Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: October 1, 2026
Italian Parish Boundaries and Diocesan Archives Explained
Most Italian genealogy research starts with civil records from a comune, but civil registration only goes back to the early-to-mid 1800s. To go further back, you need the records kept by the Catholic Church — and those records are organized by an entirely different set…
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
How to Trace Your Italian Ancestry: A Complete Guide
A complete, beginner-friendly guide to tracing Italian ancestry: start at home, find your ancestral comune, then use the free Portale Antenati and church records.
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
The Portale Antenati: A Guide to Italy’s Free Genealogy Archive
How to use the Portale Antenati, Italy’s free state-archive portal of civil registration records. Find your comune, browse images, and read Italian birth, marriage and death records.
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
Understanding Italian Civil Registration Records (Stato Civile)
A field-by-field guide to Italian civil registration: birth, marriage and death records, the Napoleonic and post-unification periods, and what each Stato Civile record reveals.
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
Italian Church Records: Reaching Back Before Civil Registration
How to use Italian church records—parish baptism, marriage and burial registers—to trace your family before civil registration, sometimes back to the 1500s.
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
How to Find Your Italian Ancestral Town (Comune)
Can’t find your Italian records? You need the comune first. The best sources for finding your ancestral Italian town: naturalization papers, passenger manifests and vital records.
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
How to Request Records from an Italian Comune
How to request birth, marriage and death records from an Italian comune by mail or email, what to write, and when you need certified, apostilled records for citizenship.
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
Using FamilySearch for Italian Genealogy Records
How to use FamilySearch, the free genealogy site, for Italian records: its digitized civil and church records, indexes, the catalog, and how it complements the Portale Antenati.
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
Italian Naming Conventions and Patterns in Genealogy
How Italian naming patterns work in genealogy: the traditional naming system that predicts grandparents’ names, patronymics, surname stability, and foundling surnames.
Written by: Italian Roots Editorial Team
Posted on: June 30, 2026
Reading Old Italian Records: Latin, Handwriting and Key Words
A practical guide to reading old Italian genealogy records: the key Italian and Latin words, standardized civil forms, handwriting tips, and how to decode births, marriages and deaths.