The Italian Republic & Peninsula and the Flag of Italy.
Welcome to the Italy Page of Onward To Our Past®. Here you will find what I hope will be useful information, insights, and links into genealogy and family history in Italy.
My goal here is not for this location to be the ‘be all and end all’ of your search for your Italian roots and family history. Rather I plan for this to be a knowledge hub from which you can learn, link from, find additional resources, and return with questions, ideas, and new findings.
Since I am a Genealogical Historian, I will begin with a bit of history of Italy for us.
HISTORY:
From a genealogical perspective there are a few key historical time lines and issues you should be aware of regarding the Italian Republic. First, it is important to remember that while Italy does include the islands of Sardinia and Sicily; San Marino and the Vatican are independent enclaves within the Republic.
While Italy has a long and immensely storied history, it is good to know that from about the 8th Century B.C. to the 6th Century A.D., what we now call Italy (and beyond) was what we now call the Roman Empire.
This period was then followed by the Middle Ages in the 6th through about 14th Centuries and finally, with its’ birthplace in Florence, the Renaissance in the 14th to 16th Centuries. Following a series of what are often called The Italian Wars, Italian unification is most often said to have begun with the Congress of Vienna in 1816 and after the end of the Franco-Prussian Wars in 1871 was basically completed. What we consider the modern Italian Republic began with the overthrow of Mussolini in 1945.
As you move through the countryside of Italy, it will be helpful to understand the governmental structure and organization that you will encounter. In Italy there are:
- 20 Regioni (Regions),
- 110 Province (Provinces), and
- 8,094 Comuni (Communes or Cities)
Here is an example from the Comune where my ancestors come from, which is Vinchiaturo.
Vinchiaturo is a Comune. It is one of the 136 Comuni that make up the region of Molise. The Regione of Molise is made up of two Province, that of Campobasso & Isernia. Campobasso is one of two Provincia that make up the region of Molise and Molise is one of the 20 regions that make up all of Italy.
A map that shows the dialects of Italian found across the Republic of Italy.
So, some records you will need will be in the Comune archive and some in the Province archive … and some in the Parish archive still.
Speaking of Parish …. it is vital to know that there will often be both civil marriage records and Parish marriage records almost always on different days, and in some regions after the unification of Italy, even years different!
From Napoleon’s establishment of a Vital Registry in southern Italy (of which we was king….. It happened in the end of 1808, so southern Italian comuni have records from 1809 to present) to 1929 with the Lateran Treaty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateran_Treaty , Italians had to get married BOTH in a civil ceremony as well as a religious ceremony! Before 1809, only the religious ceremony existed… and then with the Lateran Treaty in 1929 the state began to recognize the religious ceremony as valid. If a couple got married in one or the other during those 120 years, though, their marriage {and children} were not legitimate in the eyes of the state/church – depending on in which people got married.
The above was actually an issue with the Naturalization of my wife’s grandfather as he could not specify the date of his parent’s marriage, as you can see from the letter below.
Note as well that in the Italian culture the wife does not take the husband’s name at marriage, so watch for the maiden name when looking for widows and/or death records.
Plus when you find birth or baptismal records, watch for the comma! If there are no commas in the name, then that is the legal name. If there are commas, then it is an honorific and not part of the legal name. So watch for those commas! It’s symbolic, an additional name given at birth often to honor a holiday/Saint’s feast day during the time of the birth or of a relative who recently helped the family or perhaps passed away.
Always read through a hand-written “atto” (certificate) thoroughly, to know if it’s a transcription or not (an often common mistake is what I did… taking the date of the transcription and the town in which it was transcribed as the date and town.)
Remember, too, that Italians always marry in the town of the bride and — in most cases — the Marriage Certificate (Atto di Matrimonio) generally only exists there. However, the Marriage Banns (Pubblicazione) are filed in both the town of the bride AND the town of the groom… and gives the age of the fathers of the bride and groom. Something not found in the certificate!
Speaking of Parishes, reminds me too….. you can also come across different spellings of the same surname dependent on the historic time period you are searching if you are searching in Southern Italy.
For instance in one of my branches up until 1907 a family was known by the surname Venditto, but around 1908 they started to use Venditti. About this same time other families in Vinchiaturo and the surrounding area — such as my own Spensieri family and the Vecchiarelli family of the nearby village of Guardiaregia ‘switched’ from Spensiero and Vecchiarello.
The language and linguistic standards under the Piemontese (Savoia Family) Rule changed the Southern areas of Italy… and this was a common change (o-to-i) that we always find…. and it generally changes over between 1890 and 1910(ish). although it is far from an exact science.
In my case, Vinchiaturo began “Northernizing” their names between 1907 and 1908… evident right there in the records I have found. I have a grandmother born Venditto, but married as Venditti.
I don’t know know if there was royal decree that caused this, though, or if it was just a cultural change.
It’s also different than the northern religious records where (to use Venditti as an example again), a male’s record would be Venditto, a woman’s records would be Venditta, and the family would be Venditti.
As for your family tree… it’s a personal preference…. you can put “Venditti” for everyone, but annotate (“Changed from Venditto around 1908”) or “Venditto” (changed to Venditti around 1908), or as I did, use the pre-1908 name pre-1908 and the post-1908 name thereafter.