Do you want to research in the Diocesan Archives of your ancestor's hometown?

If you need to determine what parishes were in your ancestor's hometown, and what diocese they belonged to, the Chiesa Cattolica Italiana website is a good start.  Be aware that these are the current parishes and diocesan jurisdictions so there may be some differences from when your ancestors resided in Italy.

Each diocese has an archive usually named the Archivio Diocesano or Archivio Storico Diocesano.  Once you have the name of the diocese you can Google it and it often provides contact information, hours, and information on patrimony.  For example, the link below is for the archives at the Diocese of Lodi:

Archivio Storico Diocesano- Diocesi di Lodi

Research at the diocesan archives is at their discretion and usually by appointment only.  It would be good to verify that they have the types of records you seek before making an appointment.  Do not expect them to do research for you.  This is one type of Italian archive where you need to do the research yourself!

Italian Repatriation from the United States

My quest for continuing education led me to read a book this week on the above topic.   Italian Repatriation from the United States, 1900-1914 by Betty Boyd Caroli is rife with statistics and explains this issue as seen by both the Italian and American government as well as scholars on both sides of the ocean.

Most interesting to me, was the interviews with actual immigrants who had returned.  I highly suggest this book if you wish to further your understanding of this topic.  The book is available on Amazon.com.

Why won't the civil registration office in my ancestor's hometown answer my research requests?

The website for Rome's Anagrafe, Stato Civile, and Leva offices provides a good example into how much work Italian civil registration offices really handle a year, how much work this particular cities' 3,800,000 citizens generate.  

Citta di Roma - Anagrafe, Stato Civile, Leva

Amongst the list are:

Transciption of 130,000 civil records (births, adoptions, acknowledgements disclaimers, marriages, citizenship, burial)

Managing the 8,700,000 civil records being stored in this office (1871-onward)

Managing the 70,000 (adoptions, awards, marriages, divorces, separations, etc.

Transcibing 15,000 marriage banns

Performing and transcibing 4,800 civil marriages

Issuing 500,000 ID cards

Managing the register of residents abroad (A.I.R.E.) - this is the register you are transcribed into when you get your dual citizenship.

Managing the population database

Military registration

Digitization of records for non-centralized access

...and it goes on.

This is why they often don't have time to do extensive research for you.  I used Rome as an example because their website is so descriptive but the concept applies no matter what civil office you need to contact in Italy. Your genealogical requests need to be clear, concise, and not require them to do a lot of research.  Many offices, especially those in large cities like Rome, simply do not have the time to do more then is specifically asked for.

So, I would suggest researching in U.S. records first to get as close to the true information as possible before sending letters to Italy.  Then make them as clear as possible and include all the information they need to locate the record for you quickly.  If you do this, your success rate will be much higher!

The Municipio (Town Hall)

Each Italian town (Comune) has a town hall where that town's set of civil records are kept.  This office is called the Municipio.  That is usually the name you will see posted above the doorway leading into the town hall.  Below is a picture of the Municipio in Rovetta, Bergamo Province, Italy.  Most times the buildings will be marked with flags or a banner.

However, there are usually separate offices within the town hall that do separate things.  Some small towns may combine these offices as well as the duties of a few employees.  Isnello in the Palermo Province is one town that comes to mind that does have both offices combined.  The Municipio of Sciacca, Agrigento Province is marked by a banner out front and has separate offices for the Stato Civile and the Anagrafe, the main town offices useful for genealogical research.  There was an inner courtyard which is hidden from the street.

Rarely, are the Stato Civile and the Anagrage offices not in the same building.  Most times, the offices are open to walk into during their posted office hours.  The Rovetta Municipio (top picture) had electronic locks on the door and you had to speak into the speaker to gain entrance.  It is always good to have made an appointment.  You will get better service, if they know you are coming!

There's a Crazy Dog Under the Palace! - Sotto Un Palazzo C'e' Un Cane Pazzo!

In my pursuit to learn more about the Italian culture of our ancestors, I sometimes run across Italian Americans, or descendants of Italians residing in other countries, who are making a contribution to the Italian culture in unusual ways.  Davide Cuccia is one of those people.  He has written and illustrated a children's book, available in both English and Italian, inspired by a Sicilian children's limerick.  I briefly interviewed Mr. Cuccia and he was kind enough to tell us about his book and his inspiration for it.

