Did you know that 2024 is the official year of returning to your roots here in Italy? If you’ve ever wanted to find your family’s origins, this is the year to do it! Of course, this isn’t the only year you can do it, but if you've been putting it off, it seems like a great excuse to come to Italy and see where your parents, grandparents, or great grandparents lived their lives.
Tell me more:
I’ll warn you, this is exactly how I ended up moving to Irpinia. In 2016, my parents brought me to Gesualdo, the village my great-grandfather had immigrated from back in the early 1900s. I fell in love. Not with any one person, but with everything. The people, the joy, the way of life, and of course the wine and the food. Raffaele, the owner of Zembalo B&B asked if I loved it here so much, why wouldn’t I help bring more people to this area that was absolutely and totally devoid of tourists. So I did.
Where would I even get started? If your roots are in Irpinia, you’re in luck because I can help by going to the village where your family was from in person. If you have the name of the town or village where your family immigrated from and it’s outside of the Irpinia region, I will help find the right contact in the “commune” or the local church to help us find records of your family members.
What can I find out? Well, this will depend wholly on the quality of the records in your town. And luck. Let’s be honest, you just need that one person who happens to be there when we walk up that remembers your family and knows where their little shop is in town. Seems crazy, but it happens way more than I would have imagined.
Are the records really handwritten in these ledgers? Yes - your family's Italian records from birth certificates to marriage records and more are recorded for history in gorgeous calligraphy in these giant ledgers kept in City Hall. You almost have to see it to believe it's real.
What if I can’t make it this year? Can you still help? You bet. If you can’t get to Italy but would love pictures and videos of the records, of the town, I am here for you. And we will wait for you to have the chance come and see it for yourself.
