How do you find Italian family history?

Answer 1

A good way to start on Italian family history is to interview living family members. It's amazing how many pieces of the genealogical puzzle fall into place just by talking to others in the immediate and extended family. For example, family members may have old pictures or treasured family Bibles in which genealogical information often is jotted down.

After the family, other sources for family history may be found among cultural associations and Church records. For example, in the 19th century, cultural associations were key to an immigrant family's adjustment to the New World. Many of them had permanent meeting places and kept written and even photographic records of their members.

Still other sources are county and state histories. They tend to have genealogical sections that include the parents and grandparents of the particular leading citizen being profiled. These histories provide names that then can be checked against census records of the particular times. Much of the preceding information and more may be found online, through sites such as www.lds.org, and through genealogical programs such as Ancestry and Heritage, to which many libraries subscribe.

What helps to bring everything together is a professional genealogist. A particularly effective source for that help is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Church has microfilms of records from around the world. Italy was the destination of one of the Mormon Church's earliest missionary activities and conversion successes.

So the Church has genealogists who are specialized in solving puzzles in Italian family history. For example, they may have access to the results of Church Administration Building endeavors. One such endeavor is linking the most likely occurrence of a particular last name with a country's particular region. In fact, just as important as tracking down family names is knowing how to narrow down their geographical origins.