7 Genealogy Hacks

Millions of people have turned to genealogy to learn more about their ancestors and family history. Tracing your family’s background not only allows you to understand your roots, but it also can be the biggest and most important piece of information you need in order to obtain citizenship to another country.

If you’re interested in obtaining an Italian American dual citizenship, you’ll need to first learn if you have any Italian ancestors. This is just one of the many requirements of obtaining Italian citizenship.

If you want to speed up your quest in finding out about your Italian heritage, it’s within reach. Here are 7 hacks that will take you well on your way to figuring this out and, if desired, Italian citizenship!

1. Check for Latest Additions

If you’re like most people, you’ve conducted many repeat searches on some of the top genealogy sites that offer family history portals such as Ancestry.com or Findmypast.com. Yet, sifting through these reports can be time-consuming.

Avoid having to look over the same information time and time again by looking at the latest additions. Most genealogy sites allow you to view content that’s just been added. This means you can quickly view the newest content for Italy without having to slog through a big, long report.

2. Look for Free Databases

Genealogy hobbyists don’t have to pay a lot of money in order to trace their history. Ancestry.com and Findmypast.com both offer free databases. You can search through 1,800 free databases on Ancestry. Findmypast allows you to unlock more than 800 million records, including family trees, public records, census documents, and much more.

Whether you’re trying to find out where your father was born, a female ancestor, or someone in between, they can have you covered.

3. Use a Translation Service

You may be able to find a solid lead on your Italian ancestry, but what do you do if you find naturalization papers or some other document that’s written in Italian? Italian genealogy hobbyists can use Google Translate or a browser extension to quickly translate a web page or document into their native language, assuming it doesn’t need something more serious at that stage.

If you need more official translations, Google may not be able to do the job. ITAMCAP offers expert translation services, and meets Apostille requirements where necessary. We can translate many Italian records to English and English to Italian, whether a birth certificate, marriage certificate, medical records, or something more!

4. Use Your DNA Profile

These days, you can use your DNA profile on sites such as Geni or MyHeritage in order to better track your family tree. Your DNA profile can be exported from popular DNA databases, including AncestryDNA and 23andMe. This makes it easy to start crafting your genealogy from home, and find out what Italian citizens you might be related to.

5. Automate Your Searches

It can take hours to sift through the many genealogy websites, Italy newspapers, and other Italy research tools you use in order to trace your Italian heritage. You can save yourself a lot of time by automating your searches.

All you have to do is create a family tree at FamilySearch, Ancestry.com, or Findmypast. You can then set up automatic searches on each of the sites, which means each time something new is added, you’ll receive an email alert. You don’t have to be part of a top secret genealogy society to access your family secrets!

6. Try Other Sites

There’s no shortage of genealogy sites that can help you find family born in Italy, but sometimes it pays to go beyond the top names. There are many sites that are able to search databases outside of their own. For example, MyHeritage pulls information from Tributes, Familysearch, BillionGraves, and Geni. This allows you to search through hundreds and, possibly, thousands of other genealogy databases to find answers to your questions.

Also consider looking for naturalization records if you don’t have family specifically born in Italy. ITAMCAP can help with that too!

7. Save Your Finds

Printing isn’t the only way to keep track of your important genealogy finds. If you’re tracing your Italian heritage and trying to find out if you have family born in Italy in order to obtain citizenship, you’ll want to make note of crucial documents and pieces of data. Instead of printing every worthwhile item you find, use an app such as Evernote to save screenshots to your computer or mobile phone.

You should also make sure to store important Italian records like birth and death certificates someplace safe, whether they’re the originals or certified copies. It can be a hassle to track documents down again—although this is also something we can help with at ITAMCAP!