Italy Emigration and Immigration

Research Organizations

 * Centro Altreitalie Three databases, available online, with the landing lists of Italians in Argentina, Brazil and the United States.
 * Centro Internazionale Studi Emigrazione Italiana, searchable database. CISEI has several databases containing information on millions of Italian migrants. By entering the person's data you will be able to know the date, the place of departure and destination, and get information on travel, sea travel and family members. In the most fortunate cases also read a short account of the migratory experience.

United States

 * 1905-1910 Italian Passengers to Louisiana, 1905-10 at Ancestry ($)
 * 1855-1900 Italians to America Passenger Data File, 1855 - 1900, NARA
 * Italians Immigrating to the United States, at MyHeritage ($), index
 * BYU Immigrant Ancestors Project index

Argentina

 * Center for Latin American Migration Studies (CEMLA) Database Search Access to consult on-line the most complete database on arrivals of immigrants to Argentina.

Australia

 * Records relating to Italian migration held in Sydney – Fact sheet 100
 * Records relating to Italian migration held in Brisbane – Fact sheet 236
 * Records relating to Italian migration held in Brisbane – Fact sheet 207

Brazil

 * 1855-1964, images, no index
 * 1882-1925, images, no index. Also at Ancestry.com, ($), images, no index.
 * 1900-1965, index and images
 * 1900-1965 Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965 ($), index and images
 * 1902-1980, index, images
 * 1902-1980, index, images
 * Brazil, São Paulo Immigration Memorial (Arquivo Público Do Estado De São Paulo), index.
 * 1960-1982, images, no index
 * Brazil Immigrants Project (Projeto Imigrantes, ($) index

Canada

 * Canadian Immigrant Records, Part One ($)
 * Canadian Immigrant Records, Part Two ($)
 * 1500s-1900s Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s ($)
 * 1865-1935 Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 ($)

Halifax, Nova Scotia

 * Nova Scotia immigration records, 1819, 1847-1903
 * Misc. Passenger Lists to Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1902 and 1906-1909 With mention of the final destination of each passenger (in Canada or the United States).
 * at FamilySearch — index and images

Uruguay

 * , index.

Finding Town of Origin
Records in the countries emigrated from are kept on the local level. You must first identify the name of the town where your ancestors lived to access those records. If you do not yet know the name of the town of your ancestor's birth, there are well-known strategies for a thorough hunt for it.
 * U. S. Immigration Records: Finding the Town of Origin

Italy Genealogy Research Using the Wiki – Video Series
These three lessons demonstrate the use of personal and U.S. records to search for the name of your ancestors' home town in Italy.
 * Italy Research With the Wiki Part 11 of 13: Finding Your Town of Origin in Italy: Home Records: Searching documents commonly found in homes for emigration information on Italy ancestors. Interviewing older relatives. Searching compiled family trees and printed genealogy books.
 * Italy Research With the Wiki Part 12 of 13: Finding Your Town of Origin in Italy: U S Records: Using United States census records, vital records, cemetery records, obituaries, Social Security records, and military records to find the town of origin for an Italian emigrant for genealogy.
 * Italy Research With the Wiki Part 13 of 13: Finding a Town of Origin:Immigration and Naturalization: Using passenger lists and petitions for citizenship to find the town of origin for an Italian emigrant for genealogy.

Immigration into Italy
Early 1200s. Waldensian emigrants from France moved to northern Italy as a result of religious persecution.

1431 to about 1450. Thousands of Greek and Albanian Christians moved into Italy as a result of persecution under the Muslim Turks. They settled in coastal areas of the Italian peninsula and in Sicilia.

1492 to 1692. Thousands of Jewish emigrants moved into Italy because of religious persecution. Most of them came from Spain and Portugal. Many settled in Rome and other major cities.

Emigration From Italy
Prior to 1848. About 10,000 emigrants left Italy prior to 1848.

1848 to 1870. More than 20,000 emigrants left Italy and migrated to the United States. This wave of emigration was caused by political upheaval and revolution as Italy struggled to become an independent, unified state.

1870 to 1914.
 * From 1870 to 1880, an estimated 55,000 Italians came to the United States.
 * From 1880 to 1890, more than 300,000 others arrived.
 * As word arrived in Italy of the opportunities in America and as economic problems increased in Italy, nearly 4 million Italians came to America between 1890 and 1914.

Most emigrants were from southern Italy and settled in New York, Chicago, and along the East Coast. Many emigrants from northern Italy settled in the coal and mineral mining towns across the United States. Other northerners later settled in northern California where a climate similar to their own existed.

Besides going to the United States, many Italian emigrants went to Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Australia, and Canada.

Passport Records (passaporti)
In 1869, the Italian government began requiring people to obtain passports to move within Italy. However, the United States and many other countries did not require passports, so many Italians left Italy without an official passport.

The Italian government used passports to make sure young Italian men did not emigrate to avoid the military draft. Consequently, police were responsible for passports. Passports are still issued today by the questura (head of the internal police) in each province. Although you may write to request passport information, the archives where these records are kept are not open to the public. You will generally find passports among the personal papers of the emigrant’s family in his or her destination country.

Because passport records can be hard to find and access, you may want to check with the anagrafe (registrar’s office) in each comune. This office keeps records of residency changes and emigration along with dates and probable destinations.

Some passport applications have survived the years and are currently being digitizied and indexed by the BYU Immigrant Ancestors Project. Although it is an ongoing project, you may do a name search on the information indexed to this date.

Contents: Names of passengers holding passport or migration permits and the names of their parents, places of residence or origin, dates of migration, destinations, relationships with other passengers or party members, and vital information such as birth dates, marriage dates, children, etc.