Interview with Davide Cuccia

Let's just start talking about the book, why you wrote it, what was your inspiration, what in the book might further a person's knowledge of Italian culture?

"What was my inspiration? Family!  As I get older, I appreciate the logic and "the flow" that comes from one thing naturally leading to another.  I rediscovered my family ties in Sicily in 1994, and subsequently my wife and I made our first trip (of three trips for three weddings) to Sicily in September of 1995.

After taking some basic courses in Italian at a local church in Columbus a good friend helped me prepare a small phrase book so that I could ask specific questions of my new-found family, and hopefully fill in some of the gaps in my family research.  My cousin, Antonino Cuccia, love the fact that I'd taken the time to prepare such a book, and helped me in everyway possible with anunciation of words, and even some fun phrases that would challenge my too-American tongue!  One phrase that I loved in particular was a children's limerick that goes "sotto un palazzo c'e' un cane pazzo...te pa stu cane stu pezzu' ri pane!" or "there's a crazy dog under the palace...here, crazy dog, a piece of bread."  I loved the flow of the phrase and practiced it often.

Flash forward to early 2010 - the three trips to Sicily and a three week visit from cousin Nino and his wife Rita (in 1999) are now wonderful memories...my wife and I are walking our black lab, Jasmine, and I'm telling her how I would love to illustrate a children's book involving animals.  She turns to me and simply says "why don't you use that phrase your cousin taught you about the crazy dog under the palace, and use Jasmine in the storyline as the crazy dog?"

It was a brilliant idea.  Simple and brilliant.  The logic lined up perfectly with the opportunities...if I hadn't found the family in Sicily through genealogy, I would never have heard the limerick...and if I hadn't heard the limerick, I would never have found the idea for a story to illustrate!  That was the beginning of the process."

What in the book might further a person's knowledge of Italian culture?

"For the setting: I've set the story at the Palazzo Comitini, a real palace in Palermo, Sicily which we've toured on one of our visits.  I've tried to portray the entrance, hallways, balconies, statues and artifacts found in the palace as accurately as possible for a greater sense of realism to envelop the characters as the story progresses.

For the Italian "feel" to the story: I didn't "grow up Italian", as the phrase goes, because my grandfather, Sebastiano Cuccia, left the family during the Depression when my father was 10 years old.  I grew up with no trace of Italian culture or language in the home, just loving, caring parents who taught me that friendship and a smile can do wonders for most situations!  That's something I wanted to bring to this book, first and foremost.  To me that represents the warmth and love of the Italian people. Period.  I'd also decided that if I were going to write and illustrate this book, the finished product would have to appear in two versions, English and Italian...after all, the whole concept started with a Sicilian limerick...it wouldn't be fair not to see it through to it's logical conclusion!"

Doesn't this book sound great!  If you have a child in your life you would like to share something related to the Italian culture with, please consider buying this book.

The book can be ordered by going to www.cucciacreative.com and clicking on the Online Store link

Hardcover is $29.95 per book
Paperback is $21.95 per book

Both can be ordered in either English or Italian

Bravo, Davide!!!

FamilySearch Unites with Italian Archives to Digitize records

I have been waiting with baited breath for this announcement. It's my understanding that not only will they digitize what is already on microfilm but that there are also many new records that will be digitized in the process!

see the link below for more details:

https://www.lds.org/church/news/familysearch-unites-with-italian-archive-organization-to-digitize-civil-registration-records?lang=eng&query=italian&cid=facebook-shared

Understanding Your Italian Ancestors - Part II

More information on the use of population registers can be found in On the Move: Migration in an Italian Community, 1865-1921, published in Social Science History, authors: David I. Kertzer and Dennis Hogan.

"Each administratively defined houehold and each individual were to be continuously followed and their changing characteristics recorded.  In the case of Casalecchio there was both a system of household folders and a system of individual registration cards with cross-reference to the successive household folders in which the individfual could be found through his or her time in the commune.  Each resident of the commune thus had his or her own data card in the register, as well as appearing as an entry in the household folder in which he or she lived.

