Family History Centers

Are you looking for an Italian surname? Do you need more information about your family heritage?
This is the right place to start your genealogy search.
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chrisdamato
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Family History Centers

Post by chrisdamato »

I just went to the local Family History Center in CT. I was under the impression that they had all the records available right there. Unfortunately, you have to determine the microfilm number, then order it. It cost $5.75 for each roll and it takes about 1-2 weeks to arrive. Then you only have access to it for 3 weeks. The other thing is that they are usually only intervals of between 2 and 10 years!! So I had to spend almost $20 just to get civil records for a 10 year period.

There's got to be a better way. How did Ancestry.com get the microfilmed records from many of those Italian towns for the period beginning 1861? Did they have an agreement with the LDS? Will there be more records in the future?

Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed.
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maestra36
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Re: Family History Centers

Post by maestra36 »

Chris
I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience with FHC. I wish you had asked those of us on this forum who have experience with such centers before going there and spending all that money. I myself have given many people on this forum specifics and advice concerning the use of such centers-costs, what to expect, the time period involved in waiting for microfilms to be shipped from Salt Lake City, etc. Microfilms are renewable, but for a fee, up to two times, at which point they become permanent at your local center. Then you can go there anytime and view them over and over. Unfortunately, that does become very very expensive, if there are a lot of microfilms you need to rent.
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chrisdamato
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Re: Family History Centers

Post by chrisdamato »

Yeah, for the town of Laurenzana in particular. Prior to 1860, each microfilm only covers 2 years!!!! That's crazy. Especially if you aren't sure when someone was born, died, or married. I'll go broke.
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cargor
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Re: Family History Centers

Post by cargor »

Just look at the films where you definitely know the birth, marriage and death on a certain family member (eg. grandparents ) and then work backwards. The records will give their parents info such as names and ages and then you can estimate their dates of birth from that. You will move slowly at first but then as you get used to the records you will get a lot of satisfaction on discovering new clues. Good luck.
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