Useful resources
On this page, you will find some useful resources to help you with your genealogical research.
For reasons relating to copyright and intellectual property rights, the resources cannot be downloaded directly from this website. Instead, I provide the official link through which they can be accessed or used in accordance with the terms established by their respective authors or publishers.
Resource list
Click on the title or on the link provided to access the resource. Please let me know if, for any reason, the link does not work.
Resources available in Italian only.
Recording of the conference Tracce di emigrazione trentina. Documenti, territorio, emozioni The conference was held at the Municipality of Madruzzo (Trentino) on 23 September 2024 as part of the projects funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for “2024 – Year of Italian Roots” – ITALEA.
Watch the conference on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EPspQoTQdb4
Programme and speakers:
L'EMIGRAZIONE TRENTINA ATTRAVERSO LA DOCUMENTAZIONE ECCLESIASTICA
Katia Pizzini, Head of the Tridentine Diocesan Archive
EMIGRAZIONE DALLE TERRE ALTE. UNO SGUARDO ANTROPOLOGICO TRA TEORIA E PRATICA
Marta Villa, Anthropologist and researcher at the Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento
ALLA RICERCA DELLE RADICI. UNO SGUARDO PSICOLOGICO SULLE MIGRAZIONI
Mario Canovi, Psychologist and psychotherapist
GLI OGGETTI DEI MIGRANTI DI OGGI IN VIAGGIO VERSO L'EUROPA
Luca Pisoni, Ethnoarchaeologist and author of "Il bagaglio intimo", (Meltemi, 2018)
IL PATRIMONIO DELL'EMIGRAZIONE TRENTINA VIVENTE NEL TURISMO DELLE RADICI
Loredana Flego, Coordinator for Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto for the PNRR Roots Tourism – ITALEA project of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
Recordings of the sessions of the course Dalla pergamena al documento digitale. Gli archivi parrocchiali lungo i secoli The course was held in person at the Vigilianum Centre in Trento and streamed online from 6 to 27 March 2026.
Programme and speakers:
6 March
Prima delle parrocchie: l’evoluzione del sistema parrocchiale attraverso le fonti
Emanuele Curzel – University of Trento, ISSR
13 March
Conservazione preventiva e gestione delle emergenze
Rev. Simone Toffolon – Diocese of Verona
20 March
Dalle linee guida CEI-AAE agli archivi correnti
Katia Pizzini – Tridentine Diocesan Archive
Casetti Albino, Guida storico-archivistica del Trentino (Trento: Tip. Editrice TEMI, 1961)
https://r1.unitn.it/arca/Guida_Casetti_con_segnalibri_ottimizzato-compressed.pdf
The Guida storico-archivistica del Trentino (Historical and Archival Guide to Trentino) by Albino Casetti is a historical and archival guide and reference work designed to help scholars and researchers navigate the region’s documentary heritage. It describes the archives and documentary collections held throughout Trentino and indicates where the main historical sources can be found.
Sparapani don Livio e Fauci Moro Lucia (a cura di), Fonti per la storia della popolazione. II. Scritture parrocchiali della diocesi di Trento, Quaderni della rassegna degli Archivi di Stato 70 (Roma: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali. Ufficio Centrale per i beni archivistici, 1992).
https://www.natitrentino.mondotrentino.net/content/download/13744/248371/file/Quaderno_70.pdf
It is a systematic catalogue of parish records, providing information on the types of documents available, their chronological coverage, state of preservation, and archival location. It is an essential resource for research into demographic history, genealogy, and social and religious history.
The volume is part of the publications promoted by the Autonomous Province of Trento as part of its initiatives for the preservation and enhancement of the region’s archival heritage.
Pizzini Katia e San Giuseppe Chiara (a cura di), Nati in Trentino 1815-1923: prospettive di ricerca (Trento: Arcidiocesi di Trento, Provincia autonoma di Trento, 2017).
https://www.calameo.com/read/00019535656e1e8f03432
The volume presents a project aimed at making Trentino’s civil registration and parish records more accessible and useful, covering the period from Habsburg rule to the early years of Italian administration. The project involved cataloguing and creating a database of people born in Trentino between 1815 and 1923, with the tangible result of making the indexing available through the Nati in Trentino online portal.
The book also describes the sources used and outlines possible areas of research in population history, mobility, families, migration and social change, all within the broader project of enhancing access to Trentino’s civil registration and parish records during the transition from Habsburg to Italian rule.
It is not a narrative study, but a scholarly edited volume featuring contributions from several researchers.
