As a nation state, Italy has emerged only in 1871. Until then the country was politically divided into a large number of independant cities, provinces and islands. The currently available evidences point out to a dominant Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultural influence on today's Italians.
My name is Allessandra. My family and I have recently started looking into are family tree. We even went as far as to sign up for ancestry.com. We know of a relative named Ilario Barbuto. He was born August 4th 1916 in Argusto, Catanzaro, Calabria, Italy. In addition, we also know he was in WW2. However, we cannot not find a signal thing it is super frustrating!
I would appreciate any help in my search. I am looking for sources that have Italy WW2 records. Preferably a free site but I will look into anything! So far all the websites I have looked into have lead to dead ends.
I would try contacting the town to see if it has any info on your Ilario. My search only yielded another Ilario Barbuto who was born in the town in 1927 (see below). Here's the contact info for the town official. As you can see, he shares the surname Barbuto.
Erudita
I've made several cousin connections using ancestry.com. With many of them we will simply exchange an email here and there on ancestry.com and compare some notes. I find that most people go to ancestry.com mainly to have a DNA test, an aren't that interested in building a family tree, making connect...
it is super frustrating! 
