Are you looking for an Italian surname? Do you need more information about your family heritage?
This is the right place to start your genealogy search.
There are actually two types of "online" access that serve as alternatives to the microfilm records. One is the digitized record, and the other is the searchable indexed database. In most cases, both "online" records are available for a collection.
But in some cases it's an either-or situation. In those cases, I don't think one needs to be a purist to prefer the digitized scan to an index-only search result. The latter, while easier to use when done right, has two major disadvantages:
Any record that is mistyped, misread, etc. effectively becomes lost if the original record is not readily available. (Quite a few of us, I'm sure, have experimented with some truly wild spellings to try to locate a name in a searchable database.)
There are stories which simply become lost in the limitations of the result databases frequently set up. My best example is the "marriage by proxy" of a distant cousin during WWI, a detail which I doubt would have been properly conveyed (if at all) by a result set designed only to furnish the name of the bride & groom, date, and location.
It is my hope that the digitized microfilms will eventually be made available online, whether to the general internet or with limited access via FHC sites.
The status of many of the films of interest to me flipped over recently from "microfilm only" to "digital, viewable at a Family History Center". I'll try to check that out later today.
I just noticed that LDS has finally begun indexing Palermo records!
If there is anyone on this site who would be capable of reading the records (in Italian) and transcribing them, it would be a great service to all of us who have ancestors from Palermo!
