Imagine my shock when I discovered my great-grandmother had two children in Italy, but left one of them there. This is my nonna’s Italian immigration story. This changes everything about the story that I had created about her. After her husband died leaving her with a young son, I thought that she, her son, and…
The Story of Angela Grassi and Giuseppe Forelli, and the American Family They Never Meant to Create They were born just 30 miles apart in the misty valleys of Bergamo province, but they came from entirely different worlds. She was the daughter of a family in Schilpario — a literate, proud Alpine village with its…
You’re all fired up for your Italy ancestry trip, right? But then a thought pops into your head. Do Italians like Americans from the United States coming to explore their roots and look for cousins? The short answer is yes, but hey, have you ever heard Italians give a short answer? Let me give you…
You’ve spent hours searching for your Italian ancestors—scrolling through online records, piecing together names, and writing emails to Italian churches that never get answered. But no matter how hard you try, you still can’t find that one missing link. At this point, you might be wondering: Is hiring a genealogist worth it for Italian ancestry…
If you have hit a brick wall in your Italian genealogy research, searching Italian parish records might be your answer. This is because Italian parish records contain a wealth of information and go back centuries without interruptions. In this article, I will tell you what you need to know about Italian Parish Records so that…
If you are searching for your Italian ancestors, you have surely come across Portale Antenati. And you may have noticed it’s not the easiest website to use. This is partly because most records are not indexed and the images are written in old Italian cursive. However, when you know a few tips for using this…
