RE: ONLINE ACCESS TO PARISH RECORDS

[mezzogiorno62]

its unfortunate that both the local parishes and the dioceses in italy won't make their records accessible online. very few available. as very few parishes or dioceses will respond to email or written requests,theres really no other way,other than paying a hired researcher. personally i prefer to do my own research,and like most of us,can't afford to hire a researcher. after 20 years i'm too far down the road to do any of that now. i have no idea how some people claim to have had success with parish records,and managed to go back several generations,as after 20 years i've gotten only 2 parish records through written requests. your research is dead,for the most part,once you try to go beyond civil records(1809 on the mainland and 1820 in sicily),unless youre extremely lucky. i even sent donations with no response. a collaborative effort between the parishes/dioceses and a site like www.antenati@beniculturali.it would be great,but i'm not holding my breath.

[Eyetie]

I had tremendous help on this site from a woman named Suanj. She found actual baptismal information for my grandparents and sent me jpgs of the pages. That was three years ago, so I don't know if she is still around.

[pm16]

It is unfortunate. I've been stuck for a while now. I also prefer to do my own research. I actually looked into hiring someone and although they would have got a lot of information for me, I simply could not afford it. Hopefully someday these records will be available.

[jmax]

Could anyone recommend someone to hire for searching parish records? Like you said, I’ve exhausted all civil records and want to go back further. Also, what about records after 1929? I’d like to find out what happened to some relatives we lost track of.

[MEMELELE]

http://suanj.altervista.org/