Genealogy free resources

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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Ely
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Genealogy free resources

Post by Ely »

Hello you all!
I'm new here and I find this site really interesting. :D
I would like to know if you can suggest me some free site where I can make searches for my family three.
Most of all ask money.
Thank you very much!
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Italysearcher
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Re: Genealogy free resources

Post by Italysearcher »

Ann Tatangelo
http://angelresearch.net
Dual citizenship assistance, and document acquisition, on-site genealogical research in Lazio, Molise, Latina and Cosenza. Land record searches and succession.
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rp76226
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Re: Genealogy free resources

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Helpful and Free URLs for Ancestry Research

1. http://stevemorse.org/ellis2/ellisgold.html - It’s the Ellis Island site (http://www.ellisisland.org/) on steroids. You need to get an Ellis Island user name and password first. It gives you more ways to search for ancestors using partial information (e.g. name of town and last name). Before Ellis Island, there was Castle Garden - http://www.castlegarden.org/ . Also http:// http://stevemorse.org/ellis/cg.html for more detailed searches. Once you get a list of names, if you see one that interests you, click on the last name in that row. Finally, try http://www.stevemorse.org/ for a complete list of research sites to view. However, many are not available without a subscription or purchase. Note – a new Ellis Island site is in beta test and it is all screwed up and also screwing up the SteveMorse site.

Limit of 9 URL s allowed for posting on this website. See next replies for the rest.
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rp76226
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Re: Genealogy free resources

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2. http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp and http://search.labs.familysearch.org/rec ... html#start and also https://familysearch.org/family-trees - Mormon sites, but don’t worry, no one is going to try to convert you. One of my best sites for research. You can also order/rent microfilm from Italy from this site and view it on their equipment in one of their many family centers. They will help you. They hope, but don’t require or push you to put your tree on their site. If you do, they will baptize your dead ancestors, believing they won’t be released to heaven until they do. I have not, nor will not, put our tree on their site and they have never asked me. They are nice people.

If still can’t find what you are looking for, the Mormons have Italian film records in SLC,** Utah that they will rent to you through a family center. Go to library, then Library Catalog on their site and click on it. One or more locations are presented. Click on one. Click on Civil Registration. Click on Registri dello stato civile….(may be more than one). Clcik on “View Film Notes”. Review descriptions and dates, then select the films you want to view. Write down their film numbers. Contact a local Mormon family center to order. To find one, go back to the home page. Click on Library and Family History Centers. Type in your location to get list of your local centers. Contact one to order your film.
**Note – this program ended in 2017 though some Family History Centers may have some film records on permanent file for viewing.

The Mormon site also has a good one hour video on how to research Italian records. To view it, go to the site from the URL above. Then on the top of the screen, click on Research Helps, then click ‘On Line’ classes. Scroll down to Italy Research, and click on the video. You can enlarge the examples given by clicking on the arrow. You can stop the video at any time to give you an opportunity to print and/or save the examples given. If the records you need are in a church, these URLs (which are on the video) can help you communicate to the right parish - www.chiesacattolica.it and www.parrocchie.it. Church records are in Latin.

3. https://www.familysearch.org/s/collecti ... Id=1927178 This link, also from the Mormon genealogical site, will give you access to some Italian, birth, marriage, and death records. Especially useful are the links given for the provinces of Agrigento and Palermo where many of our ancestors came from. These have hundreds of thousands of records for the many towns within those Provinces. You will be able to magnify these individual records as needed on your computer, plus save or print them. Make use of annual and ten year indicies wherever available to save time.

4. http://www.sersale.org/comunes.htm - lists dozens of Italian towns that you can click on to research ancestors. Italian research is normally difficult because it is not on the Internet and the files are on microfilm in Italian that you have to purchase or rent. However, you first have to know the towns and names and years you are looking for or you are wasting your time and money. If you knew that, you probably don’t need to research. For the Italian towns on this site, volunteers have gone into the microfilm and translated, birth, marriage, and death records to English for much easier research. Records are pretty good, but not 100% inclusive. Some of us know the towns our relatives came from, so this site works out well. Also, for just the two towns in the URL, this is another good link - http://www.polizzigenerosaisnellogeneal ... gspot.com/
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rp76226
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Re: Genealogy free resources

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5. http://www.heritagequestonline.com/hqow ... y/do/index - You will need to go to your local library to get their user name and password (for free) to access this site which includes Census records from 1790 to 1940. This program is basically sold to libraries. If your nearest library doesn’t have it, inquire of others.

6. http://www.grecicousins.com/1.html - If you are lucky enough to have relatives that came from Greci, Italy, this is by far, the best Italian site I’ve seen. Volunteers have been working for over 20 years on it. It is incredibly detailed, easy to utilize, and very well linked from generation to generation.

