Provincia di Catania
Catania's old fond includes places now in Enna
Catania's civil series runs 1820 to 1893, and the territory it covers is not the modern province. When Enna was created in 1927, comuni that had always been filed under the Intendenza di Catania went with it — Assoro, Catenanuova, Centuripe, Leonforte, Gagliano and others. Their nineteenth-century acts stayed here. There is a second trap in the same fond: for the city of Catania itself the archive holds records only from 1841, not from 1820.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Catania
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 Catania holds
The fond is Stato civile di Catania e provincia, 1820-1893. Civil status was instituted in 1819 by Ferdinand I, king of the Two Sicilies, and the fond covers both the Bourbon period and the unitary period that followed — the comuni's working practice changed little across unification.
The officers compiled a specific set of registers, and knowing the set is how to ask for the right one: legitimate births; illegitimate births or foundlings, kept separately; memorandum; marriages or solemn promise; deaths; and atti diversi. Allegati were gathered in files alongside. The Royal Decree of 15 November 1865 introduced citizenship registers and ended the atti diversi, so that series stops there while another begins.
Two limits on coverage are stated by the archive. For 1820-1865 it holds the documentation of the Catania city civil status office only from 1841 to 1865, together with the records of the comuni under the Intendenza di Catania. And that series included localities now in the province of Enna, created in 1927 — among them Assoro, Carcaci, Catenanuova, Centuripe, Gagliano, Leonforte and Nicosia.
The separate register of illegitimate births and foundlings is worth a specific note. In a province with a large foundling population, that series is where an otherwise untraceable ancestor may appear, often with a name assigned by the institution rather than a family.
Digitisation is marked Completa, so the separate register series can be compared against one another at distance.
Continue your research
Comuni now in Enna have their nineteenth-century acts here. The city's own office is held only from 1841.
Archivio di Stato di Catania on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its registers, its date limits and the Enna localities.
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
Two gaps that look like absence
Both of the things most likely to derail a Catanese search are stated plainly by the archive, and neither is a loss.
The first is Enna. The province was created in 1927, taking in comuni that had been under the Intendenza di Catania since the Bourbon reform. Their pre-1927 records were not transferred. A family from Centuripe or Leonforte searching the Enna archive for an 1850 birth is searching the wrong building.
The second is the city. For 1820-1865 the archive holds the records of the comuni under the Intendenza, but the Catania city civil status office only from 1841 to 1865. So a birth in the city in 1830 is not in this fond, while the same birth in a surrounding comune would be.
After that, note what changed in 1865: the Royal Decree of 15 November 1865 introduced citizenship registers and ended the atti diversi. Series that exist before that date do not exist after it, and vice versa.
The province
Etna, the Val Demone, and a city rebuilt from lava
The province's origins are traced to the Catania territorial administration created by the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the reform of 1817. Civil status followed in 1820, instituted for the kingdom by Ferdinand I in 1819 — the date that fixes the floor for every Sicilian civil search.
Catania's own history is written in catastrophe and rebuilding. The eruption of 1669 sent lava through the city walls to the sea, reshaping the coastline and burying villages. The earthquake of 11 January 1693 destroyed Catania and most of the Val di Noto, killing a large part of the population. What stands today is the deliberate baroque reconstruction that followed, laid out on broad straight streets in black lava stone — Catania, Acireale, Militello, and beyond the provincial line Noto and Modica, now collectively a World Heritage site.
For a genealogist the consequence is blunt: almost nothing documentary in this province predates 1693 in situ, and parish series that survive elsewhere from the sixteenth century here often begin after the earthquake.
Etna dominates the rest. The comuni of its slopes — the paesi etnei — ring the volcano at different altitudes, and each has its own relationship to the mountain: vines and chestnuts on the lower flanks, pistachios at Bronte, citrus on the plain of Catania below. The Piana di Catania was malarial latifundia country until reclamation. The Calatino to the south around Caltagirone is a different landscape again, ceramic-making and inland.
Culture & traditions
The slopes of Etna and the plain below
Altitude organises this province more than anything administrative.
The paesi etnei — Nicolosi, Zafferana, Trecastagni, Linguaglossa, Randazzo — are volcano towns whose histories are punctuated by eruptions and whose economies run on vines, chestnuts and, at Bronte, pistachios. Bronte is also a name in the unification story: the duchy granted to Nelson, and the peasant revolt of 1860 put down by Bixio, an episode that still shapes local memory.
Acireale and the Riviera dei Ciclopi — Aci Trezza, Aci Castello — are coastal and were fishing towns before they were anything else. Verga set I Malavoglia in Aci Trezza, and the book is as good a description of that community's economy as any archive gives.
The Piana di Catania south of the city was great-estate country, worked by day labour and abandoned in summer because of malaria. Its towns are on the rim, not in the middle.
Caltagirone and the Calatino inland have made ceramics since antiquity and have a guild history that shows in the records.
Citrus shaped emigration here as elsewhere in Sicily: the lemon and orange trade built fortunes and, when prices collapsed, emptied villages. Departures from this province ran heavily to the United States and to Argentina.
Province established
1817
Comuni covered
58
Historic names
Val Demone · Val di Noto · Intendenza di Catania · Circondario di Caltagirone · Circondario di Nicosia (to 1927)
Languages & dialects
Italian · Siciliano orientale (Catanese) · Etnean varieties · Gallo-Italic at Randazzo and Nicosia
Traditions
Sant'Agata of Catania · Etna vines and Bronte pistachios · Caltagirone ceramics · the Riviera dei Ciclopi fisheries · baroque reconstruction after 1693
The province's origins are traced to the Catania territorial administration created by the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the 1817 reform.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Catania
Check the comune against 1927 first. If it is now in Enna but was under the Intendenza di Catania, this is the archive for its nineteenth century.
If the family is from the city and the event is before 1841, the fond will not hold it; the parish is the route.
Ask for the register series by name — legitimate births, foundlings, memorandum, marriages, deaths, atti diversi — because they are distinct volumes, and for a foundling ancestor the separate series is the only place the entry exists. Note that atti diversi stop at 1865.
Do not expect anything in situ before 1693 outside the parish record, and often not there either. Name the comune, the year and the series when you write ahead.
What to see
The paesi etnei — Nicolosi, Zafferana, Trecastagni, Linguaglossa and Randazzo, ringing the volcano.
Bronte — pistachios, the Nelson duchy, and the revolt of 1860.
Acireale and the Riviera dei Ciclopi — Aci Trezza and Aci Castello, Verga's country.
Caltagirone — ceramics since antiquity, and the staircase of Santa Maria del Monte.
Catania's baroque — the black lava city rebuilt after 1693, a World Heritage site.
The Piana di Catania — latifundia and malaria until reclamation; the towns sit on its rim.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Catania 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.