I am now to the point that I am needing record information for the 1790s. I believe Civil Records were only available from about 1805 forward.

Would any request I make be directed only to the Church or would the Archives have anything prior to 1805?

Thanks for any information.

lilbees

PS just an F.Y.I. LDS had not microfilmed records for this area.

I believe you have to locate Church records now. This is where it gets interesting. Some Churches will do a search or two or allow you to have someone research in them while others won't even entertain the thought of releasing records. I am almost at the point of two of my sides and I am not sure what steps I have to take yet. I'm sure others will have more input on this though.

Keep us posted.

Church records are fascinating. Some are well organized, have lots of information on parentage, etc. Others have little or no information, sometimes not even mentioning the surname of the mother on a baptism. I have one parish where the indexes are so detailed I don't really need to check the records. Another church has no indexes and there are only a dozen or so first names used in the town. It's a nightmare. This is the reason many priests won't take the time to do a search for you. After all, you don't want just one or two records, you want to complete your family tree and you don't have dates either. If you do write to the church you need to acknowledge this and ask for a referral to a knowledgeable person in the parish who could undertake this search and for which you would be happy to pay them in addition to giving a donation to the church. You need someone local, who is familiar with the names and surnames and can interpret the Latin.
There are some Sicilian parish records on line I believe.

The records I just indexed, trento baptisms, varied in what info was there. Some contained a lot of information...birth date, parents names, most times, grandparents names sometimes the fathers grandfather. They are loaded with notations..some give the confirmation date, some, the marriage, some give the death. These were records from the early 1800s to the early 1900s. There were none in latin...it was all italian.

I dont think you will have much luck getting any earlier records from the church, even if you did as italysearcher told you to do. I read, a few times, in various places, that these records are usually in very poor shape, (crumbling pages, etc).

I wish you luck.

I stopped where the fhl stopped. I didnt try to continue with the church records.

What the heck! At least I am going to try to see if I can get some information, even if it is an actual birth date. Like anything else all they can do is say no or nothing.

I am really happy with what I have already but felt it would be nice to go for broke and see If I can learn maybe if someone came from another commune or whatever. Who knows???????????????

lilbees

I have searched in many parishes where the records go back to 1540 and are in amazing condition. Some with the notations that 'eleven' spoke about, but most did not. (Province of Frosinone) The death records are the least informative and rarely contain the father's name, but occasionally will tell a story. A child who drowned, a man who was killed during a fight at the local bar, sometimes a cause of death during times of plague, cholera etc. a heart attack or 'sudden' unexplained death.
The information contained varies according to the priest. Sometimes in small places that were serviced by monks and had a priest or bishop show up occasionally confirmed children as young as two years old! If there was no resident priest the local person would write up just the basic information. Its a lottery.

lilbees wrote:

What the heck! At least I am going to try to see if I can get some information, even if it is an actual birth date. Like anything else all they can do is say no or nothing. I am really happy with what I have already but felt it would be nice to go for broke and see If I can learn maybe if someone came from another commune or whatever. Who knows??????????????? lilbees

YES! GO FOR BROKE! I WOULD!

Is the Catasto available for your town? The Province site should tell you if it is.

Catasto? What is that? The Province is Salerno. Not doubting you but I have found very little available for Roccapiemonte.

lilbees

I just found a Castati on the site for Roccapiemonte. Is that what you are talking about Cathy? It has a date of 1749.

Whoops! just found Castato 1810-1926. No particular town listed.

lilbees

1749 sounds right. Those other years must be something else.

if you look through all of the records included with processetti, you can sometimes find death records for parents and grandparents. if your comune has the processetti as far back as 1809 or thereabouts, you can trace back a couple more generations from 1800. i was fortunate my relatives records included the death record for my ggggg gf born in 1739 and a notation for his father. those documents are extracts from the local church records and are in latin. and make sure you search siblings to your direct relative as each processetti may have different levels of documents included, they all weren't the same in my case.

if you don't have access to church records by themselves, you may be able to go back a bit further using the civil records. since i hit the end of the line with civil records, i did retain the help of a local researcher to look through church records. my fingers remain crossed.

tommaso

lilbees, I didnt mean to discourage you. By all means, you have nothing to lose..give it a shot.

Cathy what is that? I dont think I have ever heard of it before.

Eleven wrote:

Cathy what is that? I dont think I have ever heard of it before.

The catasti are like tax records. My grandfathers town offers the whole town on cd for about $150 American. The catasti details each property, all the structures on it (houses barns, mills, etc) all the equipment (carriages, tools and the like), animals, etc. as well as each person in each house on the property and their ages. If you got it for the whole town you could also tell how close families were located physically and who the neighbors were.

Here is a webpage that is an example of what you can find in a Catasto