Italy Genealogy

Guide to Italy ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

Country Information
Italy is a country in Southwestern Europe bordered by France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, and Vatican City. It became a unified country in 1861. The official language is Italian.

Italy Clickable Map
Genealogy records are kept on the state level in Italy. Click on a state below to go to the state Wiki article listing more information.

Regions
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.

More Italy Research Strategies
Research strategies give guidance on how to research or what records to search for first. Below are additional research strategy Wiki articles for Italy.
 * Interpreting Italian records
 * Finding Records of Your Ancestors, Italy 1809-1910

More Italy Research Tools
Research tools can include resources that assist in locating correct records to search and determining the correct locality to search in. Below are links and Wiki articles to research tools in Italy.
 * Letter Writing Guide
 * Italian Occupations List
 * Italy Websites
 * Translation of printed civil marriage forms
 * Translation of printed civil death form
 * Anglo-Italian Family History Society online transcriptions of Italian names in the 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891 England censuses.
 * Family History Research Outline - contains many out-of-date links

FamilySearch Resources
Below are FamilySearch resources that can assist you in resourcing your family.
 * Facebook Communities - Facebook groups discussing genealogy research
 * Historical Records
 * Family History Center locator map

Italy Research Tutorials

 * Basic Italian Research
 * Reading Italian Handwritten Records:
 * Lesson 1: The Italian Alphabet
 * Lesson 2: Words and Phrases
 * Lesson 3: Reading Italian Records