This session will discuss the civil marriage process in Italy and the marriage banns and files (allegati/processetti) created to supplement the marriage of couple. These documents have the potential to sometimes extend a family 3 generations pushing back into pre-civil registration era and right into Catholic Church records.
Comments (1)
I highly recommend this nicely-done presentation of a subject area which is not only useful to genealogists, but makes for an interesting revelation of the context of our ancestors' vital records. I did some online research (100% on Antenati) recently for a friend who is in his 70s, and whose grandparents came from a tiny comune in Abruzzo which has continuous and consistent records back to 1815, including processetti. Literally nothing was missing, at least among the births and marriages. The estratti (of earlier records) contained within those processetti made it possible to flesh out a couple of generations preceding the spouses, i.e. DOBs as early as the 1740s. In total, we were able to go back 5 generations of his ascendancy. Now if only my own Ligurian ancestors had been so conscientious....
Thank you, David. I am a huge fan of these marriage files. Incredible that you were able to reach back into the 1740s for your friend! Absolute goldmine of information about our Italian families.