|
  |
|
|
Italian Words To Know When Searching Family Records
Being the historian in the family, I’ve spent the last three years researching my family tree. It is a daunting task to say the least. On one side of the family I have my Polish relatives who thanks to the communist regime they grew up in, could keep a secret in the fashion that even the CIA could admire. Needless to say, information has been either very little, or not at all from them. On the other side, I have my Italian relatives, who love to tell stories. Unfortunately most of the stories have been greatly exaggerated, and due to an aging family, most members who know the real story, have past away. This has left me with doing the best I can with limited information. Both sides of the family are short lived in the United States. The Polish side arrived in 1903, while the Italian side arrived a little earlier in 1882. When researching your family you may come to the great wall we all hit. You have obtained every possible U.S. document you can find and now you must start to search in the country they came from. You realize that if you are to become successful searching for your family’s documents then your are going to have to bite the bullet and learn a little of their native tongue. Now if your ancestors happen to come from Italy, there are a few words that should become apart of your vocabulary. It will only make your searches quicker when trying to obtain and or read documents from Italy. The following words will be the most important ones: Atti di battesimo (baptisms), Atti di matrimonio (marriages), Atti di sepoltura (burials). These are the words you will see on church documents, and civil documents. You should also remember that, Registri Parrocchiali means Church Registers, Censimenti means Census Records, Stato Civile means Civil Registration Records and Ufficio Matricola e Centro Documentale means Military and Conscription Records. If you have ever done any searches for Italian records at your local Family History Center, then you will find that the above words and phrases will go a long way in helping you decipher what documents you are looking at and or looking for. Although the Family History Center has collected a great amount of documents from Italy, you will find that none of them have been translated and most of them are church records. When you get to the point where you must request records from Italy, please remember that if you want any chance of the church or state department responding to you, your letters should be written in Italian. Don’t panic though, there are some great resources on the internet to help you out with that. Genealogy is becoming very popular throughout the world and there are several sites that have form letters already written in Italian just waiting for you to copy. Some letters can be found at this site: http://www.anzwers.org/free/italiangen/index.html. Don’t worry, permission has been granted in order for you to copy and send these letters off to Italy. I myself have sent a few letters that I was able to obtain from genealogy sites online. To my great pleasure and surprise, I received responses from potential family members. The letters written back were in Italian, which only proves to me that if I had sent the letters in English, I doubt they would have answered. Why not learn a little Italian while researching your relatives? It will help you read the records you obtain, and maybe help you to feel closer to those long lost ancestors. Have fun with it, and good luck! |
|
 |
|
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
The copyright for this content entitled "Italian Words To Know When Searching Family Records" has been specified by the contributor as:
All Rights Reserved
This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.
|
|
May, 2012
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February, March, April, May
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
