Once upon a
time, it was crucial for rulers and powerful figures to claim an important
ancestor. Alexander the Great claimed to be descended from Achilles, and Julius
Caesar even from the goddess Venus. These were, of course, fictitious
genealogies, impossible to prove: however, portraying oneself as a descendant
of Achilles (or even a goddess) had a very impressive effect.
But today,
who can boast of having the oldest family tree?
In Europe,
one of the families with the oldest documented genealogy is the Capetian
family, a French royal dynasty dating back to 978 AD. This means that, for this
family, from the 10th century to the present day, it is possible to trace a
proven family tree, generation by generation, through reliable documents. Other
royal families, such as the Franco-Italian House of Savoy, boast documented
genealogies almost as old.
But when it
comes to our ancestors, poor commoners, how far back can we go in genealogical
research? The answer is: it depends. Certainly not to such ancient times, yet
it's not as impossible as it might seem to go back three or four hundred (or
even five hundred) years.
Let's see
how it works in Italy. Here, the fundamental documents for genealogical
research are the civil registry and parish registers. The former cover, with
variations from region to region, the period from the 19th century to the
present day. They were introduced in 1806 by Napoleon, but ceased to exist a
few years later, with the fall of the emperor. The regions of southern Italy
generally have more complete and continuous civil registry records than the
rest of Italy, due to the system introduced in 1816 (1820 in Sicily) by
Ferdinand I of Bourbon, King of Naples. In most of central and northern Italy,
however, you'll have to wait until 1866.
So, if
you're looking for your ancestors in, say, Reggio Calabria, you should be able
to easily trace birth, death, and marriage records back to the early decades of
the 19th century, while if you're looking in Turin, it might have a bit more complicated.
And if we
want to go even further back? Here, documents (baptismal, death, marriage,
etc.) contained in parish registers can help. These records were compiled in
the Catholic world at least from 1563 (but in some churches even earlier), as
established by the Council of Trent. These are documents in Latin, which don't
always still exist: many churches have lost all or part of their archives over
the centuries, due to fires, floods, or simply because someone decided to
"make room." In my research, however, I have often found documents in
parish archives that are useful for reconstructing a family tree back to the
mid-16th or early 1700s. For example, if we find, in a church archive, the
marriage certificate of a couple of our ancestors who married in 1570, we can
deduce that the couple were born around the middle of the century: almost five
hundred years ago.
