Estratto, certificato, and atto

Italian offices use four words for what English flattens into “birth certificate.” The four words are not synonyms. If you learn them as a genealogist, you will know what you are holding and what you still do not know. This page defines them for family history. It does not say which paper anyone must file for a purpose outside family history. Fees, forms, and whether an office will issue a copy at all are decided by that office. The letter to the comune asks them to say which copy they issue and what it costs. Ask before you send money.

Atto di nascita

The atto di nascita is the birth act: the entry written in the civil register when the birth was declared. It is the record itself, not a summary typed a century later. In the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, the act is usually a narrative. Someone, often the father or a midwife, appeared before an official and stated that a child had been born. The official wrote the date of the declaration, the parents, and the child’s names. Witnesses signed or were named. The child’s birth date is often in the text and is not always the same day as the declaration.

When a genealogist says “I found the atto,” they usually mean they found that entry as an image, on the Portale Antenati or on FamilySearch, or they received a copy that repeats it. The birth records page describes how these acts are organized and how to read one. The Italian word list is the vocabulary. Read the act number. Registers are cited by that number, not by a guess about the page.

Marginal notes, annotazioni marginali, were added later in the margin or at the foot. A marriage, a death, or a correction of a name may be there. Those notes are part of the atto as it stands today. A photograph that crops the margin has lost them even though the main paragraph looks complete. When you copy an image, check the edge of the frame.

Copia integrale

A copia integrale is a full copy of the atto. “Integrale” means complete. In genealogical use, it is the paper or the scan that carries the original wording, the witnesses, and the marginal notes, not a modern form that keeps only the names and the date. Offices produce that completeness in more than one physical way. Some issue a photocopy or a digital image of the register page. Some issue a transcription that repeats the full text and is signed by the office. Both can be called a full copy in ordinary speech. The heading on the document tells you which one you received.

This is the copy family historians hope for when the online image is missing or unreadable. It shows the mother’s last name as the clerk wrote it, the ages or occupations if the formula included them, the residence, and the witnesses. It shows a marginal marriage note that reveals a spouse. It does not, by existing, prove the office will send it. Some offices send it readily for a family-history request. Some send a shorter form and will say so if you ask. The letter template asks them to name the form. You may say you would prefer the text and the marginal notes. You should also say you will accept what they issue. That sentence is in the sample letter for a reason.

A full copy can still be a disappointing scan. If the words are illegible, ask for a clearer image of the same act, not for a different person. Cite the act number they already used.

Estratto di nascita

An estratto di nascita, an extract of the birth act, moves selected facts onto the office’s current form. Genealogists meet it often as an estratto per riassunto, a summary extract. A typical summary names the person, the date and place of birth, the parents, and annotations about later events such as marriage or death. That is already more useful than a one-line certificate. It is not the original paragraph.

Use an estratto for what it states. If it names the father and the mother, you may record those parents as coming from the extract, and you should say you have not seen the witnesses. If it includes a marriage annotation, you have a spouse’s name and a year to search. If a line is blank, do not fill it from a tree. The blank means this form did not report that fact. It does not always mean the atto lacks it.

The layout is the office’s. Two comuni can both send an “estratto” that does not print the same fields. Read the labels. A father’s name on the form is a father’s name. A blank box is a blank box. Comparing the extract with an Antenati image, when you have both, is the best check. Where they disagree, look at the handwriting again before you decide the clerk mistyped. Indexes and extracts both compress. The Antenati guide is about reading the register, which is the longer text the extract came from.

Certificato di nascita

Marriage act of Tranquillo Aliprandi and Annetta Sinibaldi, Milan, 20 November 1921. Civil register of the Comune di Milano. Public domain.

A certificato di nascita is a certificate. In family-history work it is often the short modern abstract: a few lines that confirm a birth, sometimes without the parents, almost never with the witnesses, the street, or the original sentences. It can be the right everyday paper for a living person dealing with an office in the present. It is a thin paper for reconstructing a nineteenth-century household.

People use “birth certificate” in English for all four documents on this page. That habit is why orders go wrong. If you write to a comune and ask only for a “certificate,” you may receive the short form, and the clerk will have done what you asked. The Italian letter on this site avoids that trap by asking for a copy for family history and by asking the office which form it issues. When a reply says certificato, read the page before you file it as if it were the atto. Count the facts. If you see a date and a name and nothing else, you are holding the short form.

A certificate drawn from the current population register, the anagrafe, is not the same as a copy of the historical civil register. Someone who died in the nineteenth century is not a current resident. The historical atto is the target. If the office says the volume has moved to the state archive, follow that. The not-online guide is the next step when the comune no longer holds the book.

The same four ideas for marriage and death

The vocabulary repeats for the other two civil events.

An atto di matrimonio is the marriage act in the register. A copia integrale of it repeats the full wording. An estratto di matrimonio is the extract. A certificato di matrimonio is the certificate, often short. Marriage acts are rich when they are full: the spouses, their parents, their ages, and sometimes a packet of supporting papers. A short certificate may confirm only that a marriage happened on a date. If you are trying to learn a mother’s maiden name, the full act is the one that usually states it, and the short certificate may not.

An atto di morte is the death act. The estratto di morte, the certificato di morte, and the copia integrale stand in the same relationship. Death acts name a spouse or parents when the formula asked and the informant knew. They are full of people who died far from the town of birth. A full copy lets you see who reported the death and what they claimed. A summary may keep the date and drop the informant. Copy the heading so your notes show which level you saw.

Invented example: an 1896 birth image shows a marginal note of a marriage in 1920 to a named spouse. An estratto per riassunto might reduce that note to one line with the spouse and the year. A short certificato might state only that the person was born on a given day. All three can be “right” about the birth and still not be the same document. The invented page is an illustration, not a register you can order. Your own act is the one in the volume.

What to say when you write, and how to read what comes back

Use the comune letter. It asks for one birth, one marriage, or one death, for ricerca genealogica and storia familiare. It asks the office to state the cost and the payment method. It says you do not demand a particular form, and that you would prefer a copy that includes the text and the marginal notes if that is possible. That preference is genealogical. It is not a claim that one form is required for any other filing. This page will not tell you which paper to use outside family history.

When the envelope or the file arrives, do three things. Read the title printed on it and write that title in your log: atto, copia integrale, estratto, estratto per riassunto, or certificato. Transcribe every name, date, and place it actually contains, with the word list beside you. Note what it does not contain. “No witnesses on this estratto” is a useful sentence. It reminds you not to say you know the witnesses.

If the paper is a full copy, compare it with any image you already had. If the paper is an extract, and the year is on Antenati, open the image and finish the transcription from the image. If the year is not online and the extract lacks a fact you need, one follow-up question is appropriate: whether a fuller copy exists and what it costs. Then stop, unless they invite more. The worksheet log is where the reply belongs. The kit holds the letter files and a glossary you can keep next to a scan, which is convenient and not required. The definitions you need for the next hour are the ones on this page.

In your own notes, use the Italian heading printed on the paper. Relatives will keep saying “birth certificate” for whatever arrived. The heading is what tells a later reader that a short certificato is not the act that named the midwife.