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How to Start your research

How to start your research

Genealogy Research in Southern Italy

I. You want to go backwards and find ancestors

To start any serious attempt of this kind, you need the earliest possible name with place and date (death, birth or marriage). From there you'll proceed through births, marriages etc, according to the availability of resources - municipalities certificates, civil records, onciari, parish books, notary records and still other possible sources.

As you proceed backward in time, resources will become scantier, and research longer and more expensive. We have tried to help you along with all publicly available data and the information we have collected up to now, and that we are still collecting, on genealogical resources in Abruzzo.

You have name, surname & date of your ancestor -
You need / are unsure of the place

> PROCEED TO STEP 1

You have name, surname & place of your ancestor -
You need the date

> PROCEED TO STEP 2

You have name, surname, date & place of your ancestor -
You need the parents' names

> PROCEED TO STEP 3

You have name, surname, date & place of your ancestor and parents' names - You have all necessary details to start a genealogical reconstruction through Civil Records
Check the availability of Civil Records for your place

> PROCEED TO STEP 4

You have exhausted the Civil Records -
If you have reached 1730-1770 you can search through the Catasti Onciari

> PROCEED TO STEP 5

You have exhausted the Civil Records and Onciari-
You need parish books

> PROCEED TO STEP 6

You have exhausted parish books - onciari -
You need notary acts or other sources

> UNDER CONSTRUCTION

II. You want to go forward and find relatives

This section is being prepared. Meanwhile if you want to engage us to help you, you can fill our form supplying all information available as yet to you and we'll prepare a custom estimate of feasibility, time and costs.

Or you can try writing a letter to all those families bearing the surname of your ancestor in his/her municipality of origin:

You do not have names and addresses
You can find them in the white pages

> PROCEED TO STEP A

You have names and addresses
You need to translate a letter - we can do that for you

> PROCEED TO STEP B

III. You want to know more

You want to know more about the places, traditions, customs of your ancestral land, the recipes and economy, you want to reconstruct the real life of your ancestors, to preserve the heritage that you had from your forefathers through thousands of years of Abruzzese and Italian history

You want literary sources
You need books, journals, essays etc
You want video and audio
You can search the internet
You are interested in learning Italian and dialect
You can start to learn through the internet or using our Beginner's Italian course

Genealogy research: index | how to start: Step 1 - Find the place of birth | Step 2 - Find the date of birth | Step 3 - Find the names of parents | Step 4 - Research in the 19th century | Step 5 - Research in the 18th century | Step 6 - Research in the church records ||| Other resources: Italian archives | lists of surnames | genealogy forums | postings | articles and records | research fees | request a custom estimate | useful links