Episode 24: Researching your Italian Genealogy and Ancestry with Peter Farina

Peter Farina, @ItalyMondo on Twitter, is the founder and president of italyMONDO! LLC, a cultural heritage company with offices in both New York and Naples, Italy, which offers premium on-site research in Italy to build your family tree and discover your long-lost relatives, as well as services for Dual Italian-American Citizenship. An Italian-American himself, Peter decided to dedicate his life to the Italian culture after discovering his own roots researching his family tree, finding his cousins still living in Italy, visiting Italy and becoming a dual Italian-American Citizen.

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Links mentioned by Peter in the episode:

• http://gens.labo.net/ is a little-known Italian genealogical site (in Italian) which as one specific tool which can be absolutely addicting (in addition to being helpful, of course!) Although it’s in Italian, under “Cognome” type in an Italian surname (any last name you can think of) and you’ll find a complete distribution of the name “throughout the boot.”
• When it’s time to get more specific, go to http://www.paginebianche.it/ — the Italian white pages — to find where (and what their names and addresses are!) of people with your last name. (Note that it’s also in English, so don’t worry!)
• Then, for sites for anybody beginning to research their tree:
  • www.ancestry.com ***The Mainstay, must-have
  • beta.familysearch.org ***The up-and-comer
  • www.archives.com
  • www.footnote.com

Peter’s Picks of the week:

• http://landing.ancestry.com/iphone/ – Ancestry.com is like the Google of Genealogy. It’s their world, we’re just living in it!! So, their apps (and all other products) are the standards.
• However, there is an entire site dedicated to “Mobile Genealogy” http://www.mobilegenealogy.com/ It’s growing, but it will only continue to grow as genealogy becomes more mainstream.