Probably the most comprehensive publication devoted to Italian genealogical records is Trafford Cole's book "Italian Genealogical Records - How To Use Italian Civil, Ecclesiastical, & Other Records In Family History Research". If you are serious about Italian genealogy, you can do yourself a big favor and search out this publication. You may find it at larger libraries or you may be able to borrow it on inter library loan. You may also purchase it for under $35 at either Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Here are links to their web sites:
Amazon CLICK HERE
Barnes & Noble CLICK HERE
Writing For Records
Ellis Island Passenger Records
A Word About Parish Records
If you know the city, town, or village of your ancestors you may be able to write for civil records; birth, marriage and death records. Every comune in Italy has a "Ufficio Dello Stato Civile", or civil registrar. Civil record keeping in Italy began between 1860 and 1870 although some areas in the south started about 1866. In the Piedmont region they began in 1839. There are two types of records that we can obtain: the certificate (il certificato) and the extract (estratto dell'atto). The certificate contains little information other than the name and the date. The extract provides that information along with the names of the parents. The extract is the one you should ask for when requesting records.
Your request should be in Italian (see below for an easy way to accomplish this). As for payment, you could ask for the charges in your original letter and then wait for a reply, find some way to get the funds transferred to Italy, and then wait for them to send you the records. Or you could do what many seasoned researchers do. Tuck a well hidden US five dollar bill in with the original request letter. Make sure it can't be detected from outside the envelope. This works wonders, but only if your request is simple. You wouldn't expect to pay five dollars for the birth extracts of your grandparents and all their siblings. I would limit my request per five dollar bill to 3 records.
I can hear you saying now, "How can I write a letter in Italian?" No problem. The below link will take you to a website that will generate just about any type of letter regarding civil/parish record requests.
Italian Letter Generator CLICK HERE
From 1892 to 1924, more than 22 million immigrants, passengers, and crew members
came through Ellis Island and the Port of New York. The ship companies that transported
these passengers kept detailed passenger lists, called "ship manifests." Now, thanks to the
generous efforts of volunteers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, these
manifests have been transcribed into a vast electronic archive, which you can easily search
to find an individual passenger.
These ship manifests are available on-line and can be accessed here CLICK HERE
There is a much better way to access these records, though. A crafty individual by the name of
Stephen Morse simplified the process of searching these records. You can access his website here
CLICK HERE
I have never written for Parish Records. The reason? Parish priests are very busy men and genealogy is not one of their priority tasks. I have read too many stories about people sending requests to the Parish priest of their ancestral home along with very liberal donations and never receiving any kind of reply whatsoever. This is not to say that there haven't been success stories dealing with Parish record requests. It is just something I really don't care to spend a lot of time and money on and would rather pursue other more productive methods.