Italian Interest Group
Ciao!
Merlino brothers of Lipari, Sicily, ca 1918.
Courtesy of the Merlino family
The Southern California Genealogical Society's Italian Interest Group welcomes anyone interested in broadening their understanding of Italian and Italian American genealogical research. We are a collaborative group that shares our discoveries and helps one another to solve research problems. Together we learn useful Italian vocabulary, locate and examine various Italian vital records, explore the many Italian regions and provinces, and delve into historical events, cultural gems, family traditions, and more. We invite researchers—beginners and experts alike—to bring your genealogical questions and other items to share with others.
Unisciti a noi!
2024
Meeting Dates
September 21
Online
10 a.m. to noon
The speaker will be Suzanne Greco, Founder and Director of Italian Parish Records, a non-profit organization whose mission is to facilitate the preservation and accessibility of rare church records throughout Italy for historical, academic, and genealogical use. A Q&A will follow.
More information
To join by Zoom:
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Select the link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9612789862?omn=81246514935 or
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Visit www.zoom.us/join and enter Meeting ID 961 278 9862
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When prompted, select Join.
November 18
Online
10 a.m. to noon
TBA
More Information
Meetings can be attended ONLINE via Zoom until further notice (a paid Zoom account is not required):
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9612789862
More About Us and Our Meetings
Select images or arrow on right of slideshow for more information
Italians in America
According to the 2020 United States Census, over 16 million people identified as Italian. This makes Italian the fifth most reported ancestry in the U.S., after German, English, Irish, and American. Italian Americans are also the fourth largest European ancestry group in the country.
Most Italian immigrants arrived to the U.S. through New York's Castle Garden or the legendary Ellis Island. In the 1880s, they numbered 300,000; in the 1890s, 600,000; in the decade after that, more than two million. By 1920, when immigration began to taper off, more than 4 million Italians had come to the United States, representing more than 10 percent of the nation's foreign-born population.
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Castle Garden Emigrant Depot opened in 1855 and closed in 1890.
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In the early 1900s, more than 2 million Italians immigrated to the U.S.
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Between 1900 and 1910, most Italian immigrants were from Southern Italy and Sicily, escaping rural poverty.
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Emigration from Italy declined by 1920. By then, over 4 million Italians were in the U.S., representing more than 10% of the foreign-born population.
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The second Italian diaspora (a large-scale emigration) occurred after World War II.
Although Italy as a unified nation did not exist until 1861, the Italian peninsula sent millions of its people to the shores of North America. These new arrivals thought of themselves as Neopolitans, Sicilians, Calabrians or Syracuseans. They might not have understood each other’s dialects, but on arrival in the United States they became Italian Americans. By the turn of the 20th century, they would be ready to change the continent once more.
— Library of Congress, Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History, Italian
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, International Database (demographic data) and USA Trade Online (trade data); Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook (country reference maps); and the National World War II Museum.