How to start, where to look, what to expect
- Church and civil records are available from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose Family History Center provide microfilm copies of the old records, some of which date back to the 1600’s.
- Researching the church records can be very time consuming. The records are hand-written in Latin, so one needs to decipher both the handwriting and the language. Often the priests who wrote the birth, death and marriage certificates were not educated in formal Latin and thus used a sort of Pig Latin. Fortunately we have found a very helpful book to guide us, Trafford Cole’s Italian Genealogical Records, a must-read for anyone planning to delve into Italian genealogy.
- Besides church records, there are also civil records that can usually be found in the city or town of origin.
There are also various web resources:
- The American Family Immigration History Center has recently revamped their website enabling you to research the immigration of a relative. You can view the original ship manifest, and details about any passenger on board.
- A good comprehensive resource for beginning research into your genealogy is Genealogy.com. They have a lot of information about how to get started, what to expect and how to find what you’re looking for.
- For Italian genealogy also look into ItalianAncestry.com
- We highly recommend the book Italian Genealogical Records, by Trafford Cole. In it you will find valuable info on how to search non-church records such as those pertaining to military duty, notary records for land transactions, tax assessment and census records.
- Also you may want to try www.myitalianfamily.com
