Expert’s Choice
Elaine Cordingley, chair of the AngloItalian FHS ( anglo-italianfhs.org.uk)
If you identify the location in Italy where your ancestors came from then the state records can be searched using the Italian state archives’ website Antenati, which was redesigned in November last year: antenati.san.beniculturali.it/?lang=en.
State records are divided into three historical periods: Napoleonic civil status (1806–1815); Restoration civil status (1815–1865); and Italian civil status (1865 to the present). The records of births over 100 years old and marriages/deaths over 70 years old are shown where available, and are listed by town or commune within the province.
Since 2011 the Italian state archives have been collaborating with FamilySearch to digitise records. Once records have been published on Antenati, FamilySearch can publish them too – although they are often only accessible at Family History Centers – before they are indexed by volunteers.
Scroll down the homepage and click ‘Explore’ in the ‘Browse the Archives’ box to find a map containing numbered blue circles (showing how many archives are in a particular area) together with a list of the state archives. If you zoom in the blue circles will be replaced by individual circles for each archive, either green (meaning digitisation is complete) or yellow (digitisation is continuing). Clicking the name of an archive in the list then ‘Search the registries’ will let you manually explore individual pages that have been digitised from the location. Alternatively you can use ‘Search by name’ on the Antenati homepage to retrieve any record that has been indexed.
Updates to the website are ongoing, so it is worth checking it regularly for new additions and tranches of data. And while the text can sometimes be difficult to read, there is great satisfaction in finding information about an ancestor.