Visit here if you DON'T know the approximate date of birth of your ancestor.

Visit here if you DON'T know the town in which your ancestor was born

Hire a qualified genealogist to research your Family through your local record sources and obtain the essential information to trace back your roots in Italy.

The first thing to do is interviewing your family members who might know something about your ancestors that has been passed down from one generation to the other and gathering all the information available both documentary (family bibles, photographs, certificates, letters, diaries, deeds, perhaps - or a passport) and oral (family stories and memories).

"‡It all started back in the early 1960's, when I first questioned my mother about my grandparents and other family members. It was then that I learned of my grandparents' names. I started to write a family history based on the age of my maternal grandfather's year of birth, 1846..." (L.S.)

This sounds pretty obvious, but it is not. Sometimes, a distant relative can be an extremely rich source of information that you would have never expected. Remember, it is from minor information that you can discover vital clues about your Ancestors. For instance: Did he/she have a particular nickname? Was he/she devoted to a particular Saint? In Italy, it is a custom to give also the name of the saint who is celebrated the day the child is born.

FREE TIP: To learn how to organize this information, visit my Academy. Pier Felice degli Uberti tells you how to build your Family History Archive.

With the help of a pronunciation table in an Italian/English dictionary, check all the possible variations of your Italian surname. The majority of Italian immigrants did not speak any language other than their dialect and very few were able to spell their names. Thus, officials registered their name as it sounded.

Translate your Americanized name into its equivalent Italian name. It was quite a common practice to cut off the vocals at the end of the surname. The idea was to make it simpler.

The second thing to do is to research your local records to trace surname variations. You may want to research census records, ship passengers'lists, Social Security Death Index, Passport applicationsClick on the appropriate source to get advice and guidance to research on your own.

Census records
Naturalization papers
Ship Passengers Lists
SSDI
Passport Applications