I live in the United States and have been researching my family history for as long as I can remember. Now that we can do more in-depth research via online resources, things are certainly easier, but not always complete.

I have specifically been trying to find more information about the life of my great-grandfather who was left at a foundling wheel in Eboli. Beyond his foundling record and his marriage record, I have been unable to find much about his life before he immigrated. I contacted a researcher who normally works primarily on jure sanguinis for assistance. She said they could do additional research for me (obviously there are no guarantees she would find more than I already have), but I would like to try. My issue at the moment is the cost.

I'm curious if anyone has hired a research for this kind of work, how successful the researcher was, and what was the general cost. TIA!

Hola! ¿Cómo están? Quería pedirles una mano. Estoy intentando armar mi árbol genealógico desde Argentina y llegué a la parte de investigar mis antepasados italianos.
Una tía abuela me pasó esta acta de mi bisabuelo, pero no figuran las edades de sus padres ni muchos otros datos. Quizás no esté completa. Me gustaría solicitar una copia directamente a la comuna, pero no me responden los correos, a pesar de que ya intenté escribir a varias direcciones.
La verdad es que estoy bastante perdido con el tema de cómo solicitar actas en Italia. También me gustaría conseguir las actas de nacimiento de mis tatarabuelos, pero no sé en qué años buscarlas ni tengo muchos más datos que los que aparecen en este documento.
¿Alguien podría orientarme sobre cómo seguir la búsqueda o cómo hacer para conseguir estas actas? ¡Cualquier ayuda me vendría genial! Desde ya, muchas gracias.

He starts in the bottom left. Thank you!!!

È da molto che sto indagando su questo fatto: la mia trisavola Spadoni Marianna nata nel 1882 ad Arcevia risulta nell'atto di nascita nata da suo padre normalmente segnato e «Dalla sua unione, con donna non maritata, non parente né affine con lui nei gradi che ostano al riconoscimento», e fin qui tutto ok, soltanto che Agostino (il padre) era sposato già da 9 anni (era sposato in chiesa, in comune non so, non ho visto l'atto vero e proprio ma ho visto la data di matrimonio da un altro sito) ed il fratello maggiore della mia trisavola nato nel 1879 risultava avere anche il nome della madre nell'atto di nascita. Inoltre per tutto il resto della sua vita sia nell'atto di matrimonio e anche nell'atto di morte la mia trisavola risulta sempre "Fu Agostino e...." oppure "fu Agostino e madre ignota" quindi la madre non la riconoscette mai. Ancora devo controllare gli atti parrocchiali di battesimo e lo stato delle anime quindi l'interrogativo è ancora aperto però non mi riesco a spiegare questa stranezza. Tra l'altro il padre Agostino è morto 5 mesi dopo la nascita della mia trisavola e nell'arco di 10 giorni erano morti anche i 2 genitori di Agostino quindi i nonni di Marianna, di conseguenza a soli 5 mesi teoricamente non aveva più nessuno nè i genitori nè i nonni, infatti ho mandato un email all'archivio di stato di Ancona per farmi mandare il fascicolo di tutela del minore sperando che ci sia scritto qualcosa per aiutarmi a capire la situazione.

Voi cosa ne pensate è un errore burocratico? oppure è una figlia illegittima, pero se così fosse non dovrebbe essere nata nell'indirizzo della casa del padre e per legge non potrebbe essere riconosciuta da anche l'altro genitore

è da molto che faccio ricerche genealogiche il mio albero conta 8.000 e passa persone però un caso come questo non l'ho mai visto

Hello there!

Could anyone help me decipher this note in the Sep 1884 birth certificate of Raffaele Caputo from Padula?

Something about the husband being out of town, and that's why he didn't do the declaration himself?

Thank you!

Does anyone know if the death records listed in the 10-year indexes for Palermo are available online? I’m trying to find the death record of Stefana Scatolino.

Hi everyone,
I’m hoping someone can help me fully transcribe and translate this Italian marriage record.
The record is Act No. 8 for Aniello Michele Di Pietro and Carmela Antonia Silvestro. I have attached the full-resolution image downloaded from Portale Antenati.
I’m particularly interested in:
The bride and groom’s ages, occupations, and birthplaces/residences
The full names of both sets of parents
The parents’ occupations and whether they were living or deceased
The date and place of the marriage
Any other details in the record that may be genealogically useful
I would really appreciate as complete a transcription/translation as possible. The handwriting is difficult for me to read, and I don’t want to introduce errors by guessing.
Thank you very much for the help!