Grandi Casimira, L'abbandono degli illegittimi nel Trentino dell'Ottocento, in Enfance abandonnée et société en Europe (XIVe–XXe siècle). Actes du colloque international de Rome (30 et 31 janvier 1987) (Roma: École Française de Rome, 1991)
https://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_0000-0000_1991_act_140_1_4472
The essay L'abbandono degli illegittimi nel Trentino dell'Ottocento (The Abandonment of Illegitimate Children in Nineteenth-Century Trentino) by Casimira Grandi is a social history study of the abandonment of children born out of wedlock in Trentino during the 19th century. It places the Trentino case within the broader European context, highlighting local specificities such as the rural environment and the Habsburg administrative system during the first half of the century. It also shows that child abandonment was not simply an individual or family matter, but a structural phenomenon linked to the economic and cultural transformations of the 19th century.
Anderle Jolanda, Maternità illegittima ed esposizione infantile nel Trentino dell’Ottocento: il triplice Istituto delle Laste (Trento: Studi Trentini di Scienze Storiche, 1981, 60(2), 129–193).
https://share.google/R8ow0ABDSjxD5AW7O
Maternità illegittima ed esposizione infantile nel Trentino dell’Ottocento: il triplice Istituto delle Laste (Illegitimate Maternity and Infant Abandonment in Nineteenth-Century Trentino: The Triplice Istituto delle Laste) by Jolanda Alderle is a study of social and institutional history that examines the phenomenon of motherhood outside marriage and the abandonment of newborns in nineteenth-century Trentino, with particular attention to the so-called “Triplice Istituto delle Laste” in Trento, a welfare institution dedicated to caring for abandoned children and supporting mothers in difficult circumstances.
Baggio Serenella, Lettere di minatori trentini in America, in Glauco Sanga e Pier Paolo Viazzo (a cura di), La cultura dei minatori nelle Alpi (= La Ricerca Folklorica, 71, 231–248, Brescia: Grafo, 2016)
https://iris.unitn.it/retrieve/e3835193-3535-72ef-e053-3705fe0ad821/Baggio%20%281%29.pdf
Lettere di minatori trentini in America (Letters from Trentino Miners in America) is a historical-anthropological and ethnolinguistic study in which Serenella Baggio examines letters written by Trentino miners who emigrated to the United States during the period of transatlantic migration.
The letters, addressed to family members who remained in Trentino, are used as sources for reconstructing the miners’ lives and working conditions, including experiences connected with railways and temporary settlements that later became ghost towns. The study continually compares the way of life in the migrants’ places of origin with that of their new American surroundings, highlighting linguistic aspects — including a distinctive form of “popular Italian” combined with considerable cultural adaptability — as well as the role of dialect and occupational jargon in strengthening solidarity and a shared sense of identity rooted in both homeland and profession.
Larcher Fernando, MEZZOMONTE e la valle del Rio Cavallo - Rosspach, a cura della Pro Loco di Mezzomonte (Pergine Valsugana: Publistampa, 2010)
https://www.fernandolarcher.it/files/mezzomonte_volume.pdf
Mezzomonte e la valle del Rio Cavallo – Rosspach (Mezzomonte and the Rio Cavallo Valley – Rosspach) by Fernando Larcher is a volume of local history and historical-territorial research dedicated to the village of Mezzomonte (Folgaria, Trentino) and the valley of the Rosspach stream (known in Italian as Rio Cavallo). It documents and reconstructs the area’s history, place names, historical sources and local events, and was published by the Pro Loco di Mezzomonte.
Bettotti M., Varanini G.M. (a cura di), La signoria rurale nell’Italia del tardo medioevo. 6. Le signorie trentine, (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2023)
http://www.rmoa.unina.it/5455/1/12.%20Bettotti-Landi.pdf
The volume La signoria rurale nell'Italia del tardo medioevo. 6. Le signorie trentine (Rural Lordship in Late Medieval Italy. 6. The Trentino Lordships) examines the forms of lordship and local power that existed in the Trentino region during the 14th and 15th centuries, within the context of the Prince-Bishopric of Trento.
Drawing on archival sources and specific local case studies, the book reconstructs the distribution and organization of rural lordships across the region’s main areas. In particular, it examines the communities of Val di Non and Val di Sole, the Giudicarie and Lower Sarca Valley (the Lake Garda area), Valsugana and Tesino, the Adige Valley, Vallagarina, and other Alpine areas of Trentino.
The volume sheds light on the relationships between lordly families, rural communities and episcopal power, highlighting the ways in which territory was controlled, justice was administered, and economic resources were collected.
Overall, the book provides a detailed picture of the political and social structures of the Trentino countryside in the Late Middle Ages.