Important News Regarding Access to (some) Italian Records
There is a new agreement between the ‘Direzione Generale degli Archivi’ of the Italian Ministry of Culture and FamilySearch. As a result, digitized documents in Italian state archives will no longer be visible in any way on the FamilySearch portal, not even by going to a FamilySerarch Center or FamilySearch Affiliate Library, but only on the Antenati portal ( LDS members logging in with a church account may be able to access them; I am not an LDS member so I don't know).
This includes civil records as well as the riveli of various Sicilian comuni that are held by the Archivio di Stato di Palermo.
Note that this new agreement applies only to holdings filmed in the State Archives. Church records and civil records filmed in the tribunale or in comune offices are not subject to this agreement so will remain on FamilySearch unless those separate agreements change.
Records that have been transcribed into the FamilySearch record database can still be located using the Search function and the transcribed information will be displayed, but this message will appear if you try to view the image:
Commenti
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Thanks, Vinny. I know editing for the FS Wiki has been turned off for some time. I wonder if a staff member could have these details added to the Wiki?
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Thank you for the update. To be clear, this means the bulk of the catalog, correct? Is there an implementation date?
It is hard to know which records are "digitized documents in Italian state archives" i.e. "filmed in the State Archives" vs "civil records filmed in the tribunale or in comune offices"
Can you help by providing more details or insight?1 -
@SantaNinfa the change has already happened. You need to look at each particular holding in the FS catalog to see where they were filmed or are held. It's a bit easier for the FS published "collections" because they will have the words "State Archive", "Tribunale", or "Comune" in the title of the collection as appropriate, as noted below.
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@Cousin Vinny Thank you!
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Vital records are created at the Comune level, and a copy is submitted to the provincial Tribunale. The Tribunale keeps its copy for at least 75 years before transmitting it to the "State" (i.e. Provincial) Archive. So if the catalog entry says that it's from the archive of the Tribunale, then it wouldn't be affected. Here is an example from Pisa. Listings for this Comune used to include Archivio di Stato di Pisa. Now it's just the Tribunale.
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Cousin Vinny, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS and I am also not able to view the records that are kept by the Italian State Archives, at any FamilySearch Center and even at the FamilySearch Library in SLC. Very frustrating for all of us. The Portale degli Antenati site is not as easy to navigate and images are often not as clear, but sometimes it is our only choice.
Appreciate your suggestions.
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