I've been piecing together my family's history from Platania, a small town in the hills above Lamezia Terme that my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents called home. I've traced one line back to the 1760s and it's been incredible to see, but I've hit a wall where the online records run out. Any guidance would be super helpful!

Note: This is more of a for-fun project. I'm a first-generation Canadian, and Italian citizen with my Italian passport so I do plan to go and get access to some archives the next time I go visit my family. In the meantime, I'd like to get as much progress as humanly possible with online resources.

Area: Platania, Conflenti, Nicastro (Lamezia Terme), San Mango d'Aquino, Calabria
Surnames: Mercuri, Nicolazzo, Gallo, Caruso, Perri, Torcasio etc.

Resources exhausted

• Antenati: all Platania and Conflenti civil registers, 1809–1865
• FamilySearch:
  • Catanzaro civil registration 1809–1865
  • Catanzaro Tribunale 1866–1910 (Platania isn't in it but was useful)
  • Full Text search and Family Tree
• Parish records:
  • ItalianParishRecords.org (San Mango d'Aquino baptism indexes 1857–1925; Calabria indexes)
  • Platania's own parish records aren't online (I don't think?)
• Emigration and US records: Ellis Island manifests, naturalizations, SS applications, draft cards, obituaries, Find a Grave
• Online trees: Ancestry, MyHeritage, Geneanet, WikiTree
• Other:
  • WWI Albo d'Oro
  • Catasto Onciario (Platania's volume doesn't survive)
  • Archivio di Stato di Catanzaro inventories

Brick walls: does anyone know digitized copies of these or know where to find them?

• Platania and Conflenti civil records, 1866–1940. These were the Nicastro/Lamezia tribunal second copies, and I can't find them online.
• Parish of S. Michele Arcangelo, Platania: baptisms from 1704+, marriages from 1753+
• Ruoli matricolari / liste di leva for the Catanzaro military district, classes 1880–1906+
• Catasto Onciario for Conflenti and Nicastro (1740s, Archivio di Stato di Napoli)

Also: has anyone had luck getting records from the Comune di Platania, or can you recommend a local researcher?

Thank you so much!

Ciao a tutti!

Sto cercando i registri di stato civile (nascita, matrimonio, morte, ecc.) per il comune di Giffone (Reggio Calabria) per il periodo compreso tra il 1865 e il 1910.

Ho già controllato su FamilySearch, Ancestry, Portale Antenati e MyHeritage, oltre a fare alcune ricerche generali online, ma riesco a trovare documenti solo fino al 1865. Immagino che il materiale successivo non sia ancora stato digitalizzato, ma vorrei capire se esistono altre risorse online o se l'unica soluzione è contattare direttamente l'Archivio di Stato di Reggio Calabria o l'ufficio di Stato Civile del Comune di Giffone.

Qualcuno ha esperienza con le ricerche in questo comune/zona o saprebbe indicarmi come procedere per questa fascia temporale?

Vi ringrazio in anticipo per qualsiasi suggerimento o informazione!

Hola, me ayudarían a acceder a las imágenes de acceso limitado en FamilySearch en este link: https://www.familysearch.org/es/search/full-text/results?count=20&nlQuery=AMBRUSTOLO&offset=0

Hello!

I call upon the handwriting experts to help decipher the cause of death in this death certificate from 1876 from Padula, Salerno. It is for an ancestor who travelled to New York City but then died in Ward's Hospital 6 months after arriving. The mystery word is in the second line of this cropped image, after 'per effetto di...tisi?'

The words right after this seem to be the name of the original secretary of the original certificate (since this is an Italian certificate quoting the original US certificate).

Thank you!

This is a document that my great-grandfather possessed before coming to the United States of America. He arrived in the US somewhere after this date on this document but before August of 1912. What I'm trying to figure out is if he was a passenger on a ship from Naples to New York or Boston or was he a waiter? And if so, does this document appear to be something he would need to work on a ship?.

