Rocca Canavese, Torino, Piemonte, Italy records are disintegrating in the church - please help
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Debbie Crain said: I have been using your microfilms for the town of Rocca Canavese, Torino, Piemonte, Italy. The earliest records you have are church records which begin in 1823 (excluding the ones for the years 1804-1813). I have direct knowledge that the church in Rocca Canavese has records going back much earlier, perhaps to the 1600s. My friend has visited that church and he said that the records are in very poor condition. Would it be possible to get these records photographed so that they are not lost forever? I am not sure how much longer they will last. Thank you for considering this request.
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Tom Huber said: Welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We patrons, having various levels of knowledge and experience do our best to help each other with concerns, issues. and/or questions.
The owners of the records have control over the disposition of those records.
FamilySearch cannot usurp the owners' authority and forcibly go in to work to preserve the records.
What has to be done is that a contact who has responsibility over the records needs to be established and they need to be encouraged to engage with one of the organizations who are digitizing valuable historical records. FamilySearch is only one of those groups. Ancestry is another. There are others, including organizations that are run by the owners of the records.
If you know of someone who is involved with any records of historical interest and they want to engage someone like FamilySearch in preserving their records, then read the material at https://www.familysearch.org/records/... and if you are able to get the person who has responsibility over those records involved, have them click on the FInd a representative button and fill out the form.0 -
Debbie Crain said: Thank you for your reply. It was very helpful. I will see if I can find someone at the church to contact. Hopefully I can. It would be a shame to lose this history.0
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Pat Fanello said: I have family going back to the mid 1600’s in Italy and am interested in this topic.0
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Pat Fanello said: When I mentioned Italy I meant Rocca specifically. Many, many Family names including my grandparents.0
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A van Helsdingen said: I know its a year later, but I was looking at the records in question: https://www.familysearch.org/search/c... and they appear to be indexes kept by the diocese. They are not the original records kept at each parish. There are no church records under Rocca Canavese in the catalog.
Perhaps you know that the Roman Catholic church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who sponsors FamilySearch, have major disputes over the use of genealogical records. While millions of Catholic records are on FS, many Catholic churches have been insistent that their records will never be published by FS or even in some cases disallow browsing by any Latter Day Saint (As a Catholic, I strongly condemn this). It might be better to suggest to the church, who owns the records, that a website like Matricula http://data.matricula-online.eu/en/, who has digitized many Catholic records, could be allowed to film the records that are in poor conditions.
On a related topic, my petition on Change.org relating to poorly/not at all digitized Catholic records in Ireland that are in fragile condition has 1320 signatures and I would be grateful for any further support. https://www.change.org/p/irish-cathol...0 -
Debbie Crain said: Thanks for your comments about the churches' disputes.
Just for info, records do still exist at the church in Rocca. I wrote them several months back and they sent me a photo of a page with the record for which I was searching. It's just that they don't have time to do research for everyone who wants to find records, and so it'd be easier if they were digitized.
Hopefully at some point, someone can make contact with them and see if they are open to working with familysearch or another organization.0 -
Debbie Crain said: Thanks for your notes Pat. My gp and ggp's immigrated from Rocca. I have done a lot of research on my lines and I recognized your surname as one I had seen. I think we connect through the Bettas Valet family. Just FYI, I started a facebook page called Rocca Canavese Genealogy, in case you want to check it out. I may try posting this topic on there and see if anyone has any ideas.0
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W David Samuelsen said: Since it is in northern Italy, the wait will be longer due to total quarantine now imposed on Lombard plus 14 provinces around that place as result of coronavirus.0
This discussion has been closed.