re:stato di famiglia research

[mezzogiorno62]

after nearly 20 years of researching lds films and writing hundreds of letters to a number of comunes in italy (primarily in avellino province for my paternal grandfather and messina province for my paternal grandmother) i've hit total deadends in my research projects. my last shot is to try for stato di famiglia records (historia or storico,whatever the difference is there) to try and tie a few loose ends together. i'm hoping,out of 7 separate requests, that i might get at least one or two. i realize that the larger comunes will be more difficult than the smaller ones. 2 tiny comunes i've contacted are lapio and luogosano in avellino. populations barely 1000. 3 small comunes in messina as well-san fillippo del mela,santa lucia del mela,and gualtieri sicamino, not much larger, and one much larger one-barcellona pozzo di gotto. the real problem will probably be palermo. i've supplied much information in order to faciltate the research. i understand that the more information i can provide,then the easier it will be for a family history to be put together. regardless of how much information provided,its still much work for the stato civile to actually compile a family history. just wondering if anyone out there has had much luck with these requests.i've tried several times requesting these documents from several of these comunes with no response. years ago a friend requested a stato di famiglia from a small comune called jelsi,in campobasso,and got a great document covering a specific couple,their births,marriage,and deaths,as well as the births,marriages,and deaths of all their children. but i know this is extremely rare. to my understanding the civil records offices are required to issue these requests for certain reasons,but not necessarily genealogy. any input or suggestions regarding this document would be most welcome.

[adelfio]

Hi John
I have had no luck with stato di famiglia or the people I have helped to request for one

Marty

[mezzogiorno62]

i doubt i will either marty. especially in a large city like palermo,or even a moderate size city like barcellona pozzo di gotto. maybe more luck in the small comunes like gualtieri sicamino and santa lucia del mela in messina,or lapio and luogosano in avellino. unless theres already a demographic for a particular family its unlikely the stato civile in any comune will take the time to piece together a family history of births,marriages,and deaths unless it was for a request other than genealogy. too time consuming. basically unecessary work for them. got to get lucky. unfortunately its the only way i may be able to get the information i'm looking for. way too expensive to go through all the lds films necessary-and much of the information would cover years after 1920,which aren't in the films anyway. it was worth a shot i guess.

[mezzogiorno62]

just read that these family status certificates(stato di famiglia storico) weren't routinely available until 1911. that means requests for these records for families prior to that time would have to be reconstructed individually from research into births,marriages,and deaths-and most likely no civil records office is going to take the time to do this. unfortunately,these records are of much greater importance in documenting families in the early 19th century(1809 in mainland italy and 1820 in sicily)at the start of civil registration, and continuing up to world war one,by which time most of our italian ancestors had left italy. so certificates created after 1911 wouldn't be of much help in researching our ancestry.