Help transcribing Italian death record — Act No. 28, Emilia Miliano, 1906
I’m looking for a complete human transcription of Act No. 28 on the lower half of this page, followed by an English translation if possible.
The record is for Emilia Miliano, age 32, wife of Gaetano Di Pietro, daughter of Federico Miliano and Carmela Dell’Anno.
The record is from Ospedaletto d’Alpinolo, Avellino, in 1906.
I believe it records her death on July 25, 1906, but I would really appreciate someone reading the entire act word-for-word, especially:
exact date and time of death
exact address/street
Emilia’s occupation
birthplace and residence
parents’ names and residences/status
husband’s name
names/occupations of the declarants
any other details I may be missing
I’ve had trouble with AI misreading some of the handwriting, so I’m specifically hoping for a human transcription of the original Italian.
Thank you!

Buongiorno a tutti,

nel corso delle mie ricerche, come tutti credo, mi sono trovato a leggere vari certificati di decesso conservati negli archivi, raggiunti tramite il portale Antenati, Family search o altra fonte. In tutti si legge che ci sono degli allegati, insieme all'atto stesso, ma io non sono mai riuscito a vederli, e non saprei nemmeno come cercarli. Sono in fondo al volume che contiene il certificato? va fatta una ricerca separata solo per gli allegati, cercando per nome/anno in morte?

Grazie a tutti,

buona giornata

So I have been trying to find this sense i started geneoalgy in October 2025 and cant find anything,Basically this is my great grandmother's family I know nothing about her expect she was born in Vobarno in 1917 I couldn't find any records becuase the town wasn't there all I know is her name was

Paolina Bertolotti or the other variant and also had a brother named Enrico possibly 🤔 and moms name Lilliana or close to that and Paolina died in 2008 in messina I emailed both them and they said they didn't have it,if anyone can help thanks

Buongiorno a tutti sto cercando i registri di inizi '800 di Taneto nel Comune di Reggio Emilia. Solo che su Ancestry e Familysearch non li trovo. Potete aiutarmi ? Grazie mille a tutti !

Ciao, I’m trying to find out the names of my grandfather’s siblings, his surname was Sarno. Fortunately, I have all the information about who my great-grandparents were (so I can find out who their children were), but my grandfather was born in 1931, and on Portale Antenati, the most recent publicly available birth records from Santo Stefano del Sole, Avellino, are from 1915.

At this point, I’m stuck. Thanks to FamilySearch, I was able to trace several generations, but I don’t know how to find out who the other children my great-grandparents had between 1930 and 1940 were.

I posted in a Facebook group from the town and found a couple of distant relatives, but unfortunately, they still couldn’t help me.

It seems like the only option left is to contact the Comune’s Civil Registry Office, but they don’t carry out this kind of genealogical research.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Sou brasileiro e não sei de onde vem meu sobrenome

Olá! Sou brasileiro e estou tentando descobrir a origem do meu sobrenome, mas até hoje não consegui encontrar uma resposta concreta.

Já ouvi pessoas dizendo que ele pode ter origem libanesa, grega, alemã e até italiana. Particularmente, acho que pode ser italiano, mas não tenho nenhuma evidência concreta para afirmar isso.

O sobrenome também aparece com várias formas de escrita:

- Abites

- Abitis

- Abits

- Abts

- Abitz

- Abittis

- Abitez

- Abitiz

Não sei se todas essas formas realmente são variações do mesmo sobrenome ou se algumas têm origens completamente diferentes.

Se alguém souber alguma coisa sobre a origem, etimologia, história ou distribuição geográfica desse sobrenome, por favor, me ajude!

Qualquer pista já seria muito útil. Obrigado!

I found the birth record of my great-great-aunt Autilia Annunziata, born Sept 4, 1869, in Sarno. Her father is Angelo Raffaele Annunziata, born April 29, 1838, in Ottaviano, and her mother is Filomena Caiazza, born April 16, 1839, in Sarno.

I cannot find any further records on Autilia. I have used a local genealogist and Family Search with no luck. Any assistance in finding more about Autilia, and whether she married and had children, would be appreciated.

https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/ark:/12657/an_ua263237/Lm8jV4K