City of Palermo Church Records

[AlexKN]

Church records are such awesome tool for getting deep into your family history. It's how I know so much about my ancestors from Corleone and Partinico (back to to 1500s and even the 1400s!).

However, the city of Palermo proper, particularly the 20 churches on Family Search (plus a couple others scattered around, like those in Rocca), are quite possibly the most useless genealogical resource I have ever seen in my thousands of hours of research. The city of Palermo claims that a person can easily get back to the 1600s, but I vehemently disagree.

(1) There are so many churches that maintained official records that are not available (and never will be) on Family Search. For example, San Nicola di Bari, San Giuseppe Tolentino, and Santa Maria di Monserrato all had records that can only be found by begging a priest to either to search for information or to give you access to the books. Thus, my Palermo ancestries are all stalled because they didn't happen to be in the three major churches (Cattedrale, Sant'Ippolito, and San Giacomo alla Marina).

(2) Even if you find someone, the wedding records are useless! They're the only official 18th century weddings in all of Sicily that do not name the parents of the bride and groom! The rest of Sicily named parents on every wedding starting in the 1620s, most in the 1580s or sooner.

(3) There are no riveli for Palermo, and the 1811 property census is borderline useless, more than most towns equivalent riveli.

I know (1) is a lost cause because I have quite cordially contacted the priests at some of these and never heard back. I don't really expect to get a response though. Also, (3) is hopeless because I can't manufacture records from thin air (that'd be awesome if I could though!).

What about (2) though? Has anyone ever found a way to get past the joke that is the city of Palermo church records from the Cathedral, etc.?

[adelfio]

Lets see your Family tree you have and last civil record you have most of Palermo is made up of sections.


Marty

[AlexKN]

Oh, all my family is well into the 1700s and such. The sections are irrelevant because I am well before 1820 civil registration. I have ancestors from Molo, Villabate, Villagrazia, Brancaccio, Santa Ninfa... I know for a fact that some ancestors were members of the churches of San Nicola di Bari Albgergheria, Santa Maria di Monserrato (formerly Santa Lucia), the Venerable Ospedale Grande, Sant'Agata di Villabate, Santa Croce...

[AlexKN]

I have followed up here with attachments containing examples of two marriages which are of the "useless" type I have described. In particular, the ancestors (Biundo-Zummo) on example1 are from Villagrazia and the Ospedale Grande (the girl's orphange), respectively; and on the second the ancestor is from San Nicolò di Bari-Albergheria. I hope this helps.

Sorry for the lack of exact details; I don't really like divulging specific ancestral information out in the open air like this.

[Italysearcher]

OH dear, I am sure if the priest had known that people would be controlling his books several hundred years after he recorded the information he would have more diligent.

I don't believe priests were given specific instructions on HOW to record baptisms, marriages and deaths. Just the instruction to do so. Many priests went over the top and I have seen marriage records that included a family tree showing that the couple were related to the 3rd degree. Others are like the ones you show, just the bare minimum of detail.

It is possible to get past this block, it is just time consuming and tedious.

[rp76226]

This post implies that some church records are on Family Search. How do you find any church records on Family search? I've never seen any. In particular, I would love to see church records for the Sicilian towns of Racalmuto, Polizzi Generosa, Cerda, Petralia Soprano, and Corelone, plus for the mainland Italian towns of Altamura, Grumo Appula, Pisciotto, and Carpinone.

Ron

[adelfio]

Check out Marcello D'aleo

PG LINK
http://www.sicilygenealogy.com/

Marty

[rp76226]

Marty, this reads like a genealogical research group that presumably works for pay though I did not see any rates listed. Am I correct? The towns listed as having records on the site were not ones that I want to research.

Ron

[Italysearcher]

Many of the responders on this board are geneaologists or professional researchers who work for pay researching the records that Family Search have not digitized, or are not permitted to digitize.
Many Diocese do not permit the digitization of their parish records but will permit researchers to perform searches. There are also civil records that have not and probably will not be digitized (the area around Cassino and Frosinone is one) where the records are only available in the town offices.
It's a service we provide but do not promote openly. We do respond to questions and provide information that allows people like you to do your own research but when we know it's a lost cause(unless you are prepared to come to Italy) we suggest a 'paid' alternative just as adelfio did.