jeremiah Malone, Ballinadrideen, my great-grandfather

So, that's the plan!

Using the Corippo Parish Register

We know from his naturalisation papers that Giuseppe Scettrini (my great-great grandfather) came from the village of Corippo in the Canton of Ticino, Switzerland. And from his marriage and death register entries, we know that his parents were Giovanni Scettrini, and Giovanini (Johanna) Maria Scilacci, and that he was born around 1835.

Corippo is found in Valle Verzasca. The nearest larger town to Corippo is Locarno.

Back in the 1990s when I was researching more about Giuseppe’s ancestors in Corippo, I was able to order the microfilm for the Corippo Parish Registers in to my local Mormon Family History Centre. The film number was 1751127. This film had not previously been ordered by anyone in New Zealand, and it was brought into the country for me. I remain grateful to the Mormon Church for this service.

The parish church in Corippo is named Sancta Maria Virgine de Monte Carmelli (Blessed Mary Virgin of Mt Carmel).

The parish registers in Corippo at the time were all written in Latin.  I had reason to be appreciative of the three years I had studied Latin in high school to School Certificate level, as it enabled me to translate a lot of the important details.

One of the treasures of this register, was that entries commonly named the father of those named. So for instance, when Giuseppe was baptised, each of his parents were named, but so also were the names of the fathers of each of his parents. This clue to the names of 'three generations' made it much easier to trace entries back with more confidence.

The family name is spelled Scettrini in Italian, but in Latin in the parish registers, it appears as Scitrini when in the nominative case. However, one of the characteristics of Latin is that endings alter depending on the ‘case’ of the noun. Thus it appears as Scitrino in the genitive case, eg when someone is the daughter of someone else.

The register was not always easy to read. The handwriting of some priests was more legible than others. Additionally, the entries varied in length and detail according to the priest of the time. (Sometimes there was considerable detail about such things as the degree of consanguinity that I didn’t try to translate.)

There were so many Scettrini families in Corippo at the time, that sometimes our line was called Scettrini-Benada, or even just Benada.

At times family members descended to a pasturage area, Vira Gambarogno, nearer the lake, Lago Maggiore. This meant that occasionally I could not find the entry for a direct ancestor I was trying to find.

I constructed some family group sheets as well as I could. However, then I had some truly fortunate contact with a man called Rae Codoni who hailed from California. Rae had done extensive research into his Codoni ancestors from Corippo. (We worked our that I am a half fifth cousin with his daughter Anne, the half being because of a remarriage.) I was very glad to be able to compare my draft findings with his, and am truly grateful for all the information he so generously shared with me.

"Family" Stamps

One of the things I enjoy most about tracing my family history is finding out more about the places my ancestors came from, and maybe understanding a bit about what it was like living there. And sometimes there are little 'place' treats along the way.

In the very early days when I was working out who my great-grandparents were, I was sent this stamp by Maurice Payn. It represents a "Payn" family coat of arms from Jersey in the Channel Islands.

 

And someone sent me this stamp that represents Corippo in Ticino, Switzerland, where my Scettrini family came from. (I think it might have been a young German friend of a friend who visited there and sent me some photos.) It was a Swiss stamp that was issued 19 February, 1985.

The stamp gives you a bit of an idea how beautiful this mountain village is. I hope to revisit it once more in a year or so- maybe 2020...

How do we know?- Scettrini in Corippo

Joseph Scettrini seated in middle, in Kumara.

 I have been following the ancestral trail of Giuseppe Scettrini in Switzerland for quite some time now. Somehow early on I learned he was from Corippo in Ticino. I am not sure how I 'knew' this- but it must have formed part of the family story passed down somehow. However, recently, I have had someone from Australia tell me we are wrong- the name is really Scattini- perhaps from another village entirely.

So I had to see what kind of 'paper trail' there was for Corippo being the correct place of origin for my Scettrini. I have a copy of Giuseppe's marriage and death register entries. In both it just says he comes from Switzerland. But in both it also names his parents- with spelling variants as always!- as John Scetrini and Giovanini Scilaci.

I began looking through other papers I had, and quite clearly in his naturalisation papers there it was. In 1883, when Giuseppe applied for naturalisation, it is quite clearly written that he was born in Corippo, in the Canton of Ticino, Switzerland.

And back in the parish register in Corippo, his baptism is clearly recorded in Latin- in 1835, as the first born child to Giovanni Scettrini and Maria Johanna Scillaci. See this post.

Corippo, in springtime