As part of the Italian population register system there were also separate immigration and emigration registers.  Each person or family group who entered the commune had to register with the communal authorities, at which time a listing of the individuals was made and transcribed into a new population register entry.  The inividual or family group was also listed alphabetically in a year-by-year index of immigrants.  When a person emigrated, the commune of immigration was obligated to make a copy of the immigration certificate and send it to the commune from which the individual emigrated.  These certificates formed the emigration register of that comune, and the information was used to provide a dated closure for the individual's population register entry.  An alphabetically-ordered emigration index was also compiled."

This gives us a more intimate look into the civil process regarding population registers, emigration, and immigration that no book on Italian research provides.  It pays to look beyond the standard references when you are trying to more fully understand your ancestors lives and the evidence you find within the records.

Digitization of Parish Records Underway in Ischia and Procida

La Grande Famille De Procida & Ischia is a non-profit organization which has been digitizing the parish records of these two islands, which are located in the Gulf of Naples, since before 2004.  They also plan to digitize the records of Capri, Monte di Procida, Ponza, and Ventotene.

100% of the parish records in Procida have been digitized and 50% of them are up on the website in index form.  They have begun digitization of several parishes in Ischia but the project is not as advanced on this island.

If your ancestors came from these islands it would be to your advantage to join this association and gain access to the records being digitized.  Their membership fee is a reasonable 40 Euro. 

Also, in coordination with the archives in Naples, you are able to obtain rccords of children who were abandoned in Santissima Annunziata in Naples.  I don't know of any other project to make available the records of abandoned children so this is an extremely valuable resource.

They have an English version of some of their website's pages so check it out!

Blog Makes FamilyTree Magazine's Top 40!

I found out yesterday that FamilyTree Magazine named this blog as one of the top 40 blogs for international research!

FamilyTree Magazine's Top 40

I hope to continue to provide content that it helpful in your research!  If there is ever any subject you would like to see discussed, please do not hesitate to contact me at Melanie@holtzresearch.com or leave a comment on this site.

Melanie

Fortunato the Bastard Child

Sometimes the bluntness seen within the records surprises me.  Most times when you encounter the birth record of a child born out of wedlock they say he was abandoned, that his mother or parents were not known, that he was found on the "ruota" or wheel on which abandoned children were placed for the church or state to raise.  You don't often see the child called a bastard.

The record linked below is the exception.  This may be because his father claimed him but the mother did not.  This situation happened but not as often as the abandonment of the child.  Found in the civil records of the town of Ota, Corsica, the record reads, in part:

"...the act of birth of Fortunato, a bastard, who is hereby being presented and who was born yesterday at eight in the evening to Domenico Luciani, a resident of this town who hereby recognizes this male child..."

Birth Record of Fortunato, the Bastard

Would you change this word when translating it?  No.  If we change what these records say to meet modern sensibilities, could we not misinterpret the records?  

Understanding Your Itaiian Ancestors - Part I

There comes a time, when researching your Italian ancestors, where you  realize you will need to seek educational sources in order to more fully understand the lives that your ancestors left behind and why they left.  Family history is more than a bunch of names and dates on a chart.  Digging into historical books and scholarly offerings can really help you to understand their lives.

One scholar that stands out in researching Italians is David I. Kertzer.  He has written several books on a multitude of subjects and written many articles for different scholarly journals.  Use WorldCat to find some of the articles and order them through your local library.

One article I read years ago was published in 1985 in the journal Social Science History.  Written by David I. Kertzer and Dennis P. Hogan, the article is titled "On the Move: Migration in an Italian Community, 1865-1921".  There are a  several interesting parts of this article that furthered my understanding of the Italian culture.  The quote below is taken from this article.

Within the agricultural peasant class, one often sees families moving between a home in a larger city and a farmhouse in the country.  Sometimes there are citizenship (cittadinanza) records that are available by microfilm but these do not usually contain non-permanent moves.  How then does one research these moves?

"The possibility of obtaining a longitudinal view of migration behavior over the life course of individuals in nineteenth-centry Italy is afforded by the population register....a population register system was only mandated nationally with the emergence of the Post-Unification government in the 1860's ...Each commune was to undetake a census of its population and, on the basis of that census, it was to follow all changes in its population brought about by immigration, emigration, internal population movement [emphasis added], births, marriages, and deaths."

