Next steps for an Italian non-member with building his tree
Hi everyone!
I'm a missionary here in Italy right now. My companion and I are teaching a man right now and we're trying to help him with his family history. I'd say I'm decently versed in Family History and Family Tree as I served as a Family History Consultant for a year or two before my mission and have done a fair bit of family history. I'm just confused on what the next steps for this man should be. He's filled out his first four generations, (him, his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents), but that hasn't been enough to connect to any other ancestors. He doesn't have much more information regarding anyone in his family older than his great grandparents, and thus far, all the additional records we've looked at through Family Tree, Ancestry, etc. haven't been accurate. Are there any specific resources I should look to for help? Any suggestions on how to get the rest of his Tree to auto-populate a bit more? Also, I'm thinking about scheduling one of those virtual appointments through FamilySearch to get some help. What's the best way to prepare for those appointments?
Hopefully someone can help me out. Again, I feel apt enough at FamilySearch (I know when and how to merge possible duplicates, attach and look for records, etc.), but I feel like I've kind of hit a dead end here. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Anziano Lee
ベストアンサー
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With limited exceptions, research in Italy absolutely requires manual image-by-image searching of the records because very few records have been indexed. Furthermore, since genealogy is not popular in Italy, it's unlikely you'll find this man's ancestors already in the FamilySearch Family Tree or Ancestry user trees. It's likely that you'd be the first genealogist to ever study these individuals.
Italian records are organized on the municipal (comune) level. What records exist will vary wildly based on this man's ancestral town of origin. Naturally, to proceed, it's essential that you know not just the dates but the birthplaces for these grandparents and great-grandparents of his! Hopefully, they come from a small town because this means much fewer records to sift through!
Once you know the town of origin, what you have to do is go on the FamilySearch Catalog Search (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/) and do a Place or also Keyword search for said town. You will then be able to view the relevant images. It should be possible for you to corroborate the information he has provided you already, and this is very important to do. Once that's done and confirmed, it's possible to work backwards in time using the birth, death, and most importantly, marriage records.
If you'd like more specific advice, you can share the exact town of origin.
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Very interesting. Thank you for your help. I really do appreciate it. I'm not sure the exact city, but I know his family comes from the island of Sicilia. I will ask him tonight what town on Sicilia his family comes from and hopefully that will give me more to research.
This was very helpful and gave me some VERY good direction. Thank you for these insights!
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Hi @Atticus C. Lee I agree with the response you received from @joseph99929. I just wanted to share my experience as a convert with Italian heritage! I started with not very much information and have been able to view the wonderful records that FamilySearch filmed to build my family tree back several generations. It is wonderful now that the records are digitized and easy to browse at home or a Family History Center without using a microfilm machine. The Italian records are pretty easy to browse because most of the time there is an index at the end of the images. I have found success looking at the index first then going back and finding the record I need. It is easier than browsing through all the records. Although, I must say that browsing the records one by one can be helpful to find collateral lines.
Does your friend live in the town where his family is from? He might also find success visiting archives and churches in person to get copies of records of his family.
Wishing you the best in your missionary work. I think it is great you are bringing the Spirit of Elijah to your newfound friend.
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