VITAL RECORDS
Italian Marriages

Many beginning genealogists assume that they will not be able to find any records of their Italian ancestors before 1809 because that is the date when most FamilySearch films begin.

 photo: QHGS Blogger's Family Files

While it is true that civil vital records started in 1809 when the Napoleonic Code went into effect, marriage records from 1809 to 1865 often contain copies of church records from the 1700s because the Italian legal system requires several documents before a marriage can be performed. These original notarial documents and copies of older records are collected into packets which are filed together, first by marriage number and then by year, at the municipal level and in state archives. Many of these packets, called allegati or processetti, have been digitized at the FamilySearch website or are available on microfilm from the FSL—an extremely fortunate state of affairs for genealogists!

When researching Italian marriages, note the number on the marriage certificate and find the corresponding packet. Examine the documents inside the marriage packet carefully. The least you will find is the baptism/birth records for the bride and groom, a copy of the banns posted a month previous to the marriage, and a copy of the civil marriage record itself. The most you can find may include all of the above, as well as death records for each spouse’s parents, death records for their grandparents,  death records for the former spouses of the current bride and groom, original documents recording parental consent, and the record of their church marriage. 

You can do this, too! More help with researching Italian marriage records may be found at

Italian Marriage Records More Than You Think 

and at 

Italian Marriage Document Translations. 

Buona fortuna!!!!!

RESEARCH NOTE: Had I accepted the evidence that my 4G grandmother Gaetana DiBona’s marriage to Francesco Paolo Pinto took place “c. 1805,” and not bothered to search further, I would never have found her two subsequent marriages in 1818 and 1832 which yielded 1.) the death record of Gaetana’s father (1783), 2.) the birth record of Gaetana herself (1778), 3.) the name of one of my 6G grandfathers (it was in Gaetana’s mother’s consent document appended to the third marriage), and 4.) the surprising fact that Gaetana’s first husband, Francesco Paolo Pinto, my 4G grandfather, had died, not in Corleto Perticara as I had assumed, but in the provincial capitol of Potenza—in prison!