Italian Genealogical Society of America Annual Meeting

On Sunday I attended the annual meeting and dinner of the Italian Genealogical Society of America (IGSA) held at Teresa's Italian Eatery in Middleton. Our dinner consisted of a hot-and-cold antipasti buffet of prosciutto, salami, cheese, olives, artichokes, tomatoes, roasted peppers, eggplant, and arancini (rice balls) with tomato sauce as an appetizer, followed by a main-course buffet of Pasta Pomodori, Meatballs, Sausages with Peppers and Onions, and Chicken, Broccoli, and Ziti in White Wine. I had a fantastic time sharing a delicious meal with friends while discussing Italian family history and genealogical research. Marcia Melnyk, president of the group, proposed ideas for future meetings, including an encore presentation of Italian onsite research by Mary Tedesco and a lecture exploring food and travel in Italy.

The Italian Genealogical Society of America meets quarterly at the National Archives in Waltham. For additional information about the Italian Genealogical Society of America please visit their website at http://www.italianroots.org.

For additional information about Italian onsite research please visit my blog post Italian Onsite Research Demystified.

Italian Ancestors Online Project

The National Archives of Italy (Direzione Generale per gli Archivi) and FamilySearch are involved in a combined effort to digitize Italian Civil Registration records from 1802 through 1941. Italian Civil Registration records are a rich source of vital information containing birth (1802 - 1902), marriage (1802 – 1912), and death (1802 - 1941) records. When completed over 115 million digital images of Italian vital records will be searchable on the Family Search website. Agreement for this effort began in 2011 and the digitizing of records from the National Archives of Italy and from Family Search microfilms and vault records is currently underway. Digitized records are added continually to the Family Search website, http://www.familysearch.org. Indexing of the records for online searches is an ongoing project and Family Search is looking for volunteers to assist the indexing effort. If you are interested in volunteering for this worthwhile and significant project please visit http://www.familysearch.org, and select Volunteer and Indexing. For more information about the digitization project please visit the National Archives of Italy website at http://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.it and the Family Search website at https://familysearch.org/italian-ancestors.¹

References:
¹"Press Release for Italian Ancestors Project," LoSpecchio 18 (Spring 2013):4. LoSpecchio is the newsletter of the Italian Genealogical Society of America.

Italian Onsite Research Demystified

Last Saturday I attended a superb presentation by Mary Tedesco at the Italian Genealogical Society of America June meeting held at the National Archives in Waltham. Mary is a professional genealogist who specializes in Italian research. She shared her extensive knowledge of Italian research strategies in a presentation on onsite research in Italian repositories. Below are some of the highlights on Italian onsite research from Mary’s presentation:

• Italian civil genealogical records are held either at the town/city level or at the state level.
  • Town/city level records are kept at the town or city hall (municipio) at the General Registry Office (Ufficio Anagrafe) and the Vital Records Office (Ufficio di Stato Civile). In addition to census records, which are taken every ten years, the General Registry Office holds the certificate of the Original Status of the Family (Certificato di Stato di Famiglia Originario), an important document which contains date and location information on birth, marriage, and death for members of a family group. The certificate also indicates the dates of emigration from Italy for family members. The Vital Records Office contains civil records of birth, marriage, and death.
  • State-level records are held at the State Archives (Archivi di Stato) in each province. The holdings at the state level vary from province to province, and may include civil, military, notarial, hospital, and church records. An online catalog for state-level archival holdings is available at http://www.archivi-sias.it/index.asp.
• Churches hold archival records, including annual censuses (Stato D’Anima). Some Church records date back to the 1500’s. Other sources of genealogical information for the Italian researcher are local libraries (biblioteche) and cemeteries (cimiteri). Although cemetery plots in Italy are generally rented for a thirty-year period, the cemetery office may keep burial records for a longer period.
• Letters for research requests should always be written in Italian. A recommendation for guidelines to follow is Lynn Nelson’s A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your Italian Roots, which presents excellent examples of the types of letters to mail to various Italian repositories.

Mary also provided information about eligibility for Italian/American dual citizenship and encouraged the audience to determine their eligibility and pursue Italian citizenship if the option is available. She concluded her excellent presentation with encouragement to take the plunge into Italian onsite research and to share success stories with her. Mary can be contacted through her website at http://www.originsitaly.com or by email at progenitore@gmail.com.