madre

Madre is mother, from Latin mater. Italian records give a married woman under her own birth surname, so the mother's name in a child's act is also her maiden name, which makes Italian acts unusually helpful for tracing women.

Madre ignota, mother unknown, appears in the acts of foundlings. The abbreviation mt. or maternità may stand for the mother in printed forms. Matrigna means stepmother and madrina godmother, so watch the endings.