Catasto Onciario – How and why it was created
In 1740 the Catasto Onciario was proposed by King Charles III (who reigned from 15 May 1734 – 6 October 1759) and and by 1742 regulations had been sent out to all the towns in the Regno delle Due Sicilie with instructions to complete the work by the end of January 1743. Ten years later, … Continue reading
Indexes – how accurate are they and what to do if the name isnt there?
Let’s discuss first the indexing currently underway by Family Search and Antenati. This indexing is being done by volunteers who may, or may not be familiar with the elaborate handwriting of our Italian ancestors. You should try your search on both sites and on Ancestry.com. I have a feeling Antenati is not sharing this project … Continue reading
Sins of the father….the story of Anna
Stories about women are rare so I would like to take a few minutes of your time to focus on a kind of heroine. One who went against the culture and traditions of the time. A young woman whose true story we will never know, but one that we can imagine, based on various documents … Continue reading
Italian/Albanian ancestry? We can help!
Please welcome Giuseppe Baffa to our team. Giuseppe has a degree in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage. He has published many papers and books on various issues related to Arbëresh culture and tradition, which he knows very well. In addition to being interested in Albanian culture, he is an arbëresh living in Santa Sofia d’Epiro, … Continue reading
Finding Achille
Alistair Goold came to me with a desperate plea for help. With the help of an Italian lawyer he had exhausted all known avenues to locate the birth record of his GGFather without which he could not get his Italian citizenship. He sent me a list of the archives they had searched without success. Filomena … Continue reading
What you need to know about reconstructed civil records
Earthquakes, wars, fires, floods, landslides, tsunami etc. can all be responsible for the destruction of civil birth, marriage and death records. When this happens research into your ancestry can present brick walls that are not easily overcome. After the disaster is over a Tribunal is set up and citizens are asked to present themselves, bringing … Continue reading
Emigrants’ Bulletins, Births, marriages and deaths of Italians of unknown origin in foreign countries.
Official Bulletins were published by the Italian State during the late 19th century with lists of Italians who deceased or married or were born abroad, whose origin or residence in Italy were unknown. The bulletins were published during the late 19th century and available as digital images online (Archivio di Stato di La Spezia/Anagrafe/Italia/), and … Continue reading
Connecting families in San Donato Val di Comino
Susan writes: Thanks, Ann, for all your help. If not for you identifying Pasqualino as close a relative, we wouldn’t have been able to connect. Facebook also made it easier since I was able to chat with him beforehand and let him know we were visiting. When we got to the square where we were … Continue reading
Clerical (or other) errors on civil records.
Often there is a story behind it all. Here is my interpretation of events on a recent research puzzle covering several towns and the associated document errors. ‘His legitimate wife’ or was she? This week I was researching a family in the early 1800’s; Carmine, his wife Giovanna and their son Angelo. I noted that … Continue reading
Using Facebook for Genealogy
There are many Facebook pages that focus on Italian Genealogy and there are lots of people helping out with translations and giving guidance on where to find the records. Antenati – il portale del SAN is the Facebook page for antenati and they try to keep us updated with their uploading progress. Unfortunately the text … Continue reading
