Provincia di Foggia
Foggia's death coverage expands in 1900
Foggia has an unusual shape to its holdings, and it works in the researcher's favour. The main civil series covers 1806 to 1899, but only for the comuni of the Foggia tribunal district. Then, from 1900 to 1949, the archive holds death acts for every comune in the province. So a death after 1900 is findable wherever in the Capitanata the family lived, while a birth in 1880 depends entirely on which tribunal the comune answered to.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Foggia
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 Foggia holds
Civil status comes in two distinct parts. The Stato civile, 1806-1899, covers the comuni of the circondario of the tribunal of Foggia — not the whole province. Separately, Stato civile Atti di morte, 1900-1949, covers all comuni of the province of Foggia. The second series is the more useful starting point for most twentieth-century searches precisely because it carries no jurisdictional restriction.
The levy holdings are unusually deep and unusually early, because they sit inside the pre-unification administrative fonds rather than in a single modern series. Intendenza di Capitanata, Guardia d'onore holds levy lists for 1806-1850. Prefettura di Capitanata, Guerra e Marina holds them for 1818-1861. Intendenza di Capitanata, Leva militare holds them for 1808-1865. The Ufficio provinciale di leva then covers classes 1842-1902.
The same Intendenza and Prefettura fonds also hold nominative files of enlisted men — for 1806-1850, 1818-1861 and 1808-1865. A nominative file is richer than a list: it is a dossier on one man. For a family whose civil records fall outside the Foggia tribunal district, these military fonds are often the only nineteenth-century source held at the archive, and they reach back to 1806.
Digitisation is recorded as Completa, so the Intendenza and Prefettura fonds are reachable without a visit.
Continue your research
Before 1900 the tribunal district decides what the archive holds. After 1900 the death series covers the whole province.
Archivio di Stato di Foggia 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
Two different rules, before and after 1900
Treat this province as two overlapping systems rather than one series with a date range.
For 1806-1899 the question is jurisdictional: was the comune inside the circondario of the tribunal of Foggia? If it was, births, marriages and deaths should be there. If it was not, the acts went to another tribunal and the archive does not hold them.
For 1900-1949 the question disappears for one record type only. The archive holds atti di morte for all comuni of the province, without the tribunal restriction. For a family that stayed in the Capitanata into the twentieth century, a death record is the most reliable single document to look for, and it will usually name parents and a birthplace — which then points back to the earlier series or to the comune.
The practical order is therefore: find the twentieth-century death first, read the parentage off it, then work backwards.
The province
Capitanata, the tavoliere and the sheep road
The province's historic name is Capitanata, and the State Archives treat the provincial reorganisation of the Kingdom of Naples begun in 1806 as its institutional origin, with Foggia as capital. Capitanata is the name to search under for the first half of the nineteenth century.
Its defining feature is the Tavoliere, the great plain that is the largest flat expanse in peninsular Italy, and the institution that governed it for four centuries: the Dogana della Mena delle Pecore, the customs house of the sheep. From 1447 the Aragonese crown compelled the flocks of the Abruzzi and Molise to winter on the Tavoliere and to register at Foggia, paying for the privilege. The tratturi, the wide grass droving roads, ran down from L'Aquila and Campobasso to the plain, and the people came with the animals.
That system was abolished in stages from 1806, and its dissolution shaped everything after. The plain was broken up and settled, the towns on its rim grew, and grain replaced pasture. It also means that a Foggia family may be Abruzzese or Molisan in origin within traceable memory, having come down with the transhumance and stayed. A surname that does not fit the province is worth testing against the tratturo it sits on.
The Gargano promontory in the north-east is a separate world again: limestone, forested, with its own sanctuaries at Monte Sant'Angelo and San Giovanni Rotondo, and a coastal population that never belonged to the plain.
Culture & traditions
The plain, the promontory and the mountains
The three parts of the Capitanata never shared an economy, and they do not share a research profile.
The Tavoliere towns — Cerignola, San Severo, Lucera, Foggia itself — were grain towns built around latifundia and day labour. Their social history is one of large estates and a landless workforce, and their emigration was heavy and early. Cerignola's labour organising in the early twentieth century is part of the national story of the braccianti.
The Gargano — Monte Sant'Angelo, Vieste, Peschici, Rodi, San Giovanni Rotondo — is mountainous and maritime by turns. The sanctuary of San Michele at Monte Sant'Angelo has drawn pilgrims since the fifth century and stands on one of the medieval routes to Jerusalem; families there have a documented relationship with the church that predates any civil register. Padre Pio at San Giovanni Rotondo made the promontory a place of pilgrimage again in the twentieth century.
The Monti Dauni along the western edge, toward Campobasso and Avellino, are a chain of small hill comuni — Bovino, Troia, Accadia, Sant'Agata di Puglia — that look inland rather than to the plain and intermarried with Irpinia and Molise.
A family calling itself "from Foggia" is very often from one of these hill villages or from the Gargano, with Foggia standing in as the nearest name an American clerk would recognise.
Province established
1806
Comuni covered
61
Historic names
Capitanata · Intendenza di Capitanata · Dogana della Mena delle Pecore · Circondario del tribunale di Foggia · Monti Dauni
Languages & dialects
Italian · Foggiano · Garganico · Dauno-Appenninic varieties toward Molise
Traditions
San Michele at Monte Sant'Angelo · the transhumance and the tratturi · grain harvest of the Tavoliere · Padre Pio at San Giovanni Rotondo · the braccianti movement
The provincial territory's institutional predecessor, Capitanata with Foggia as capital, belongs to the provincial reorganization of the Kingdom of Naples begun in 1806. This is used instead of a later naming change.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Foggia
Work out the tribunal district for anything before 1900. If the comune sat outside the Foggia circondario, the civil series will not have it, and the military fonds become the primary approach rather than a supplement.
For a twentieth-century search, start with the death acts: 1900-1949 covers the whole province, and a death certificate will normally give you parentage and a birthplace to work back from.
If the family came down a tratturo from Abruzzo or Molise, expect the earlier generations to be in another province entirely. Bring the comune, the approximate year and the record type, and confirm access in advance.
What to see
The Tavoliere — Foggia, Cerignola, San Severo, Lucera, the grain plain and its latifundia towns.
Monte Sant'Angelo — the sanctuary of San Michele on the Gargano, a pilgrimage site since the fifth century.
The Gargano coast — Vieste, Peschici, Rodi Garganico, and the Foresta Umbra behind them.
San Giovanni Rotondo — Padre Pio's town, and a twentieth-century pilgrimage economy.
The Monti Dauni — Bovino, Troia, Accadia, Sant'Agata di Puglia, hill comuni looking toward Irpinia and Molise.
The tratturi — the droving roads down from Abruzzo and Molise that brought many families here.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Foggia represented?
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