Here then we see that using the population registers would perhaps be the most direct way to track such migrations.  These types of registers were called Stato di Famiglia in some places and their survival rate is not high.  Some civil record's officals know what you are talking about when you ask for them and some don't.  Several civil record's offices in Italy that I visited last summer said that the old population registers [pre-1900] were destroyed with the onset of regular country-wide censuses.  One office, after telling me they were destroyed, remembered that they had been stowed in a back cabinet and pulled out a six-inch high stack of loose register pages for me to go through.  While the information was crossed out as they transferred the information to the 1900 census, I was still able to glean valuable information from these Stato di Famiglia records for my client.

More information will follow in future posts...

Researching in the Town of Cerreto Guidi, Province of Florence

The website of this town has a great guide to what is found in their "Archivio Storico", a town archives that opened in October of last year, and whose holdings are available for research.  It can be accessed at the link below:

Holdings of the Archivio Storico

They've divided their list of holdings by whether they were created before or after Italian Unification.  Some holdings of particular interest for genealogical researchers are:

Stato Civile ( civil records - birth, marriage, death, citizenship, miscellaneous acts, etc.)
1808-1909 (records after this date are available in their civil records office)

Censimenti (census)
from 1899
(census records are often hard to access so their advertisement of their availability is wonderful)

Anagrafe (registry office records)
from 1910
(This is the office that will prepare State of the Family Certificates when needed for your research.  Their holdings often contain town censuses in addition to the Censimenti)

Leva Militare (military conscription)
from 1865
(These are often found in a separate provincial millitary archives and not usually kept in the town archives)

....and many more types of records.  Check it out!

Archivio di Stato di Venezia - Digitization of Military Conscription Records and Ancient Maps

The provincial archives in Venezia (Venice) has begun digitization of the military conscription records of this province.  The military conscription project is several years underway but is not yet complete.  However, they have made a good start.

These records can be used to find the town of origin of your immigrating ancestor when all you know is the province they came from.  The high increase in requests for these records for dual citizenship purposes is indicated as the main precipitating factor in this digitization project.

Military Conscription Records

There are also some great, very old maps of this area of Italy available in .pdf form.

List of Available Maps

For those of you who may be engaged in deep scholarly study of this region's history there are a few other online resources available for you on their website.

Other Research Resources

Have fun!  Let me know if this information helps you in your research!

Tracking Emigration Using Stato di Famiglia (State of the Family) Certificates

State of the Family Certificates can be used to track the emigration of your ancestor (or their siblings and cousins).  Sometimes you will find that different family members emigrated to very different parts of the world.

Take for example the family of Guido Colotti.  If you follow the link by clicking on the title of this post, you will see the State of the Family record for Guido Colotti, son of Bartolo.  This family had no idea where this sibling went and would never have guessed that he emigrated to Russia.  Different members of this family dispersed to Russia, Switzerland, and South Africa, three very different places.  

These records have not always survived.  Multiple civil record offices have informed me that these records were destroyed with the onset of regular censuses. However, I would suggest you ask in case they are still available, and because the censuses are often much harder to access.

Leave no stone unturned.

A Look at Southern Italian Life in the 19th Century - Part III

"...Clothing differed as much from section to section among the poor in Italy from which our immigrants came as did language, housing, and culinary methods.  Its variations depended upon local traditions, the materials available, and the needs of the people as defined by occupation and climate.  Much of the peasant clothing, regardless of design, was made from sheep's wool, woven, and sewn in the home...Shepherds thus wore long hooded capes that fell below the knees and sheepskin leggings and trousers as such that adorn American cowboys.  Fisherman, on the other hand, used heavy breeches, woolen stockings, sweaters, and caps when out on the open water in cold weather; and trousers and shirts open at the neck, with feed bare, in the summer.  Peasants who worked in the fields donned trousers and coats or sweaters in summer, both coats and sweaters in the cold season.  Most of these work garments were dark colored, but the somberness was relieved at times by a bright scarf, and the cap, blouse, or shirt might be pink, green or light blue..."