Italy Emigration and Immigration

Finding the Emigrant’s Town of Origin
Once you have traced your family back to your immigrant ancestor, you must determine the city or town from which he or she came.

Several sources may give this information. You may be able to find it by talking to older family members or by searching documents, such as:


 * Birth, marriage, and death certificates.
 * Obituaries.
 * Journals.
 * Photographs.
 * Letters.
 * Family bible.
 * Church certificates or records.
 * Naturalization applications and petitions.
 * Passenger lists.
 * Passports.
 * Family heirlooms.

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
Many people moved to Italy during the following periods:

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 Roma and other major cities.

Unfortunately, very few immigration sources exist for Italy. Instead, look for emigration records of the country from which your ancestor moved.

Emigration From Italy
Italian emigration can be divided into two major periods, with about 10,000 emigrants leaving prior to the first period.

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.

ant’s Town of Origin" in this section.

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.

United States
Passenger lists. Most Italian emigrants to the United States arrived at the ports of New York, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Boston. The Family History Library has microfilm copies of the records and indexes of each of these ports from 1820 to 1945. If your ancestor emigrated after 1893, the passenger list will probably list the place of birth and last known residence. See United States Emigration and Immigration for more information about United States passenger lists.

Immigration lists. A published list and index of Italian emigrants to America is:


 * Italians to America, Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, 1880–1899

'''Online Passenger lists. '''A searchable database of Italian emigrants to America:


 * NARA has recently made: Data Files Relating to the Immigration of Italians to the United States, documenting the period 1855 - 1900 available over the internet.

Related FamilySearch Blog Articles

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 * What Can I Learn about My Italian Last Name?
 * Italy Emigration: The Who, Why, and Where
 * Italian Dual Citizenship: What You Need to Know
 * Italian Genealogy Research—How to Find Italian Records