If you search your ancestors in Antillo, in the province of Messina, Sicilia region, the documents about your Italian family are stored in the City Office archives and in the parishes in the town.This is where to start your family history research.
Civil Records in Antillo
In towns and villages of Sicilia and in Messina province registry offices were established in 1809: it means that you could find your ancestors records in Antillo town hall archives as of that date.
(If your goal is to get your Italian Citizenship and you need official certificates from Antillo, please follow this link)
.
So, if your ancestors lived in Antillo during the past centuries, then you should start your family research from the City Office of Antillo to know more: our local expert is ready to help you in your research!
Otherwise, if you think to contact the town hall by yourself, we suggest you to read our tips for your search. They are useful advices to search in Sicilia and of course in Antillo too!
Next picture shows the demographic trends in Antillo from the Italian Unification (1861).
This is a necessary info to understand how many people lived in the town in the past.
To go on quickly in your research is important to know if the last name you are investigating is a frequent surname in Antillo. As more your surname is common, as more it could be difficult to find the right branch of your ancestors family in Antillo archives, expecially if you have not exact dates.
It could be useful for you to know that some of the most common surnames in Messina province are:
Arena, Barbera, Calabrò, Cambria, Caruso, Costa, Costantino, Crisafulli, Cucinotta, Currò, D’Amico, De Luca, Di Bella, Donato, Fazio, Ferrara, Foti, Genovese, Giordano, Giorgianni, Gitto, Giunta, Grasso, La Rosa, Lo Presti, Lombardo, Maio, Mancuso, Mangano, Marino, Mazzeo, Merlino, Messina, Morabito, Pagano, Parisi, Pino, Puglisi, Raffa, Rizzo, Romeo, Ruggeri, Russo, Santoro, Sottile, Spadaro, Torre, Trimarchi.
Church Records in Antillo
Church archives in Messina province may store even older information. You will find religious records of the same events (births, marriages and deaths) but, most important, you could go further back in time!
So in case you would like to go back in centuries, it’s good for you to know that the parish registers in Sicilia started during 1500!
They are far less accessible expecially from abroad and very hard to read and decipher if you are not used and skilled.
But our local genealogists, are graduated in history and archivistics so, with their expertise, they can research the church registers of Antillo on your behalf.
In case you want to visit churches, these are the addresses of parishes active today in Antillo:
S. MARIA DELLA PROVVIDENZA – Piazza Maria Ss. della Provvidenza
Anyway for our experience, if you plan to come here, we always suggest to start the research months before the arrival.
In this way you will avoid to waste your holidays in the offices or in the churches dealing with italian bureaucracy .
(Remember that archives are not open to public and officers and priests are not required by law to give you access to the local archives)
With the results gathered by our genealogist before your arrival, you will have more free time to visit the town and surroundings on your ancestors footsteps.
Another important source of information are the notary documents available to expert researchers in the State Archives.
If you are in Sicilia and you are able to decipher old italian handwritten documents you can reach the archive here:
Archivio di Stato di Messina
Address: Via Giuseppe la Farina, 293, 98124 Messina
Phone: +39090 670089
If you need a professional help from our local genealogist in Antillo area , write to antillo@italianside.com or fill the form here.
Our expert will study your request and will reply to you with a plan and a quote for your family research.
If you want to read this page in other languages:
– Italiano
– Espanol
– Portuguese
Here below you can read the messages received from other visitors in Antillo forum:
if you only want to discuss with other people interested in genealogy in Antillo feel free to leave a message below.
My father Onofrio LoGiudice immigrated to the US in 1911 He married daughter of a Crupi also from Antillo we co-located with cousins from there also the Puglisi family and the Lo Rocca family . we all have resided in Wadsworth, Ohio other family”s were the Smiraldos, Di Pietros, and Crisafulli family. enjoy your trip and say hello to anyone you meet with one of these names.
Hi Tony.
Just happened upon this page and see your father was a LoGiudice. My maternal grandfather Santos LoGiudice was born in Antillo in 1896 and emigrated as a young man to the Albany area of New York.
I don’t know a whole lot more yet but hope to.
Wonder if they knew each other?
Hello! My father was born in Antillo in 1924. His father was Antonio Crupi and his mother Santa Smiroldo. I have been to Antillo twice and it is a lovely town with warm people. I have many relatives still there snd have met most of them. All of the names you mention are familiar to me as being from Antillo. My father came to the US in 1931 with his mother and two brothers. His father had come earlier with other relatives and others from Antillo and they settled in Washington DC.
Hi! I am a Sicilian-America coming to Sicily in a couple weeks. My great-grandparents were from Antillo. They moved to the United States in 1920. My great-grandfather was Carmelo Crisafulli and great-grandmother Domenica Smiroldo. I am going to visit Antillo. Do you have suggestions for me on who to talk to about finding relatives? I would appreciate any advice you have. Thank you. Lane Selman
Hi Lane,
Just found this website with your post by accident.
Like your grandmother, my father was a Smiroldo, born in Antillo on Dec 16, 1889, first name Santo (sometimes referred to as Santi), immigrating to the U.S. in 1912, after service in the Italian army. I was told by my father and one of his brothers that the name Smiroldo is so common (for a small town) that they used to add a suffix after Smiroldo to distinguish between the different Smiroldo “branches” in the town. I assume that one reason was to avoid intermarriage within the same branches. My father’s branch was “Smiroldo Spisa”. I remember him talking about another branch “Smiroldo Barone”. My father’s brother said that there were seven of these branches in or around Antillo. A number of years ago, I met a cousin (born in Antillo) whose mother was my father’s sister. The cousin married a man from Antillo whose surname was Smiroldo (but I forgot which branch … it wasn’t Spisa).
The closest I got to Antillo was Taormina. The manager of the hotel there told me that his wife was a Smiroldo and that she came from Casalvecchio, a town very close to Antillo. BTW, the town where the scenes in Sicily from “The Godfather” were filmed is Savoca, which is very close to Antillo and Casalvecchio.
My paternal grandfather (Onofrio) was the son of Giuseppe Smiroldo and Domenica Costa. My paternal grandmother (Santa Palella) was the daughter of Giuseppe Palella and Domenica Intersimone. If my memory serves me well, this info came from their gravestones in Antillo.
The reason that I am boring you with all of these details is to see if, from your visit to Antillo, you were able to find any info related to the origins of the Smiroldo’s in Antillo and can expand whatever I said above about the Smiroldo “branches” and origins. Also, I wonder if the name Smiroldo is a Sicilian “corruption” of the Italian word “smeraldo” which means emerald.
If you didn’t already know any of the above, I hope it helps. If not, just forgive the crazy meanderings of an 84 year old man, me.
Take care,
Joe
I completely found both of these posts by accident but all of the names are coming up familiar on an Ancestry chart. My father was born in 1942 in New Jersey, he does not know who his father is although he just found this out at 77. All of the dna matches trace back to Antillo,Sicily.
The closest match is a Mannarelli but we match Palella, Santoro, Rizzo. Does anyone know where I could find a record of someone from this name who would have been in the US in 1941 perhaps WW2? Any info may help. Thank you.