Malta
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123veritatis
Just curious! Before Napoleon quit Malta, he obliged the inhabitants - refugees from across Europe to destroy their documents of origin and consider themselves Maltese. Can anyone suggest how one may re-trace these true origins in the 17th and 18th centuries? Names and Family Names were changed in Malta to fit in with the run of Names on the island. Thus, 'similar sounding names' to the original were often adopted. Is there some study or archive that can deal with this problem?
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replied to:  123veritatis
lasrus
Replied to:  Just curious! Before Napoleon quit Malta, he obliged the inhabitants...
Records from this time can be difficult to trace under the best of circumstances.
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replied to:  lasrus
123veritatis
Replied to:  Records from this time can be difficult to trace under the...
That is not the case, of course. Archives throughout the US, Canada and Europe are rapidly getting together immigration, assimilation and massive such data added to their Records.

The problems are never so great as long as there is goodwill and integrity. When authorities 'forbid' the publication or the free dissemination of past records for political or religious reasons, then one needs to resort to the 'Who one knows" option. This should not be necessary because the yearning to discover one's roots is a most legitimate endeavour and putting obstacles in the way of such research is negative and counter productive. It is also undemocratic so that no set of Authorities would admit to forbidding such access. They just look stupid and deny knowledge of such documents available in the country.

Thank Goodness, we are moving more rapidly than one might think. The forces of freedom are too strong to stop access to any genealogical records. The only problem is that brutish, commercial entities have had too much success in hijacking records and holding private researchers to ransom by charging for the information and demanding personal data that should not be permissible.

My advice is not to cave in and help them become rich. It is also eminently transparent that for all the charging they will impose, they do not have advanced knowledge or access to rare or old documents. But they do exist.

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