7. http://translate.google.com/ - Translates words, phrases, and sentences from one language to another (you specify the languages from and to).

8. http://en.comuni-italiani.it/index.html - Gives the address of every Italian town in Italy to write to for ancestor information. . Letters to Italy are 98 cents for one ounce (all you need). You should write to the Ufficio di Anagrafe at the City Hall address in each town to get the birth, death, and marriage records ('Ufficio di Anagrafe - Nascita, matrimonio, morte e Documenti ed estrarre’) as well as the Certificato di Stato di Famiglia Storico.
Use the Google translator to translate your requests in English to the Italian language. Reverse it when you receive a response from Italy.

9. https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Italy_Handwriting - How to read and interpret letters in the old Italian Handwriting style.

10. http://www.italiangen.org/ - NYC births, marriages, and deaths, etc. for both Italians and non-Italians.

11. http://www.italiangenealogy.com/ They have forums where you can post your questions. Unlike other forums I’ve tried, I am getting quick and helpful replies.
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rp76226
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Re: Genealogy free resources

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12. http://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.i ... o+di+Bari/ This site gives the civil records for all the comunes of Bari starting from 1809. Also, this same type of records has been expanded to other provinces and the number of them seems to grow monthly. Here is the URL to access them - http://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/?q=gallery
13. http://liviomoreno.altervista.org/Famil ... Search.xls Then click on the word “qui” to see the spreadsheet with links.

This spreadsheet is by province and town. Some of the towns have parish records online dating to the 1500s. It was developed and maintained by one of the members on an Italian Genealogy site (see point 11) that has proven useful to me. It can take 1-2 minutes to download this file. The second link below, though different, seems to yield the same spreadsheet of links to civil and church records. Note - these same records can be found on the Mormon site, but here you do not need to know the Province where the town is located.

14. http://www.italiangenealogy.com/italian ... extraction - Italian Records Extraction - An Instructional Guide

From the Italian Genealogy.com site (point 11), this has many helpful links to different Italian research topics, some of which have been previously covered.

15. http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ Rootsweb Advanced Search. Multiple types of searches available. There are direct name searches plus 3 different “database” searches. The “Find a Database by Surname” is particularly interesting. It connects to lists of entire trees with that surname and gives a link to each tree by surname while also giving the number of people with that surname on the Tree. Plus it lists the trees with the highest number of that surname first, giving you the exact number of people with that surname there. When you click on that link, it will list the surname list in alphabetical order by first name along with date of birth (living members may be excluded if tree is private). That makes it easy to compare to your own tree's list of names in alphabetical order. Find a match or interesting name and click on it to see parents, spouse, and children if available along with key dates of birth, death, and marriage. If any of those names are new and the name is blue highlighted, click on it to potentially see even more family members that your tree may not have. Even names you do have may have new information if clicked on.
16. http://www.difesa.it/Il_Ministro/Caduti ... odOro.aspx – Enter a name to find if that person or persons with that last name was killed in a war while serving in the Italian military.
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rp76226
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Re: Genealogy free resources

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17. Various other links:

Italian church directory by town
http://www.thecatholicdirectory.com/dir ... country=it

Archivio di stato di Cosenza
http://poster.beniculturali.it/poster/action.do

Petrona civil records
http://www.organizacionbg.com.ar/Petron ... cords.html

Arcidiocesi di Palermo
http://www.diocesipa.it/

Argentina immigration records
http://cemla.com/

Text to speech. The text to speech is interesting and useful as it MAY explain why a surname is pronounced differently and therefore spelled differently after your ancestors came to America.
http://www.oddcast.com/demos/tts/emotion.html

Lists of records/projects available on line and in LDS microfilm
http://www.italygen.com/vitalrecords/li ... -line.html

Military Records - You'll have to narrow your research to a specific region http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_Italy, then find out if the local "Archivio di Stato" had started a digital project for local soldiers.

Italian prisoners of war buried in foreign cemeteries - http://www.gualdograndeguerra.com/index ... -allestero
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ottolino
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Re: Genealogy free resources

Post by ottolino »

https://forebears.io/
Forebears is a genealogy portal, which includes:
  • a geographically indexed and cross-referenced directory of sources for family history research
  • a dictionary of surname meanings, including information on their geographic distribution
The main aim of the site is to bring together the wide variety of genealogical sources available on and off-line and catalogue them; so as to make them easily accessible by researchers looking for records relating to ancestors in a particular town, region or country.

The first point is the most useful, since it allows to see the global distribution of a surname at the present time. This information can be in turn used to deduce where the surname might have originated from, down to the region and urban area.
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