ITALIAN GENEALOGYI am researching my

01/04/2017 - 05:24

ITALIAN GENEALOGYI am researching my family tree [all UK based], and belong to a Genealogy Group here in the UK - its part of the U3A [an organisation for 'retired persons who want to do things rather than sit at home all day]A friend of mine at the Group has asked me if I know how he can trace his mother's family tree - she's Italian, in her 90s.  He has her birth 'papers' and her home town [Bari area, I believe].Any advice?  [I've asked for more details from him, but thought I'd set the ball rolling now]Alan

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When I was looking once I came across the following websites: www.initaly.com/gene and www.italiangenealogy.tardio.com  I didn't use them as I managed to fill all gaps just by word of mouth until at least the 1850s. Before unification in 1861 records were all kept by the parishes so much harder to access. The other option is to approach the ufficio anagrafe at the comune.

The "Portale Antenati" (http://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/gallery?g2_view=search.SearchScan&g2_form[search]=name) is a great place to start. I found my husband's great-grandfather's military info there, and he was from the Bari area too.Then, knowing the exact Comune where the family members were born, the Family Search site (https://familysearch.org/search) is a wonderful place to find records from Italy, but takes a lot of patience since the records are micro-filmed (not indexed and searchable), and some years/locations are bundled together or sometimes missing.If he cannot find any info in either sites, then I would write emails to the Comune or churches, or also request official documents through sites such as Pratiche.it, that charge a fee but send someone in person to the city registrar.Hope this helps.

As he has his mothers birth certificate that will have her parents details and where they were from, time of birth even! I wrote to the comune to get my family details and they were helpful giving me details of my grandfathers family.  Then I went to Italy and found the regional office ( in Tuscany) and asked if they had any further info they could give me.  Within less than an hour she went back 5 generations with addresses, maps,copies of births, deaths etc.  Tell him to learn some Italian before he goes, be exceedingly polite and grateful and he will have a much better chance of getting help like I did :) good luckAlso the people on www.italiangenealogy.com site are really helpful and knowledgeable (most of them are in US)