Bloodline Continuity and Status Civitatis in the Interstices of Empire: A Genealogical and Legal Reconstruction of the Nanut Lineage (1878–1948)

This paper examines the preservation and transgenerational transmission of family identity (status civitatis) within the overlapping jurisdictions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on the migration and legal continuity of the Nanut family from Sant’Andrea di Gorizia in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1878 and 1948. By shifting the focus from macro-legal frameworks to micro-genealogical reconstruction, we analyze how the structural interaction between Article 14 of the Italian Civil Code of 1865 and the Austro-Hungarian Heimatrecht acted as a protective shield for emigrant lineage, until Article 70 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain (1920) made it Italian citizenship. Utilizing primary microhistorical source materials from the State Archives in Gorizia, the Arolsen Archives and the Archives of Republika Srpska, this study traces three generations of the Nanut lineage. We demonstrate that the transmission of status iure sanguinis remains an inalienable genealogical bond (Pieno Diritto) that resists assimilation despite administrative silence, wartime duress, and shifting geopolitical borders. Finally, this study addresses the contemporary necessity of decentralized digital archival registries to safeguard historical family records from retroactive political interference. This approach bridges historical genealogy with immutable verification architectures, ensuring that ancestral status remains a universally verifiable historical fact.