Italian Parish Records

Preserving Italy's History is our Mission


A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, & culture is like a tree without roots. - Marcus Garvey

275 Digitized Parishes (IPR & Family Search)

30 Indexed Parishes

204 Towns with Indexed Civil Records

IPR is a Centralized Website for Italy's Catholic Parish Registries

Did you know no other source has recorded the everyday lives of Italians in such depth and breadth from the 1500’s through the 1900’s? By papal decree (Council of Trent, 1545-1563), ordinances were documented and kept by the parish scribes detailing names, births, marriages, deaths, occupations, and census information. Socio-economic conditions, the devastating after-effects of natural disasters and sporadic outbreaks of the plague, complex human migration patterns throughout Italy over the centuries – all can be studied and analyzed through parish records. Many of which are hand-written on old paper that has deteriorated over time and need digitizing before they are inextricably lost.

View some of the damaged records.

Get involved! IPR is a non-profit Organization who relies on Volunteers like yourself. We need people to assist in this great work of preservation, who are as passionate as IPR about preserving these priceless records. CONTACT US

We are seeking:

  1. Individuals with existing relationships with Bishops/Priests in Italy, who can assist us in obtaining permission to digitize parish records. Legal papers will be provided.
  2. Individuals who can digitize parish records using your personal phone camera. Instruction will be provided.
  3. Donations of:
    • Parish registries already digitized.
    • Indexed Civil and Indexed Parish registries.
  4. Financial donations to provide funding for all aspects of the work.
  • Example Donation:
    1. Suzie Greco & Peter Barbella hired locals to digitize their ancestral towns parish records. Then these records were donated to IPR. You also can hire & pay a local to digitize your ancestral town's records (at your own expense). Then you can donate them to IPR and IPR will provide you with an appropriate thank you letter for your generous gift.

For More information on go to our Volunteers Page.

New to our Site: Search our Archives by Surname. (Currently only births in the Abruzzo Region are available. Our look-up database is being updated weekly.)

Make a Donation and we will gladly look up information for records that maybe available for your ancestral parish.

Using the 9 Volume Set of books published in 2010 by the Perfect of the Vatican Secret Archives, Father Sergio Pagano,

Titled Il censimento degli archivi ecclesiastici d'Italia del 1942

  • This collection presents information acquired during the census conducted in 1942-1943 at the behest of Cardinal Giovanni Mercati, of the Italian Parish registries.
  • This census informs us which records are available for most parishes in Italy. Precise details are documented such as: records destroyed by the war, parishes that did not file any information for the census, exact years of baptisms, marriages, deaths, censuses etc. - contained in each registry.
  • Italian Parish Records catalogue method is based on the vast work of Perfect Sergio Pagano.

Registries for Gioiosa Ionica, Reggio Calabria, Calabria

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