During 18th century King Charles III Bourbon (1734-1759) introduced a taxation system based on a new census of the population of the Kingdom of Naples. This new census was introduced in 1740 and called “Catasto onciario” since for the evaluation of the taxes to be paid was based on a measure called “oncia” (ounce). In the kingdom, every “università” (at that time, this was the name given to the village administrations) was obliged to correspond the due taxes and therefore to contribute to the formation of the registers; taxes were divided into various segments, according to the type of possession. They were basically divided into: 1) citizens including widows and virgins; 2) members of the clergy; 3) churches and religious places of the country; 4) non resident owners; 5) religious owners; 6) foreign churches and religious places.
The Catasti Onciari are very important documents for the reconstruction of the genealogical tree of a family, since they report the composition of the family at the time of filing, and of course also the properties owned and the occupations of family members. They include the name of the householder, his age and his place of birth (if foreigner); sometimes it is possible to find also the name of his father and mother; in addition to this, they also report the given name, the family name and age of his wife, the names and age of children and all the information concerning relatives, servants and personnel working for him. The Catasti Onciari (whose biggest collection is held at the State Archive of Naples) allow us to reconstruct the economic and social history of all villages of Southern Italy during the 18th century.
The modern Abruzzo and Molise regions in that period, with some exceptions, covered the 3 provinces of Abruzzi: Abruzzo Citra, Abruzzo Ultra I and Abruzzo Ultra II, and by the province of Molise. Abruzzo Citra was roughly equivalent to the modern province of Chieti, Abruzzo Ultra I to Teramo and Abruzzo Ultra II to L’Aquila.