Your Guide to Finding Italian Ancestors

There are twenty regions in Italy; within each region several provinces and within a province, communes, a political grouping of villages, towns and hamlets. Think of it as states (regions) counties (provinces) townships (communes) and cities or villages and hamlets (frazioni)

Italian Cities and Towns: Information and statistics on Italian Regions, Provinces and Municipalities. All Cities, Towns and Villages in Italy. Official site, zip codes, phone prefix, population, useful links.

Guides to Doing Italian Research: Books and on the Web

Books and Articles

Finding Your Italian Ancestors: A Beginners Guide. Suzanne Russo Adams. Ancestry. 2009 (find in a library)
Italian Genealogical Records: How to Use Italian, Civil, Ecclesiastical & Other Records in Family History Research. Trafford Cole. Ancestry. 1995 (find ina library)
Finding Your Italian Roots. John Philip Colletta. GPC. 2nd ed., 2009 (find in a library)
A Genealogists Guide to Discovering Your Italian Ancestors. Lynn Nelson. Betterway. 1997 (find in a library)
Our Italian Surnames. Joseph Fucilla. GPC. 1996 (find in a library)

Research Guides On the Web

Family Search Wiki: Italy
At this time there are 7 tutuorials covering Italian research on the Family History Library website. Get comfortable and settle in for some serious learning.
Even though you may not be able to attend their meetings (in Long Island, New York,) consider joining the Italian Genealogical Group so you can get their monthly newsletters.
- They provide a list of their articles in past newletter; once you are a member you can download past articles as well as receive future one.
Italian Genealogy includes a forum where you can communicate with other researchers.
The Order of the Sons of Italy in America provides a little advice for researchers.

Professional Researchers (Italian Roots)

I have not used these services and can not evaluate them.
I note them here in case you want to explore further.

Italian Family Tree. The fact that this researcher is an Acredited Genealogist adds weight to her credentials.
My Italian Family; see also a Facebook page, where people may comment freely on their services.
- Here is a short description from the owner. She notes they are based in Rome.
Some members of the Association of Professional Genealogists specialize in Italian ancestry. This list is sorted by country; scroll down to find those who list "Italy" as a specialty. Click on the name for more information.
- Membership in APG is by subscription. Members agree to meet certain standards, but membership does not assure quality. You will need to do further research to ascertain if the researcher is reliable. Here are the APG Guidelines.

Maps

Map showing the regions -- click on any region to get a map of that region.
Regions of Italy -- outline map
Large map of Italy
Italy 1882 (click on it to make it larger)
Italy 1921 (click on it to make it larger)
Wikipedia Commons Atlas of the World: Italia (includes regional maps that show provinces)

All-Italy Websites with data

Italy GenWeb -- A WorldGenWeb site. As with all GenWeb sites, coverage is uneven.
- Some provinces need a volunteer host and have almost no information, some are nicely covered. And there are some bad links... but play around with it (by clicking links) to find helpful pages.
Italian Genealogy Home Page-- Some advice, some databases online.... and it also includes links to non-Italian information. Check it out.
The Italian Genealogical Group has several databases you can search (list is on left... be sure to click the red plus signs).

Societies, Libraries and Archives

FamilySearch Wiki: Italy Archives and Libraries
Information on the state and provincial archives -- in Italian. Use your "translate" function from your browser to see if you can better use the site.

Language and Name Aids

Family Search Research Wiki: Italian Letter Writing Guide
Italian Records Extraction: an Instructional Guide -- created for volunteers who are extracting records, this is a great tutorial for anyone working with Italian records.
Dialects of Italy
Italian First Name Translator
Italian Naming Traditions and Their Ramifications
Enter the surname on this site to see modern distribution of the surname in Italy.

Finding and Using Records

Newspapers

Italian Newspapers (from the Italy GenWeb site) -- note there is also a link to online newspapers.
Search the Chronicling America site, filling in placename and choosing Italian from the ethnicity dropdown to find Italian language newspapers published in the area of your ancestor's residence.