On our next trip to Italy, I hope to go all the way south to Reggio di Calabria were my father was from. Any tips on how to find out if I still have family there? I have no living relatives here that can give me specific info, and our name is a common Italian name.

There are commercial services available in Italy and also through the Mormon church, contact info can be found on the internet. <BR><BR>I chose another way. I had birth certificates & passports so I knew the name of the town and contacted a private tour guide in the town who helped me (found her on the internet). Having a personal contact in the town, from the town made the trip more personal and we also had immediate access to any records we needed.

Also,if you have birth certificates and other similar documents, you may check at the village's "comune", where the anagraphic servie is located. if you go there and ask the clerk's they might be able to give you some useful directions on your father's parents other relatives and children, for instance they might check if there were other sons or daughters whose relatives are still living in the same city or town.

Carolyn,<BR>I like the idea of a private guide. Which agency did you go through (there are several different ones listed on the internet).<BR>Alice,<BR>Not to sound ignorant, but was is a "comune"? The only papers I have are my Dad's US citizenship papers. I have however, the passenger list from the ship he came to America on. It lists a street where he lived in Italy.

Sally,<BR>I found the guide on the website for the town. Commune is a town. If you find a guide in the town or Commune, they will know the folks in the town hall and it will make searching much easier. Two of my family members went to the town hall on their own years before me and came up empty handed so being connected really helps. Also, notes in public records, like names of neighborhoods, etc. will be understood by the locals. <BR><BR>When you find someone to help you give them a copy of the ship print out, his name, address in Italy, birthdate and the names and ages of any brothers, sisters and parents. It should be fairly easy to find some help because many of the Italian immigrants to the US came from Calabria or Apulia. I'm sure they get many requests.

have a look in the cemetery !!!

"Comune" is the city's administration and also the building that hosts all the offices connected to the administration. All Italian city and town has one local anagraphic office to which every italian citizen and every foreigner who legally reside in italy is recorded. Therefore, if your researches are not aimend at someone lived before the XIX century that is the place to start researching. Even if hte eprson on whom you are reseraching has moved to another town or city, this will be recorded allowig you to track him or her down from town to town. Also, in Italy we (I mean the women) do not switch surnames when we marry, at worse we add the husband's surname to our own. So if your Italian grandma's name was, for instace, Maria Rossi she has recorded as Maria Rossi throughout all her life, or at worse as Maria Rossi Bianchi, unlike in the Us where she would have adopted her husband's name therefore becoming Maria Bianchi.<BR>Another thing, since most of the Itlaian population is cathilic, or at least clains to be catholic, also check out churces. Since all your relatives had proably been baptized, they must have also been inscribed ih the parish register. Yet, while anagraphic registration is complusory, if some of your relatives were or are non catholic (there is a 5-10% of non catholics in Italy too!), they may not appear on such documents.

Can't really offer any advice on how to go about finding your family roots, but you may like to know about a book I've just read...It's written by an American woman, Barbara Grizzuti-Harrison, who's travelled all around Italy, and one of the chapters covers her trip to find her father's family in Reggio di Calabria! The book is called "Italian Days", and it's wonderful. I bought it through Amazon.<BR>Happy reading

Topper

A great book for finding relatives in Southern Italy is Dances With Luigi by Paul Paolicelli.

What I did- I went to the aol white pages in my grandparents home town, and copied all people and addresses with my surname. Then, I wrote a letter in Italian and English (using the computer translator) and sent a skeleton of my family tree back to the generation that lived in Italy. And I sent it. I got two responses from relatives and visited on a recent trip. It was great. It's best to do this on your paternal side, because records and history are less available on the maternal side with name changes.

Let me second the suggestion about reading Dances with Luigi by Paolicelli. It will give you a good idea of what you have ahead of you.

Thanks for the tip on &quot;Dances With Luigi&quot;. It is wonderful and inspires me to make a search for family. I would really like to hire a guide/interpreter in Reggio di Calabria to help me, but can't find anything on the internet. Anyone have any ideas?

Sally as the above having trouble trying to post to you.<BR>Here's a site that may help;<BR><BR>http://gens.labo.net<BR><BR>type your name in the slot and you will see the map change. It will show at what location people with your name live. I thought my name was unusual. was I in for a surprise.

Thanks for the site. I know, from my last visit to Italy, that my name is very common, and that is part of the reason why I would like someone to help me track down family while in Calabria. Anyone else with any ideas?

Write (in Italian) ahead of time to the anagraphic office of the comune. (Or, in a small town, if you're not too serious about doing formal genealogical research, but just want all sorts of info and want to make a casual inquiry re possible relatives, write in Italian to the mayor, asking other questions, too, like how to get to the town, whether there are any local festivals around the time of your planned visit, etc., and your letter will be forwarded to the appropriate staff.) If it is the city of Reggio di Calabria itself, I'm not sure what kind of reply you'll get. But if it's a little town in the province of Reggio di Calabria, there's a good chance tht some friendly person will be very enthusiastic about researching this for you and will let you know whether you have any distant cousins in town. If so, maybe you can visit them. If it turns out that you have no relatives, but you get a friendly reply with othger info, maybe you can at least visit the nice person who answers your inquiry. It's always good to have SOME local contact when you visit one of these small towns. (Of course, if it's the city of Reggio di Calabria that you'r visiting, it's much less likely that you'll get all this personal attention.)

Yes, it is the city of Reggio di Calabria.

You might try to look for people with the same name as yours in Reggio Calabria through www.paginebianche.it (Italian white pages). There is a form, insert your name in the first line and Reggio calabria in the third, than press &quot;Cerca&quot;. You will get names, telephone numbers and addresses of people with the same name as yours in Reggio Calabria. You might than start writing them through the regular mail. Check out if there are any people with a first name that also recalls some of your relatives: in southern Italy there is a trdition of family names, so that a son inherits the name of the grandfather and so on, if you have a &quot;Ruggero&quot; uncle and you find a &quot;Ruggero&quot; in the list there is a possibility that you are relatives. The query gives you names from the whole RC province, but some of your relatives might have moved to nearby towns and villages.

Thanks Alice, I will try that. There are about 15 men with the same first and last name as my father! I have my Grandparents names, and their parents names plus the name of the street they lived on (from the ships passenger list). Hopefully someone can help me out.

Hel you out with the translation? Try contacting me at [email protected].