Italian Birth Records

Estratto dell'atto di nascita

The Italian birth record required by the consulate is called an "Estratto dell'atto di nascita" of your Italian born ancestor. This translates to "Extract of the act of birth". The civil records stored in Italy are in large books in every commune in the country. When you request an extract from the commune, they will find the information in the book, and from that fill out the form you see here with the pertinent information.

You will not need an Italian translation since this paper is already in Italian.

Finding Commune Information

The website listed below in this section is a great resource for finding the address of the commune you need. First click on the province the commune is located in, and then find "Municipal Addresses"/"Indirizzi Municipi" (there is a hand holding a pen icon next to it). From there, you will be brought to a page that lists all commune addresses within the province. You may have to scroll down to find the one you need.

http://www.comuni-italiani.it/

Requesting Records from Italy

Once you have found the commune where the record you need is, you can send them a letter. Sometimes you can send them an email or Facebook message. If you choose to mail, you can get 5 or 10 Euro to send in the envelope to cover the costs of international mail to send you the document. It is important to keep the envelope that the document came to submit along with your application for authenticity.

File:PacketForItalyWIKI.pdf Attached is the first couple pages of a packet compiled and mailed to Italy. The letter is a combination of the form letter on the Facebook dual citizenship page, and help from r/translator on Reddit.

The letter to the commune in Italian translated to English:

I am descended from a Italian citizen and I am collecting the documentation necessary for the recognition jure sanguinis (latin) of my Italian citizenship. Therefore I am requesting if you could send me the extract on a multilingual form of his act of birth according to the following data specified, please.

Name and Last name: [First name Last name of ancestor] Date of birth: [DOB of ancestor] Luogo di nascita: [Ancestor's place of birth] Paternità: [Ancestor's father's name] Maternità: [Ancestor's mother's name]

I include here, 5 Euro, so that to cover the costs of the certification and the costs of return postage.

Thank you infinitely for your help. In case the data is not available please send me a negative note anyways.

Furthermore, if the documents are not in that period, or if you know of other sources, I would be grateful if you could suggest how I could continue my research.

I attached a copy of my identification and copies of documents that I have found.

Than you for your help and best regards,

According to the information in my possession, [my] great grandfather was born in your commune,

This video walks you through a DIY process as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4aFuDMAg2E

Civil Records of Italy

You can view many Italian commune records online at ancestry.com and familysearch.org, sometimes even for free.

This site from Italy also has many records that are not available on other genealogical sites: https://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/

Other Possible Methods of Obtaining Documents

There are companies that say they can get these document from the Italian government for you:

• https://www.myitalianfamily.com/ (found via osia.org website below)
• https://www.italianside.com/campania/salerno/santarsenio/genealogy/ (not used, no information)

It may be possible to acquire connections through some of the various American/Italian groups:

• [https://www.osia.org/ Order Sons and Daughters of Italy in America