Believe it or not, you can learn a lot about Italian genealogy by attending Irish family history lectures. The beauty of the genealogy skill set is that it can be applied to nearly any nationality or ethnicity. When researching our immigrant ancestors in the United States, research methodology tends to be consistent across the board whether your family is Irish, Russian, Croatian or Chinese. Certainly, there are unique aspects of research (like language, record sets, repositories or collections) that may require specialized skills. But in general, the methodologies remain constant. This means that by attending a lecture about finding Irish immigrant origins in the United States, Canada, or anywhere else, the information will directly apply to your Italian genealogical research. In fact, the practice is quite common, since very few Italian lectures are offered regularly at this time. Some of us are also lucky enough to be of both Italian AND Irish ancestry, so attending Irish genealogy lectures makes even more sense.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
-Mary M. Tedesco, ORIGINS ITALY.
