Italian genealogy guides

These guides are the working method behind the site. They assume you are researching family history, and they send you to the offices and websites that actually hold the records. Start with the beginner guide if you do not yet know the town. If you already have a comune, go to the Antenati walkthrough or the page for the record type you need.

None of these pages orders a certificate for you. When a register is missing online, the letter templates show how to ask the comune or the parish for a genealogical copy, and how to record the answer.

Antenati search by name
How to use Antenati name search, why it only returns indexed registers, and how to browse the year when the surname is missing.
Best Italian genealogy books
Which Italian genealogy books are worth buying, and which free guides to read before you spend money on any of them.
FamilySearch Italy records
How to find Italian civil registers in the FamilySearch catalog by town, how to read an access banner, and how that browse compares with Antenati.
GiuseppeLanari. CC BY-SA 4.0.
How to find an ancestor's hometown in Italy
How to turn a garbled town name into an Italian comune: compare records, drop the port, and check a gazetteer.
How to read Italian birth records
How to read an Italian birth act: declaration date, parents, midwife, witnesses, and the dates clerks wrote as words.
How to read Italian death records
How to read an Italian death act: who reported the death, which date is which, and why a burial may be in a different book.
How to read Italian marriage records
How to read an Italian marriage act and its attached papers: the spouses, the banns, the parents, and the words clerks actually wrote.
How to request a birth record from Italy
A family-history request for an Italian birth act: confirm the comune, check the free portals, write stato civile, and ask the fee before you pay.
How to use the Antenati portal
How to browse the Portale Antenati by archive and town, use the three search tools, and continue when a name search comes back empty.
Italian genealogy for beginners
How to find Italian ancestors in a sensible order: collect home-country clues, identify the comune, search Antenati and FamilySearch, then write for what is missing.
Italian genealogy records online free
Which Italian genealogy records you can use free, including Antenati, FamilySearch locks, and catalog descriptions.
Italian genealogy websites
What Antenati, FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Findmypast, and newspaper sites each do for Italian research.
Italian records not on Antenati
What to do when an Italian birth, marriage, or death is not on Antenati: confirm the gap, check FamilySearch, then write one focused letter.
GiuseppeLanari. CC BY-SA 4.0.