Italy Genealogy

Getting started with Italian research

 * Welcome to the Italy page of the FamilySearch Wiki.

FamilySearch Wiki is a community website dedicated to helping people throughout the world learn how to find their ancestors. Through the Italy page you can learn how to find, use, and analyze Italian records of genealogical value. Please visit the help page to learn more about using the site. The Italy Page is a work in progress, your contributions and feedback are essential! For more information on the history and geography of Italy, click here.

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Jurisdictions
Italy is subdivided into 20 regions (regioni, singular regione). Five of these regions have a special autonomous status that enables them to enact legislation on some of their local matters, and are marked by an asterisk (*). It is further divided into 109 provinces (provincie) and 8,101 municipalities (comuni).

Records are kept at the town level.

Regions



 * 1) Abruzzo
 * 2) Aosta Valley *
 * 3) Apulia (Puglia)
 * 4) Basilicata
 * 5) Calabria
 * 6) Campania
 * 7) Emilia-Romagna
 * 8) Friuli-Venezia Giulia *
 * 9) Lazio
 * 10) Liguria
 * 11) Lombardy (Lombardia)
 * 12) Marche
 * 13) Molise
 * 14) Piedmont (Piemonte)
 * 15) Sardinia (Sardegna)
 * 16) Sicily (Sicilia) *
 * 17) Trentino-Alto Adige *
 * 18) Tuscany (Toscana)
 * 19) Umbria
 * 20) Veneto

Research Tools

 * Italy Vital Records Index (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Itay Births and Baptisms (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Bologna, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Salerno, Vallo della Lucinia Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Catania, San Biagio Parrish Catholic Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Catania, Caltagirone Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Caserta, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Cuneo Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Genova, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Messina, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Messina, Tribunale di Patti, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Napoli Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Oristano Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Nuoro Province Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Padova, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Reoords)
 * Italy, Pistoia Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Potenza, Lagonegro Civil Registrations (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy Salerno, Patula, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Teramo, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy Deaths and Burials (FamilySearch Historical Records
 * Italy Marriages (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Italy, Waldensian Evangelical Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Research Strategies

 * Strategies for locating births marriages, and deaths

Featured Content
Military Conscription Records [registro di leva] list all males by year of birth and provide the name, parents’ names, place of residence, birth date and place, vocation, literacy, and physical description. They also show the draft board’s decision regarding the draftee’s fitness for service. If the draftee had emigrated, the date and destination are noted.

Read more... See the Italian tutorials at FamilySearch.org for "Basic Italian Research", "Italian Script", and lessons one, two and three on "Reading Italian Handwriting Records".

Did you know?

 * Most Italian emigrants were from southern Italy and settled in New York, Chicago, and along the East Coast. Many emigrants from northern Italy settled in the coal and mineral mining towns across the United States. Other northerners later settled in northern California where a climate similar to their own existed.
 * The Anglo-Italian Family History Society has online transcriptions of Italian names in the 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891 England censuses.