What resource links should we include in the Italian_Roots project page?

Question

What are the best resources  for tracing Italian ancestors online? My favorite is

https://familysearch.org/search/

which has  many Italian Civil Registration records, including Births, Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths, from 1806 onwards, as started under Napoleon. Some Diocesan records are also available, but not for all dioceses yet.

But we need more resources going back further, links to church resources,  land records, records of the nobility and of heraldry.

Please list your favorite Italian Research Resources here for inclusion in the Italian_Roots projects  resources page.

Thank you!

Sharon Troy Centanne

Comments

Here is another good link from Familsearch.org - Italian Genealogy Word List

https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Italian_Genealogical_Word_List

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Here is a link to WikiBooks which has  Italian Vocabulary for Professions:

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Italian/Vocabulary/Professions

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The Family Search wiki has a lot of good sections -- https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Italy

Answer 1

www.ellisisland.org should be a starting place for any American looking into their Italian family. The ship manifests are a treasure of information. Some of the transcriptions are sketchy but once you actually find the person you are searching for you can email with correct names. I've done that with several great grandparents.

Comments

Thanks, Jim. Don't forget a lot of our Italian ancestors came in through New Orleans as well. Our Sicilians came back and forth so many times as migrant laborers in the sugar cane fields, that sometimes  they may be listed in both ports!

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Oh definitely New Orleans was the 1st immigration point for Sicilians in the 1880-1890's. The the mass immigration from the mainland to New York and a lot to Boston.

Answer 2

I would also include the Portale Antenati link. FamilySearch is working with the State Archives to index these records and the original digital images are available at this site:

http://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/en/home

I also like this site for history/derivation/locations for Italian surnames:

http://www.ganino.com/cognomi_italiani

Comments

Awesome! Thanks! Do the State Archives have records before 1806?

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The Portale is great, I have found a lot of records there. I had no idea there was an english version as i have been fumbling around with the Italian version for months. Most of the Sicilian provinces are online there, Palermo is not. Messina is but un indexed and you have to search record by record. Caltanissetta is indexed fairly well and I have found a bunch for my Defranco/DiFranco and Felice lines.

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Yes, I found Centanni in Napoli, with no idea how to connect to them yet, but nothing for Alia, a small town near Palermo city. Thank God lots of Alia and other Sicilian records are available at Familysearch.org. I wonder if they are loading them in alphabetical order because Alia has been available for a few years, but the adjoining town Valle D'Olmo is not. Valle D'Olmo is on Rootsweb.com however, if that still exists. And I could not find the Diocese of Cefalu/Cefala on Familysearch, but a diocese closer to Palermo was online for records pre-dating 1806. I really need those records from the 1700s now! Wish they were online for all over Italia!

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I would also love to see the Valledolmo records up, I have great great grandparents from there, and also gg grandparent from Cerda.

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Well Asiago isn't online (only films are available) so no chance for me. The church books are anyway burned from "il primo guerra mondiale" :-(