You would think the same rules would apply as those I wrote about for the Antenati site and they do but only up to a point.

Family Search uploaded their films as they appear in the catalogue.  Meaning that if the reel holds more than one type, or year, of records, they all come up together.

Antenati separated the years and types of documents making for a cleaner, more organized search.

These tips are for those occasions when the on line search at Family Search has multiple years or documents types on the same upload.

Let’s look at San Lucido (Cosenza)  1809-1910 https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/596749?availability=Family%20History%20Library

You will note that the AUTORE is the Ufficio dello Stato Civile for the entire period 1809-1910 and the the REPOSITORY is the Archivio di Stato.  Look further down the page and you will see that the Digital Collection is from the TRIBUNALE and only covers the years 1866-1910.

The agreement that Family Search has is different for each of these locations.  The Archivio di Stato won’t let Family Search publish these records on line because they will eventually be published on the Italian ANTENATI site, which is why they are locked (except to church members).  The records held by the Tribunale are covered under a different agreement and are public.

Records of Italy, Cosenza, Paola, Civil Registration (Tribunale) are available online, click here.

Click on ‘here’ and you will be taken to where it says:-

Visualizza le immagini di questa raccolta  (see the records in this collection)

Sfoglia 270.197 immagini   (look at 270.197 images)

Come citare questa raccolta  (How to cite this collection)

“Italia, Cosenza, Paola, Stato Civile (Tribunale), 1866-1910.” Images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 14 June 2016. Tribunale di Paola (Paola Court, Paola).

When you click on Sfoglia 270.197 immagini   you will then be asked to choose the Province.  In this case there is only one.  Click on Cosenza and a list of available towns will appear.  Choose San Lucido and a list of the available films for this town will be shown.

The first option is for the Morti (Death records) 1875-1910 combined with Cittadinanza 1866-1895 and 1897-1910.  Click on that.On the left you will see four options, a plus sign to enlarge and a minus sign to diminish the images,a series of small squares and finally what looks like a photo holder.

Click on the third icon and a screen will appear with multiple images.  Then click on the last icon.  This should fill the screen with just the title and images.  Clicking on this icon again will take you back to the original screen which is more difficult to search from.

At the beginning of each reel of film there are a couple of BLACK images. These denote the beginning and/or end of each reel or type of documents. The death records begin at 1866 and end at 1910.  If you want to search the Cittadinanza records or the death records for 1910 then you will need to scroll down until you see two more BLACK images.  To speed things up click in the – (minus) sign on the left several times until your screen is filled with tiny images.  Keep looking for those two black images.  When you see them, click on the first one which will be image 1647.  This number is then shown on the top of the screen Image 1647 of 1744. .  You will have arrived at the end of the death records reel. What is left are the Cittadinanza records.

If you want to search the 1910 death records check the images before image 1647,  this is the end of the year book and where you will usually find the index pages. Using the + and – icons you should be able to pick out where the 1910 death records begin (Image 1595) since the first page of a section usually has a distinctive design.  Then use the multiple image icon to toggle back and forth between single and multiple images until you find the act you need.

To store the image in your computer click on ‘scarica’ in the black bar and the image will come up in a separate screen where a right click on your mouse will give you the option to ‘save image with name’.  Use the ‘back button to return to where you were.

‘The last item on the bar is Strumenti’ (I just realized that my computer is giving Italian wording and yours probably has English). This is a very useful tool when the images are faded or damaged as you can adjust the luminosity and contrast, or invert or turn the images.

Note: turning the images only works for one image at a time.

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