Finding and Using Regional and Name-based Clubs

You can often escape some of the leg work required in Italian genealogical research by getting in touch with relatives who have already researched or who are currently researching your family's history. The trouble is often finding these people. I have cousins whose names I don't know spread all throughout the United States. Surely someone else had wondered about our roots and started the process of tracing them backwards. But how can we find these people in order to share information?

One way is by finding and joining an Italian genealogical club. It's not difficult to find and join dozens of clubs devoted to Italian genealogy in general. In fact, it's probably worthy of your time and the (sometimes) small fees to join one of these clubs or mailing lists, especially if you are a beginner and would like to learn some of the basic rules in any genealogical endeavor. However, if you are pressed for time, or just interested in learning about one particular branch of your family, look into joining one of the regional or name-based clubs on the web.

I have mentioned in other articles the Abruzzo Club, http:\\www.abruzzo2000.com It's a good example of what I mean when I say 'regional Italian genealogy club.' An Italian man living in the area, with a brilliant idea for a small business and invaluable resource, has made a fairly large website specifically for Italian genealogists researching the Abruzzo area. If you visit the webpage, you will find a message board, mailing list, information on conducting research and traveling to Abruzzo (as opposed to Italy in general), and a list of names being researched by members and other people who have come across the website.

Much of the information is free. The membership fee gets you access to some extra areas of the website and a welcome package with Abruzzi goods. However, for the purpose of finding other people who are researching your family or town, you need not purchase a membership. This is true of the majority of the regional clubs I have seen. Virtually all of them have free public message boards where anyone can post the names of people they are researching. Before you make your own post, search through the message boards to see if anyone has already written about your family.

For a small list of sites similar to the Abruzzo Club I mentioned, Google.com has a list of regional clubs at http://directory.google.com/Top/Regional/Europe/Italy/Society_and_Culture/Genealogy/Towns/

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