Provincia di Barletta-Andria-Trani
Barletta has no civil-status fond
This is the only province in the collection whose archive holds no civil status at all. Created in 2004, Barletta-Andria-Trani is younger than every record a genealogist will read, and nothing was transferred to it. The Sezione di Barletta holds military records only. Civil acts for all ten comuni sit in the Bari fond, where they have always been, and the portal records digitisation for the section as Non prevista — not planned.
Your roots
Not sure which comune? Ask OrsoExplore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Barletta-Andria-Trani
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Where the records are
Where the records for this province are
The Archivio di Stato di Bari, Sezione di Barletta, holds no civil status. It holds the Ufficio circondariale di leva di Barletta — levy lists, classes 1842-1934 — and the distretto militare di Barletta — matricular rolls, classes 1847-1934. Digitisation for the section is recorded as Non prevista, meaning not planned, so this material will not appear online in the foreseeable future and must be consulted in person or by correspondence.
Civil status for the comuni of the BAT area sits with the Archivio di Stato di Bari, in the fond Atti dello Stato civile, 1809-1938, with decennial indexes and allegati. The Bari archive operates with sections at Trani and at Barletta, and the holdings are divided between the three sites rather than duplicated, so a first enquiry should establish which site holds the year and comune in question.
For the northern comuni that came from Foggia province — Margherita di Savoia, San Ferdinando di Puglia, Trinitapoli — the relevant nineteenth-century custodian may be Foggia rather than Bari, since the Foggia civil series covers the comuni of its tribunal circondario for 1806-1899 and death acts for the whole province from 1900.
The practical point is that this province has three possible archives and no archive of its own. Establish the comune and the year, then ask which of the three.
Your roots
Search Bari, and search Terra di Bari before that
The province exists administratively and not archivally. Law 11 June 2004 no. 148 instituted it, in force from 30 June 2004, joining comuni taken from Bari and from Foggia. No historic records moved.
So for civil status, the destination is the Archivio di Stato di Bari: Atti dello Stato civile, 1809-1938, with decennial indexes and allegati. Note that Bari's own published list of covered comuni does not include Andria, Barletta or Trani by name — those comuni are served through the sections at Trani and Barletta, which is a different arrangement from being in the main list.
Before unification the territory was Terra di Bari for most of its comuni and Capitanata for those that came from the Foggia side — Margherita di Savoia, San Ferdinando di Puglia and Trinitapoli. A pre-1861 record may be catalogued under either.
What the Barletta section does hold is worth knowing: levy lists, classes 1842-1934, and matricular rolls, classes 1847-1934. Almost a century of military records, and for many families the only series held locally.
The province
Three cities, one province, and a very recent line
Law 11 June 2004 no. 148 instituted the Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, entering into force on 30 June 2004. It is the newest province in this collection by seventy years, and the only one created in the twenty-first century.
What it assembled is much older. Trani was a maritime republic of consequence, with a cathedral on the water and the Ordinamenta maris of 1063, among the earliest surviving maritime codes in Europe; its Jewish community was one of the most important in southern Italy before the expulsions. Barletta was a crusader port and the seat of the Holy Sepulchre's priory in the kingdom, and the Disfida di Barletta of 1503 — the challenge in which thirteen Italian knights fought thirteen French — is a founding story of Italian national memory. Andria was the favoured city of Frederick II, who built Castel del Monte on the Murgia above it, and two of his wives are buried in its cathedral.
So the province is new and its cities are not. That mismatch is the whole research problem: institutional youth over a documentary history running back a thousand years, held elsewhere.
The three northern comuni — Margherita di Savoia, San Ferdinando di Puglia and Trinitapoli — came from Foggia province and have a different history again. Margherita di Savoia's salt pans are the largest in Europe and have been worked since antiquity.
Culture & traditions
Coast, Murgia and the salt pans
The province runs from the salt flats in the north to the Murgia plateau inland, and its communities did not share an economy.
The coastal cities — Barletta, Trani, Bisceglie, Molfetta's neighbour Margherita — lived by the Adriatic: fishing, trade, and in Trani's case a medieval shipping law that survives in manuscript. Their families moved along the coast and across to Dalmatia and the Levant.
Andria, Canosa and Minervino Murge face inland, onto the Murgia. Andria is olive country on a scale that dominates its economy; Canosa di Puglia sits on a Daunian and Roman city with hypogea beneath it, and was an episcopal seat of the first rank.
Spinazzola and Minervino on the high Murgia were transhumance country, tied to Basilicata and to the sheep tracks south.
The salt pans at Margherita di Savoia created a specialised workforce of salinari over centuries, with its own vocabulary and its own seasonal rhythm.
Castel del Monte, the octagon Frederick II raised on the Murgia above Andria, belongs to no town and to all of them; it is on the Italian one-cent coin and is the image most people carry of this province.
Emigration from the inland comuni after 1880 ran heavily to the United States and to Argentina.
Province established
2004
Comuni covered
10
Historic names
Terra di Bari · Capitanata (northern comuni) · Circondario di Barletta · Sezione di Trani · Murgia barese
Languages & dialects
Italian · Barese varieties along the coast · Murgian speech inland · Foggiano influence in the north
Traditions
the Disfida di Barletta · Castel del Monte · Trani's maritime code and Jewish quarter · Margherita salt harvesting · Andria olive oil
Law 11 June 2004 no. 148 instituted the Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, entering into force on 30 June 2004.
Visit the province
Where to go, since it is not here
Do not plan a civil-status visit to Barletta. The section holds military records and nothing else, and it says so.
For civil status, write to Bari first, naming the comune and the year, and ask which site — Bari, Trani or Barletta — holds it. The three-way division is the thing to resolve before travelling anywhere.
For Margherita di Savoia, San Ferdinando di Puglia or Trinitapoli, ask Foggia as well; those comuni were Foggian until 2004 and their nineteenth-century records follow that history.
The Barletta levy and matricular series are genuinely useful — classes 1842-1934 and 1847-1934 — and since they are not being digitised, correspondence or a visit is the only route to them.
What to see
Castel del Monte — Frederick II's octagon on the Murgia above Andria.
Trani — the cathedral on the harbour, and the Ordinamenta maris of 1063.
Barletta — the crusader port, the colossus, and the Disfida of 1503.
Canosa di Puglia — Daunian hypogea and an episcopal seat of the first rank.
Margherita di Savoia — the largest salt pans in Europe, worked since antiquity.
Minervino and Spinazzola — the high Murgia, transhumance country toward Basilicata.
Not yet in the collection
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