Here's how I worked my way back to Italy on the immigrant lines of my husband and myself.
Using headstones, we found the years of birth & death. Findagrave.com was helpful because we were able to view photos of the headstones from remote locations. The relatives, like most Italians, were Catholic and were interred in the churchyard cemetary of the family's parrish in Pennsylvania. I've been able to get copies of church records for the sacraments from a number of Catholic churches. Baptism, 1st Holy Communion, Confirmation and matrimonial records include not only the ancestor but many times gives clues to other family relationships by naming godparents, sponsors, parents and witnesses. Pennsylvania is a treasure because Ancestry.com owns a database of digital copies of death certificates from the 19th century up to the 1960s. These certificates provided the Italian cities in which the ancestors were born and the maiden name of the decedant's mother as well as the father.
Now comes the interesting part. I've identified the towns from which each of our ancestors emmigrated. In one case, I've verified that there are residents sharing the same surname still living there. My husband got an Italian language learning kit from me this year so we can brush up and cobble together letters of inquiry to mail off. I'll keep my fingers crossed that my pidgeon attempt at Italian will get passed to an English speaker or one with a lot of patience with my learning curve.
