Basic outline on how to find your Italian Ancestors Records The only payment required is payment for the Government Records here and in Italy. You may also make a donation to the Church. No payment or "donation" is required to have others mail your letters or write them for you, etc. You do NOT have to join an organization and pay monthly dues to find your family tree. You do the research. YOU can do most of it yourself for the cost of postage and records ONLY. First: Gather documents here in the USA or where ever your ancestors immigrated. No matter where you live the steps are basically the same. Starting with yourself - go backwards gathering record by record, you to your parents, to grandparents, etc and finally to the town where the original immigrant was born because the most important step in doing your initial research is to find out exactly what comune in Italy your ancestors came from. Records such as Immigration papers, Birth records, Marriage Records, Death Records, Census Records, Ships Records, etc, (even copies of the original Social Security Number Applications) are all very useful in order to find out exactly where in Italy your ancestors resided and to pin-point their exact family tree. Here is a list of Where to Write for Vital Records in the United States: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/howto/w2w/alphabet.htm Here is a form for requesting the original Social Security Application on your ancestor. Generally, it will give you - your ancestor's place of birth and their parent's names including the mother's maiden name. (You can easily find the SS# on your ancestors official State Death Notice.): http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/pearlsofwisdom/ssn_app_request.html Almost everything you need in order to teach yourself to do Italian Family History Research or Genealogy Research in general will be found on this Genealogy Tools & Research page: http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/pearlsofwisdom/tools.html Writing to Italy: Read Steve Saviello's Tips - on How to Research by Mail, what Italian Records are available and what Archive in Italy has them: http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/pearlsofwisdom/saviello2.html After you know exactly which comune in Italy to write to, simply adapt and personalize David's Italian Form Letters to suit your needs. http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/pearlsofwisdom/Davids_form_letters.html Make changes using the Computer translation programs on the TOOLS Page and Italian Dictionaries & Phrase Books: http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/pearlsofwisdom/Italian_Latin_Translations.html Make sure to click on FORM LETTERS on the Tools page so that you can look at more examples to suit your personal needs: http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/pearlsofwisdom/tools_italy.html#italian.form.le tters Use this link to find the Postal and Province code for the comune in Italy in which you are doing your research. Type in the name of the comune at the " ....la LOCALITÀ" section: http://www.nonsolocap.it/ Double check it on the Official Italian Post Office Site: http://www.poste.it/ Use the Italian White Pages to find the exact street address of the comune (although addressing it the way shown in Steve Saviello's Tips will get the letter to the proper place because all your really need is the name of the comune, the name of the Archive Office you are sending it to, the Postal code and Province Code. If you are able to find the exact street address, then this is the format, which was recommend to me by the Officer in charge of the Ufficio Stato Civile of San Fele in October 2001. COMUNE DI SAN FELE (PZ) Ufficio dello Stato Civile Via Mazzini, 9 85020 SAN FELE (PZ) - ITALIA- *NOTE* The Census Office is the Anagrafe. The person in charge is the Officer of the Census = L'Ufficiale Di Anagrafe. The Civil Records Office is the Stato Civile. The person in charge is the Officer of the Civil Records = L'Ufficiale Di Stato Civile. Use the Italian White Pages to do specific address lookups: To look up the address of the town hall in the comune you are researching enter Municipio where it asks for Cognome. Sometimes I have used the word Municipale instead if nothing comes up for municipio or comune, or comune di or whatever else you can think of. Use the codes you got from the nonsolocap or Italian Post Office link above on whichever of these links is working at the moment you are searching: http://www.paginebianche.it/index.html or http://elenco.iol.it/elencotel/public/RicercaOmonimie.jsp or http://www.pronto.it/elenco/query.php Use this link to look up a church but if you are looking for a comune that starts with San or Santa and don't get a response use only the initial S. followed by Fele or whatever is part of the rest of the name. This link is generally reliable but always double-check everything as I have found mistakes in all the online lookups including this one and this link is not run by "the church", it is simply a private commercial endeavor: http://www.parrocchie.it You can double-check your answers by doing Church lookups on the Italian Yellow Pages. On different days and different churchs I have found results by doing a searches for - chiesa, chiesa cattolica, chiesa parrocchia, parrocchia and other variations. David Zerga recommends this phrase: Chiesa cattolica - servizi parrocchiali For some reason all searches, on all days, do not get the same responses. http://www.paginegialle.it/ OR I have been getting EXCELLENT results by simply using by using the Italian White Pages: http://www.paginebianche.it/index.html and entering parrocchia in the space under "Cognome.." and the name of the town in the space under "Dove" Use this to Find out the address of the Provincial Archives in Italy: http://wwwdb.archivi.beniculturali.it/UCBAWEB/indice.html Read Barbara's Story, a wonderful Italian-American Grandmother, on how she did her very own Italian Genealogy Research simply using the Post Office and Webtv. http://community-2.webtv.net/JIBA/MEETJIBAASPECIAL/page4.html She is an Italian Genealogy Hobbyist and freely shares what she has learned. Search through this message board and read what Barbara, Angelo, John, Richard, Maria, June, Pete, MaryAnn and countless others have done to find & obtain records on their ancestors: (you don't need to post or join anything simply read through what she and others have written to others as it will help you too.) http://disc.server.com/Indices/104917.html Italian Ancestry Family Tree Genealogies - Go through the Personal Italian Family Tree Stories listed on this page. Most of the Ancestry Sites include Surnames & Pedigree Charts. Some may be researching Italian Surnames from the same places in Italy your ancestors came from, so make sure to contact them. They are all Italian Genealogy Hobbyists and freely share what they have learned from researching their own Italian Family Trees: http://italiangenealogy.tripod.com/ If you are new to Family History Research, you might enjoy visiting your local Mormon Family History Library. They have free classes and give-away-sheets on how to do research, plus a nice booklet on doing Italian Genealogy Research for only one dollar and a very handy Italian Genealogy Word List for 50 cents. Go here to find one near you. http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp The Mormons also have microfilms on most of the comuni in Italy for the Civil Records from about 1810 to 1860. Some go up to the 1900/1910s ...BUT most don't ... so if your ancestors came over in the 1900s you will have a gap and will have to write to the Town Halls in the USA and Italy to find your ancestors records anyway. Check here to see if they have films for your Italian Town: LDS Italy Locality Search. The comuni and parishes in Italy welcome your financial contributions. They don't require much. Pay them for the records directly, its less expensive than hiring professional genealogists and gives you the knowledge of how to help others with the experience you learn in doing your own Italian Family Tree Research. Best Regards, Paula Marie Nigro http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/pearlsofwisdom/index.html