I need a good ITALIAN genealogy website, like Ancestry.com, but for Italy specifically.?

Question

I need the website to be based in Italy, NOT an American site. I guarantee that I have tried every American-based Italian genealogy site and they are not working for me.

Any websites based in Italy that are like Ancestry.com??
I need something that I can search with names, places, etc.

(Thanks!)

I want to clarify that I have tried the LDS Church, and they do not have enough information for the regions of Italy I am researching. Please do not suggest the LDS Church as a new resource, I included them in my statement that I guarantee I have tried them all. They have a lot of stuff, but not what I am looking for.
Thanks

Answer 1

These are Italian websites
http://www.geneanet.org/?lang=it (also available in English by clicking on the Union Jack flag)
http://www.genealogica.it/genealen.htm (in English)
http://www.pubblinet.com/araldis.php (in English)
http://www.bertotti.it/genealogia/ (Italian only)
http://www.gens.labo.net/en/cognomi/ (Italian only)

Feel free emailing me for help in case above don't fit yr research. If you provide me more details (surnames, places, etc) I could make some research for you
as I've done already for other Yahoo askers.

Answer 2

Have you tried your local LDS Church in your area? Each stake, which is comprised of what are called wards (individual congregations divided geographically in a given area) has a Family Genealogy Library which is open to anyone who cares to use it. It uses the resources of the LDS Genealogy Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is, I believe, the largest genealogical library in the world.

Ancestry.com is currently in the process of trying to incorporate everything from the big library onto its website, but the resources at the library are so massive they haven't finished getting it all on the internet. My nephew worked for them until about a year ago, and he said the stuff available there is only a fraction of what is available at the library in Salt Lake.

If you look in your local phone book, you will find a number for the stake or ward nearest to you. Contact them, and they can tell you where the Family Library is located in your area. The libraries are not like typical websites, they contain information which is being updated daily as people enter information from new sources. My mother is LDS, and she did volunteer work in one, doing what is called extraction, which is basically taking information from microfilm and other sources and entering it in the database.

The best actual records in Italy, and in most of Europe, to my understanding, are generally church records of births, baptisms and marriages. The only place I know of where those have been or are being systematically put into one database is the big LDS library.

Alternatively, you may be able to "trade" information with someone who actually lives here in Salt Lake City. Genealogy is a huge deal here, because of the Mormon influence, and I have met people who go to the library in Salt Lake City and who will do research for you if you will, in exchange, do research for them from the sources near you. Find some genealogy websites and forums, and see if someone will help you out that way.

But do call your local LDS church, and ask about using their resources. I know the zealous genealogists in my family have done work going back to the late 17th century on one branch of the family that is from Sweden, and the bulk of it came from Swedish source material.

I wish you the best of luck.

Answer 3

I am Catholic and I have availed myself of the LDS Data Centers more than once and I have never had them come ringing my doorbell.

Now, one of my friends whose parents came from Italy has gone to the National Archives in Washington, D. C. and has found a lot of information on her family. She had a cousin go to Italy and this cousin said this friend found more at the National Archives on their family than she did going to Italy.

Answer 4

http://www.italywgw.org/

This is a Genweb site and I'm sure there will be some usefull information and usefull links too.