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Genealogy
Have
you been interested in building an ancestral family tree?
This has become a very popular activity for many Italian-Americans.
Genealogy is a science, but most of all it's the ability
to build our family tree with "exact" information.
How do you access such information if it is maintained
in Italy? Archives are different from country to country.
In the United States, government agencies allow citizens
to order specific historical documents online. In addition,
there are catalogs, addresses, and instructions available
on the Internet that can make research fast and easy.
If records in America are somewhat easily attainable,
those from Italy require a little bit more effort.
In Italy, there are three main public sources that are
repositories* of family information:
Town Halls (Comuni)
State Archives (Archivi di Stato)
Parish churches (Parrocchie)
Assuming that you know the essential information needed
to start a research project in Italy (full name, date
of birth, town where ancestor was born), you could well
contact one of those sources to request names and dates
and easily build your family tree. But the reality is
rather different.
First of all, only town hall officials and archivists
can perform such requests, but they have time constraints;
officials and archivists have the obligation to serve
residents and visitors first and then if they have any
time left to fulfill other requests. Parish priests, on
the contrary, have no obligation to perform any of such
requests. In addition, they have very little time available
since they are busy with their parishioners and traveling
from one village to the other. In general, few speak and
understand any language other than Italian, but what is
worse is that they receive hundreds of requests from all
over the world.
How do you become first on the
list?
- Do not send money, except what is needed to cover the
expenses to mail the response to a different country.
Sending extra money will not get you any further up on
the list.
- Try to request a reasonable amount of information at
one time, especially when you are not sure about the names
and dates that you are going off of.
- Try to avoid using online translators or software programs
to translate lengthy documents from Italian to English.
Be aware that some important facts may get lost in the
translation, thus setting you back in your search.
The Church of Latter Day Saints has microfilmed part of
these records (namely the Napoleonic Records) and is making
them available through its Family History Centers. But
these are difficult to understand unless you have extensive
experience making sense of Italian records. Often handwritten
in Latin or local dialects, old records are a challenge
even for native Italians.
How can you be successful with
a professional Italian based genealogist?
Using professionals trained in the art of reading and
understanding Latin and Italian handwriting and the science
of genealogy is essential. An experienced Italian based
genealogist will have cultivated working business relationships
with many of these officials. In most cases, information
is gathered quickly and accurately including official
registered birth, marriage, and death certificates. And
most of all, the professional Italian genealogist can
advise you on a course of investigation as well as when
to persevere and when to give up. In many cases a complete
and accurate family tree can be completed in several months
and treasured for generations.
*Town Halls (Comuni) have started to register
the population only after the unification of Italy (about
1866-1873 to today's date) State Archives (Archivi di
Stato) maintain the so-called Napoleonic records, mostly
available in the south of Italy, covering the period from
1809 (1820 in Sicily) to 1865 Parish churches (Parrocchie)
have started to record births/marriages/deaths of their
parishioners after the Council of Trento at the end of
the 1500s.
Check back every other month for future columns containing
valuable tips on researching your genealogy. Also to assist
you in your search, visit the Members
Only section of OSIA.org to join online genealogy
forums and receive special members discounts from My Italian
Family.
-----
Courtesy of My Italian Family. For more information on
how to research your family, visit www.myitalianfamily.com,
write to My Italian Family at 302 A West 12th St #213,
New York, NY 10014 or Via Panisperna, 207, 00184 Roma.
You may also call My Italian Family toll-free at 1-888-472-0171
or email Italians@myitalianfamily.com.
OSIA members should visit OSIA.org's Members
Only section to retrieve a promotional code for discounts
on My Italian Family services.
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