Sicily advice - need Ital/Eng help with family document search

meg, we did just this thing in Sicily in 2019. We hired a guide via "Tours by Locals" I will PM you his last name in a bit. Well worth it. He picked us up at our Palermo hotel, drove to the village we wanted to see, showed us around and brought us back. But the thing that you want them to do, is to do some research before you arrive. Our guide did some preliminary research on the village to see what information resources were available, and located some points of interest related to the family.

Even more importantly, he had made contacts and appointments with the municipal records offices so that we weren't walking in blind. They wouldn't have given us any help or time without an appointment, and even then tried to get us on our way quickly. As our guide told us, there are tons of Americans that show up in Sicily searching for their roots, and the locals aren''t compelled or excited to drop everything they're doing to help some non-Italian speaking tourists who aren't even sure what to ask.

Know what records exactly you are looking for: birth records, marriage records, emigration records, baptism, death certificates, etc. If they find them, they can produce the certification of birth records you need for citizenship application. I'll share some more info in a PM.

That’s perfect! Exactly what I want to do, but blindly searching the web was daunting. Thank you, Stan!

PM sent. Good luck. If he's not available, he can probably recommends someone else.

This might give you a heads up as to where to start.

https://www.italianside.com/sicilia/palermo/cerda/genealogy/

That’s brilliant! Thank you so much for the tip, Gerri.