Passenger Lists
To search those records, see United States Immigration Online Genealogy Records.

U.S. Citizenship and and Immigration Services Genealogy Program
The USCIS Genealogy Program is a fee-for-service program that provides researchers with timely access to historical immigration and naturalization records of deceased immigrants. If the immigrant was born less than 100 years ago, you will also need to provide proof of his/her death.

Immigration Records Available

 * A-Files: Immigrant Files, (A-Files) are the individual alien case files, which became the official file for all immigration records created or consolidated since April 1, 1944.
 * Alien Registration Forms (AR-2s): Alien Registration Forms (Form AR-2) are copies of approximately 5.5 million Alien Registration Forms completed by all aliens age 14 and older, residing in or entering the United States between August 1, 1940 and March 31, 1944.
 * Registry Files:''' Registry Files are records, which document the creation of immigrant arrival records for persons who entered the United States prior to July 1, 1924, and for whom no arrival record could later be found.
 * Files:''' Visa Files are original arrival records of immigrants admitted for permanent residence under provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924.

Requesting a Record

 * Web Request Page allows you to request a records, pay fees, and upload supporting documents (proof of death).
 * Record Requests Frequently Asked Questions

Argentina
Italian settlements in Argentina, along with Spanish settlements, formed the backbone of today's Argentine society. Argentine culture has significant connections with Italian culture in terms of language, customs, and traditions.

Italian Argentines are Argentine-born citizens of Italian descent or Italian-born people who reside in Argentina. Italian is the largest ethnic origin of modern Argentines, after the Spanish immigration during the colonial population. It is estimated that up to 30 million Argentines have some degree of Italian ancestry (62.5% of the total population).

Italians began arriving in Argentina in large numbers from 1857 to 1940, totaling 44.9% of the entire postcolonial immigrant population, more than from any other country (including Spain, at 31.5%). In 1996, the population of Argentines of partial or full Italian descent numbered 15.8 million when Argentina’s population was approximately 34.5 million, meaning they represented 45.5% of the population. Today, the country has 30 million Argentines with some degree of Italian ancestry in a total population of 40 million.

Australia
Italian Australians comprise the sixth largest ethnic group in Australia, with the 2016 census finding 4.6% of the population (1,000,013 people) claiming ancestry from Italy, be they migrants to Australia or their descendants born in Australia of Italian heritage. The 2016 census counted 174,044 people (2.8% of the foreign born population) who were born in Italy, down from 199,124 in the 2006 census. In 2011, 916,100 persons identified themselves as having Italian ancestry, either alone or in combination with another ancestry (4.6%). By 2016, Italian was identified as the fifth most spoken language other than English with 271,597 speakers. In 2011, Italian was the second most used language at home with 316,900 speakers (or 1.6% of the Australian population).

By Italian Government estimates, fully two-fifths of its emigrants to Australia were from the Veneto and another two-fifths were drawn from the Piedmont, Lombardy and Tuscany regions. Only one-fifth were from Sicily and Calabria.

Brazil
Italian Brazilians are Brazilian citizens of full or partial Italian descent. Italian Brazilians are the largest number of people with full or partial Italian ancestry outside Italy, with São Paulo being the most populous city with Italian ancestry in the world. Nowadays, it is possible to find millions of descendants of Italians, from the southeastern state of Minas Gerais to the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, with the majority living in São Paulo state and the highest percentage in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo (60-75%). Small southern Brazilian towns, such as Nova Veneza, have as much as 95% of their population of Italian descent. In 2019, 11,663 people with Italian nationality emigrated from Italy to Brazil according to the Italian World Report 2019, totaling 447,067 Italian citizens living in Brazil until 2019.

Canada
Italian Canadians comprise Canadians who have full or partial Italian heritage and Italians who migrated from Italy or reside in Canada. According to the 2016 Census of Canada, 1,587,970 Canadians (4.6% of the total population) claimed full or partial Italian ancestry. Residing mainly in central urban industrial metropolitan areas, Italian Canadians are the seventh largest self-identified ethnic group in Canada behind French, English, Irish, Scottish, German and Chinese Canadians.

Italian immigration to Canada started as early as the mid 19th century. A substantial influx of Italian immigration to Canada began in the early 20th century, primarily from rural southern Italy. The interwar period of World War I also instigated further migration, with immigrants primarily settling in Toronto and Montreal.

A second wave of immigration occurred after the World War II, and between the early 1950s and the mid-1960s, approximately 20,000 to 30,000 Italians immigrated to Canada each year, many of the men working in the construction industry upon settling. Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia was an influential port of Italian immigration between 1928 until it ceased operations in 1971, where 471,940 individuals came to Canada from Italy, making them the third largest ethnic group to immigrate to Canada during that time period.

Uruguay
Italian Uruguayans (Spanish: ítalo-uruguayos; Italian: italo-uruguaiani) are Uruguayan-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent or Italian-born people in Uruguay. It is estimated that more than one third of Uruguayans are of Italian descent.

Along with its neighboring country, Argentina, Italian immigration to Uruguay is one of the largest, if not the largest, ethnic groups towards Uruguay's modern culture and society, along with Spanish Uruguayans, exhibiting significant connections to Italian culture in terms of language, customs and traditions. Outside of Italy, Uruguay has one of the highest percentages of Italians in the world.

By 1976, Uruguayans of Italian descent numbered over 1,300,000, almost 45% of the total population, including Italian-Argentine residents in Uruguay. High concentrations are found in Montevideo and the city of Paysandú, where almost 65% of the population is of Italian origin.