Provincia di Caserta
Caserta's civil-status fond ends in 1865
Caserta holds a clean, early run and then stops. Civil status covers 1808 to 1865, with marriage files to 1864, and there it ends. Everything later is with the comuni and the tribunals. That is a hard boundary in a province whose modern shape is itself recent — Caserta was abolished in 1927 and only re-established in 1945, so for eighteen years its records were being made under other provinces' names.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Caserta
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Where the records are
What Archivio di Stato di Caserta holds
The civil-status fond is Stato civile, 1808-1865, including processetti matrimoniali, 1809-1864. The start in 1808 is a year earlier than most southern provinces, and the processetti are the most productive part of it: a marriage file normally gathers the birth certificates of both spouses and the death certificates of their parents.
The fond stops at 1865. This is the single most important thing to know about the archive. There is no later civil series here. For an event after that date the first original is with the comune and the second copy with the tribunal, and the archive cannot help.
Military records extend the reach considerably. The Distretto militare holds levy lists for classes 1842-1935 and matricular rolls for classes 1870-1935. For a family whose civil trail stops in 1865, the levy list is very often the next document that names the man, his father and his birth year — and it will do so for a birth up to seventy years after the civil fond closes.
Digitisation is recorded as Completa, so the fond that does exist is thoroughly reachable at distance.
One caution specific to this province: for 1927-1945, when Caserta did not exist, look to Napoli, Benevento, Campobasso or Frosinone depending on where the comune was placed.
Continue your research
Nothing after 1865 is here. For 1927-1945, check which province the comune belonged to at the time.
Archivio di Stato di Caserta on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its stato civile, leva and matricolari holdings.
antenati.cultura.gov.itPortale Antenati archive directory
Every participating State Archive and what each says it holds.
antenati.cultura.gov.itAn archive record and an online family tree will often disagree. Why family trees disagree, and what settles it →
Your roots
An early window, and a long gap after it
Two facts govern research here, and they pull in different directions.
The first is the 1865 end date. The archive's civil fond runs 1808-1865 with processetti matrimoniali 1809-1864 — an early start, a generous set of attachments, and then nothing. There is no second inventory, no partial later deposit. After 1865 the custodians are the comune and the tribunal.
The second is the province's own discontinuity. Caserta was suppressed in 1927, its territory distributed to Napoli, Benevento, Campobasso and the new province of Frosinone, and re-established in 1945. Between those years a comune now in Caserta was administratively somewhere else, and its paper may have been filed accordingly. Records from 1927-1945 in particular should be chased through the province the comune belonged to at the time, not through Caserta.
So: before 1865, the archive. After 1865, the comune. Between 1927 and 1945, check which province the comune was in.
The province
Terra di Lavoro, abolished and restored
The institutional ancestor is Terra di Lavoro, one of the great provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, reorganised under the Napoleonic settlement of 1806. It was far larger than modern Caserta, reaching north into what is now Lazio and east toward Molise, and it is the name under which most nineteenth-century material is filed.
Caserta itself was a creation of the Bourbon monarchy rather than an ancient city. The Reggia, begun in 1752 for Charles VII, was intended as a rival to Versailles and as the seat of a new capital; the town grew around the palace and the silk works at San Leucio, a planned industrial community with its own regulations. The older centre, Casertavecchia, sits on the hill above and is a different place entirely.
The twentieth century broke the province in half administratively. In 1927 Terra di Lavoro was dismembered: Caserta ceased to exist as a province and its comuni were parcelled out. In 1945 the province was re-established, but not identically — some territory stayed where it had been sent, and the northern reaches around Sora and Cassino remained in Frosinone. A family that describes itself as from Terra di Lavoro may therefore be researched today in any of four provinces.
The province also carries the heaviest civilian war damage in Campania: the Gustav Line ran across it in 1943-44, and the fighting around Cassino and the Volturno destroyed archives, churches and whole towns.
Culture & traditions
Volturno, Matese and the Mazzoni
The province runs from the coast to the mountains and its parts had little in common.
The Mazzoni and the coastal plain around the lower Volturno were marshland, malarial and thinly held, worked by seasonal labour and reclaimed only in the twentieth century. Towns there — Castel Volturno, Mondragone — are modern in their present form.
The Caserta belt around the Reggia and San Leucio is different: a courtly and industrial economy, silk weaving under royal patronage, and a workforce with skills rather than land.
Aversa and the Agro Aversano to the south is dense, fertile, and historically the most Neapolitan part of the province — it was a distinct Norman county before it was anything else, and the buffalo herds that supply mozzarella have worked that plain for centuries.
The Matese and the upper Volturno toward Molise are mountain country with transhumance routes, and the comuni there intermarried across what is now a regional boundary.
A family calling itself Casertano is quite often Aversano or from the Matese, and the distinction usually predicts which direction its cousins went.
Province established
1806
Comuni covered
104
Historic names
Terra di Lavoro · Distretto di Caserta · Distretto di Gaeta · Distretto di Sora · Distretto di Piedimonte d'Alife
Languages & dialects
Italian · Casertano · Aversano · Matese varieties toward Molise
Traditions
Sant'Anna at Caserta · San Leucio silk · mozzarella di bufala of the Agro Aversano · Matese transhumance · the Reggia's royal patronage
The province's institutional heritage is Terra di Lavoro under the 1806 Napoleonic provincial reorganization. Caserta later became the seat; the province was suppressed in 1927 and re-established in 1945. 1806 preserves the older provincial lineage.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Caserta
Check the date first. If the event is before 1865, the archive holds it and the processetti are worth requesting by name. If it is after, the visit will not answer the question and the comune is the right destination.
If the event falls between 1927 and 1945, establish which province the comune belonged to at the time before choosing an archive at all.
For a family whose civil record ends in 1865, ask for the levy lists — classes 1842-1935 — and the matricular rolls. They are the bridge across the gap. Write ahead; the fond is small enough that staff can usually say yes or no before you travel.
What to see
The Reggia and San Leucio — the Bourbon palace and the planned silk community beside it.
Casertavecchia — the medieval hill town above the modern city.
Aversa and the Agro Aversano — a Norman county, and the buffalo plain behind mozzarella.
Capua and Santa Maria Capua Vetere — the Roman city and its amphitheatre, and the Volturno crossing.
The Matese — mountain comuni on the Molise boundary, with transhumance routes.
The Volturno plain and the Mazzoni — reclaimed marshland, and the line of the 1943 fighting.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Caserta represented?
Requests are how we decide what comes next — every one is read, and the places people ask for are the places that get made.