The goal of GenTracer is to discover the personal history of our clients and their ancestors in the towns of Italy.
Most Italian genealogical records are not available in published or compiled records on the Internet or elsewhere. Research must be done in the original birth, marriage, and death records of each town. So it is necessary to know the name of the town before research in Italian records can start.
That can be done by following the trail of US census (1900-1930) which gives the year of immigration and naturalization, to the naturalization record (when available) which states the name of the ship and the date of arrival and the port of entry, to the passenger manifest which (frequently) gives the hometown in Italy. Other approaches are through the marriage record of the immigrant in the US, which MIGHT name the town in Italy, or the church records here in the US. Once we know the town, we can go into the birth, death and marriage records to learn more about your family. So many folks in Italy have the same names that it is necessary to determine the hometown to be sure you have the right family.
If you are interested in dual citizenship (US (or another nation) and Italian), we can assist you in obtaining the necessary documents. Please see www.gentracer.com/citizenship.html for more details. If you are interested in visiting Italy there are beautiful villas in Tuscany, Sicily, Liguria and many more places perfect for your Italian holiday.
While many of the records in America used creative spelling for the name of an immigrant, an experienced genealogist will search all possible spellings. The correct family can usually be determined by the location and the names and approximate ages of the members of the family.
Here at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, I have access to the above records, plus the microfilmed birth, marriage, and death records of most Sicilian towns (see www.gentracer.com/towns.html for a complete list and links) from 1820-1910 and most mainland Italian towns from 1809-1910. We can frequently locate the birth of the immigrant in that time frame which will confirm the names and give the ages (usually) of his parents. We can work back from there locating their marriage, births, parents, siblings, etc. back (usually) two or three generations (sometimes more). To see some comments from clients, please see www.gentracer.com/references.html.
The fee for a basic family history research project in the Italian records is $200 - usually yielding 6-9 documents and/or sources and includes translations, research log, pedigree chart, and copies of documents. See www.gentracer.com/samplemicrofilmreport.html for a sample microfilm research report.
Rates are payable in advance, payment can be made through the PayPal icon below: