Finding records in Italy .....

[SarahND]

Emma Giles was born abt 1836 in Aberdeen, daughter of James Giles R.S.A. and Clementina Farquharson. In 1862 she married William Adlington, a music teacher and choral director. Some time between 1881 and 1891 she left him (family tradition reports he was having affairs with his students) and disappeared from the records. In 1891 he was back living with his parents in Strathbungo, Govan. Family tradition says Emma went to Italy (possibly Rome) and remained there for the rest of her life. One of her daughters (not sure whether Esther Catherine or Mary Annie) reportedly married an Italian doctor.

Does anyone have any tips for finding records in Italy? I am hoping that it will somehow be possible to find Emma’s death and the marriage of her daughter.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Sarah

[LesleyB]

Hi Sarah
Try putting italian genealogy into a search engine such as Google - many sites to visit!

Best wishes
Lesley

[SarahND]

Thanks, Lesley,
I have already gone that route and found many irrelevant sites... Most are geared towards Italian Americans and emigration from Italy to the U.S. I have found no real data on the internet that would answer my questions and it is possible that I will not find anything without a trip to Rome But I was hoping that someone in the forum might have had some experience with this and be able to point me in the right direction.

Best,
Sarah

[LesleyB]

Hi Sarah
Ok. Here are a couple places to try, found in an article in a magazine:
http://www.anglo-italianfhs.org.uk/
http://www.italianancestry.com/

...and you'd better brush up your Italian for this one - the Italian National Archive site, providing addresses for most of the State "Provincial" Record Centres in Italy, along with details of what each centre holds.
http://archivi.beniculturali.it/UCBAWEB/indice.html

Searcheable directory of parishes in Italy (in Italian)
http://www.chiesacattolica.it/cci_new/parrocchie/

Italian to English vocab - To help with family history documents
http://www.roangelo.net/vocabula.html

hope soem of these are of some help
Ciao!
Lesley

[SarahND]

Well that should keep me out of your hair for a bit
Grazie, Lesley!!

[rosamund]

I have visited the grave of Emma Adlington, nee Giles, in Rome. She was my great great grandmother, and I am also very interested in finding out information about her daughter Mary who joined her in Italy. Our family records show Mary married a Dr. Burroni and died in Viareggio but I have not been able to get any further than this yet.

RB

[SarahND]

Hello Rosamund and
I am absolutely thrilled to be in contact with you and am in the process of writing a long email I found out recently from William Adlington's will that Mary Annie's husband was a Dr. Burroni, but was unable to find anything further on him or her. I look forward to exchanging information!

All the best,
Sarah

[Andy]

Hi there, think I posted something similar on a previous iteration of this board.

To my knowledge, there is still not a Central Repository for Vital Records in Italy. Birth, Marriage and Death records are reported at Town (Comune) level and copies sent to the various Provincial Capitals' State Archives (Ufficio dello Stato Civile). Many States are now digitizing records and providing free English Translations.

As such, it's vital to have a fairly good idea of where Italian Ancestors lived before starting. Luckily, many Italian Surnames derive from a birthplace and because, until the early 1900's, they didn't move about a lot (Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo aside) even within Italy, which was only fully unified on St. Patrick's day 1861, most surnames can be traced to a specific area.

Once you've narrowed down where your relations lived, Comune records frequently contain a STAGGERING amount of information. I have seen Baptismal and Marriage records naming full lineage to Great Grandparents!!! Because of the influence of the Catholic Church such detail was required, 4th Cousins couldn't marry via "Consanguinity" rules until (I think) 1917. Italians and the Irish took these rules VERY seriously - probably all Catholic Countries.

So if you know where to look you may be in for a REAL treat!

[SarahND]

Hi Andy,
Yes, thanks to combining our knowledge, we now know more precisely where to look. I wish I knew which communes were going to come online next at FamilySearch!

On another family line and in case anyone is interested and this applies to them, Italy will grant citizenship jure sanguinis to people whose great grandparents were born in Italy (and possibly further back). The only stipulation is that the generation that left Italy did not become a citizen of another country until after the birth of one's ancestor in the next generation. For example, I'm in the process of getting Italian citizenship for my older son, whose great grandparents on his father's side came to the USA from Italy in the early 1900's. Their daughter (my son's grandmother) was born in 1921 and the parents didn't become US citizens until the 1930s, so it works. Brilliant!

All the best,
Sarah

[Andy]

Hi Sarah,

Probably a good time to seek Italian citizenship. I believe that Conscription has now stopped but I had many Scottish Italian friends in the 1970's whose parents had been born in Italy and were "Called Up" for National Service despite having a British Passport!! Many managed to pay their way out - some didn't and had a terrible time with their fluent, but Scottish accented, Italian some using obsolete dialects and phrases.

Italy, like most of Europe, is in a bad financial situation, I hope the patriotic urge doesn't come with a Tax sting in the tail.

Cherrs,

Andy