Italian Genealogy Website

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Permalink Reply by Jo Saunders on September 28, 2010 at 2:15pm

Are you looking for a place to make a website in the italian language for your family tree or a place to help you in your research of your Italian roots?

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Permalink Reply by Laura Palmer on September 29, 2010 at 2:54am

Hello Jo

I am looking for a place to research my Italian roots.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Saunders on September 29, 2010 at 7:10am

Do you know where in Italy your family is from, about when they got here and where they settled? If not you need to begin with trying to find which ships they came here on, which may give you the town where they were born. If you already know the town, then there are a number of places where you can get help in researching, where you can be in touch with others researching in your areas. do you know your surnames and if they are the correct spellings, many people from other countries have had their names changed over the years by census takers school teachers etc. To begin with you can go here http://gens.labo.net/it/cognomi/ and the little box on the left that says, Cognome, type in your surname, then click on the red arrow, it will show where your name is present today in Italy. you can click where the little dots are and it will tell you the province and maybe the city. I know it is in italian but it is easy to see how it works. This is nice if you are looking for family that still live in italy. (Conome means surname in italian, good to know) some times it can give you an idea where they might be from orriginally.
On this site there is the Italian Group and I believe it is divided up in to regions. A good thing to know is how Italy is divided, it is regions, then the regions are divided in to provinces then the provinces are divided in to comunes (cities) some times the cities are divided in to frazione (kind of like districts) this is good to know when researching, Let me know about where you are in your search and I can give you some pointers on where to go for help. It is hard when I don't know what you already know I don't want to be too basic for you. It is one thing to search all of italy it is quite another to search in your comune and the resources would be different too.
Have you researched your family here, back to when they came here from italy? Oh yes and where are you, I was assumming you are in the US? There are many clues here in the US that may help you to find the comunes where they came from, naturalization papers may tell you the little village they came from , census may tell you the year they came.
There is not a lot on line as far as databases and ancestry types of sites, but there are a lot of people who may be searching in your areas who can give you help and pointers on how to get your information.
If you are just stepping in to research in italy i would suggest you read either the book by Lynn Nelson, "Discovering your Italaian ancestors" or trafford cole's book "Italian Genealogical records" You can likely get either or both at your local library I prefer Lynn's book, but both are helpful in reading documents and helping you to get them. Please post what you know and then Hopefully I can help you to find the sites and resources that will help you.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Saunders on September 29, 2010 at 12:13pm

Here are two excellent mailing lists, the people here are learned and will share resources if they can, both also have surname databases you can add yours and look to see if any one is researching yours in the areas you are researching

http://lists.jsoft.com/mailman/listinfo/pie
http://comunesofitaly.org/mailman/listinfo/coi_comunesofitaly.org

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Permalink Reply by James P. LaLone on October 1, 2010 at 7:05am

A whole bunch of sites are listed here:

http://www.cyndislist.com/italy.htm

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