general question

[renlady]

Just curious,, when looking at images of records in family search, I understand marriage banns, birth registrations with town officials deaths, but i do not understand the role of atti di cittidinanze,, the civil registration. What is its purpose?

thanks,

Cathy

[erudita74]

An individual, or representative of an individual such as a family member, would appear before a town official to request that his permanent residency be transferred to another town. In one instance, I even found a request by a brother of relative, that his brother's permanent place of residency be transferred from his native town in Sicily to Brooklyn, New York in the United States. The reason for such a request was normally that this other town, or place, was the individual's principal location for his business affairs. These records, however, do not exist for every town, nor do they exist for every individual who moved permanently from one town to another, or even from Italy to another country.

[cedrone]

I can add that in these registers there were also the changes of citizenship of a person.
For instance a woman married with a foreigner automatically was losing Italian citizenship, after the husband's death she could ask to regain Italian citizenship.

[renlady]

thank you so much /erudita and cedrone that was very helpful.

Cathy

[erudita74]

Cathy
If you look at the catalog on familysearch, for the various Italian towns which have civil records from 1866, which have been microfilmed, or now have been digitalized and are available for viewing online, you will see that the records of this type for each town are now referred to as "changes in residency records." That's what I found to be true in going through these types of records for the Southern Italian and Sicilian ancestries of myself and my husband, and others I have helped with their research since the late 1990s. Over time, however, the content of these records have changed or been expanded. Now, when you see them referred to on a town's website, they appear to be more about citizenship than about change in permanent residency, although the latter may still be included. I found the following on ancestry.com which expands on the explanations which cedrone and I have given you concerning these records-all of which come under the heading of "Acts of Citizenship," or Atti di Cittadinanze." I hope this further clarifies things for you and others.
Erudita

Citizenship Records (Cittadinanze):

Citizenship regulations changed in Italy over the years. Examples of reasons for listing individuals on these records includes:

Italian citizen declares a change in residence (moving in or out of a town)

Foreign-born individual of Italian parents receives Italian citizenship

Foreign-born individual living in Italy becomes naturalized and gains citizenship

Native-born individual with a foreign-born father decides to renounce Italian citizenship and elects that of the father