I'm on a mission to visit my paternal ancestors in Italy. My father was born in Sannicandro di Bari (small village not far from Bari) and came to America as a 6 month-old infant. Apparently, I have a lot of relatives still in this area. I do not speak Italian. How does one go about finding a local historian in Italy? Can I just show up at the local parish and look for records? Is anyone reading this familiar with this area that can offer advice?
Besides the family ties, we plan on visiting some of the other interesting places in this part of the Italy...Alberobello, Matera, coastal areas, etc.
Posted by
Boston
1956 posts
The best way to get oriented is through specialized online groups. Two useful forums are: https://www.italiangenealogy.com/forum and https://www.italianside.com/genealogy-forum/ . Also useful are genealogy groups on Facebook and Reddit.
Posted by
629 posts
Another forum that may be helpful is the Italy community group on Family Search. Italy Research
Or try Googling Italy Genealogy. You may find a genealogist that will help you find living relatives still in the area for a fee.
Edited to add another link. Italy Research Resources This will have things like word lists and handwriting examples.
Posted by
OP
5 posts
My son has done extensive research on genealogy, but I will look at these suggestions as well, thank you.
Posted by
73 posts
We just did a similar trip to Sicily to visit the ancestral town of my husband’s grandfather. We worked with Marcello for assistance with documentation (finding the records) and he even met us in the town to act as a translator/guide. I am not sure of he is focused only on Sicily, but he may know other genealogists in Bari.
In terms of viewing records, our experience and understanding is that no, you cannot generally just turn up and view the documents. Particularly in the parishes, the records belong to the church and each diocese seems to be able to make their own decisions on sharing the records. The documents we were able to view through special arrangement were written in Latin and fragile due to age. If you want to view documents, I would suggest reaching out to the town and parish in advance, in Italian, and ask for an appointment. If you do not speak Italian, perhaps use Claude or ChatGPT to translate. I have found email addresses are readily available for most towns.
Hope this helps! Being able to walk through the town and visit the church where his great-grandparents were married and his grandfather was baptized was a highlight of the trip.