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Italian Church Records

© Eva Holmes

In 1543 the Council of Trent decided that parish priests had to keep records of births, marriages, and deaths. So, theoretically, if you know the church your ancestors belonged to, you would be able to trace them back to the 16th century, and perhaps before, since some priests might have kept records without being told to.

Fires, floods, and other natural disasters have destroyed records. In addition, some parishes have ceased to exist and their records have been moved, either to other parishes, or perhaps to the Archivio Vescovile della Diocesi, the diocese being above the parish in Catholic hierarchy.

Also, the further back in time you go, the scantier the records are. Parish priests were only required to maintain a minimum of information until around the 1880s.

Some church records were microfilmed by LDS, and you will be able to access these at your local Family History center. If you can't find the records at http://www.familysearch.org , the next step is to write a letter to the parish priest. You can use your form letter for requesting civil documents. If you don't already have them, look at my article on requesting articles from Italy for a sample and some links.

For the address of your family's church, head to http://www.parrocchie.it/ This website will give you a list of churches in the city you search for. Type the city in the box that says 'citta.' If you know the name of the church, but not the town, type the name of the church in the box marked 'San' to come up with a list of towns where a church of that name is located.

Be very patient waiting for church records and make sure to enclose a bit of money for postage. The people working at churches are often volunteers, or at least paid less than civil servants. They are inundated with genealogical requests, which don't have a very high priority compared with other parochial tasks. I have not had great luck obtaining records from churches, either here in the states or abroad.

Some people say church records are not as accurate as civil records, but from my experience, they seem to be more accurate. Names are usually spelled properly, perhaps because the parish priest knew the individual better than the clerk in the town hall. There are also quite a few marginal notations in the parish books, containing little bits of information on the person, such as a move to another town.

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