Provincia di Genova
Chiavari and Genova were separate tribunals
Genova's post-unification second copies come from two tribunals, not one: Genova and Chiavari, covering 1866-1915. The eastern Riviera answered to Chiavari, and a search that assumes a single provincial series will miss half the coast. The archive also holds something rarer — Napoleonic acts from 1795 to 1813, and the parish registers of the mandamento di Rapallo for 1838-1859, which bridge the Restoration decades that are usually a blank.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Genova
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 Genova holds
Three civil-status holdings, covering different periods and different institutions.
Napoleonic acts, 1795-1813. The start in 1795 is earlier than most Italian Napoleonic registration and reflects the Ligurian Republic's own arrangements before French annexation.
Parish registers of the mandamento di Rapallo, 1838-1859. This is the valuable oddity. Under the Kingdom of Sardinia registration was the parish's business until 1866, so the Restoration decades are normally accessible only through church archives. For this one mandamento the parish books are in state custody, which makes a Rapallo-area family unusually traceable through years that are otherwise closed.
Post-unification second copies, 1866-1915, from the Tribunale di Genova and the Tribunale di Chiavari. Two districts, and the comune determines which.
For the rest of the province between 1815 and 1866, the parish is the record and the diocesan archives are the route.
After 1915, and for first originals throughout, the comune's own office is the custodian — bearing in mind the 1926 amalgamation that made nineteen comuni into Genoa.
The portal marks digitisation Parziale, so what is not online may still be held.
Continue your research
Two tribunals after 1866, and the Rapallo parish registers bridge the Restoration decades.
Archivio di Stato di Genova on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its Napoleonic, parish and tribunal 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
Which tribunal, and a bridge at Rapallo
Three holdings, each answering a different period.
The Napoleonic material runs 1795-1813 — beginning with the Ligurian Republic rather than with the French annexation, which makes it earlier than most Napoleonic civil registration in Italy.
The parish registers of the mandamento di Rapallo, 1838-1859, are the unusual one. The Restoration decades under the Kingdom of Sardinia are normally a civil blank, with only the parish registering; here the parish books for one mandamento are in the state archive. For families of Rapallo, Zoagli, Santa Margherita and their hinterland, that is a bridge across the gap.
The post-unification second copies, 1866-1915, come from the Tribunale di Genova and the Tribunale di Chiavari. Establish which district the comune belonged to: broadly, the city and the western Riviera to Genova, the Riviera di Levante from Rapallo eastward to Chiavari.
Remember too that civil registration in the Kingdom of Sardinia was parish-kept until 1866, so before that year the parish is the record across most of this province.
The province
A republic, then a province from 1860
The Citta Metropolitana identifies 1 March 1860, when the first provincial council met, as the birth date of the Province of Genova. What preceded it was not a province at all but a state: the Republic of Genoa, independent for some eight centuries, a maritime power with colonies from Corsica to the Black Sea, its own bank — the Casa di San Giorgio, founded 1407 and among the oldest in the world — and its own law.
The republic ended in 1797 under French pressure, became the Ligurian Republic, was annexed to France in 1805, and in 1815 was handed to the Kingdom of Sardinia by the Congress of Vienna against the wishes of most Genoese. That transfer is the political wound behind Genoa's nineteenth century, and it explains the city's prominence in the Risorgimento: Mazzini was born here in 1805, and Garibaldi's Thousand sailed from Quarto in 1860.
The province is a thin strip: mountains falling straight into the sea, with almost no plain. That geography made it maritime by necessity. The Riviera di Levante east of the city — Camogli, Portofino, Santa Margherita, Rapallo, Chiavari, Sestri Levante — was a coast of shipowning villages. Camogli in the nineteenth century had one of the largest merchant fleets in the Mediterranean relative to its size, owned in shares by its own families.
Behind the coast the Val Polcevera, Valle Scrivia and Val Fontanabuona run inland toward Piedmont and Emilia, and their people moved down to the port or out to the Americas.
Culture & traditions
The Levante, the valleys and a port that scattered
Ligurian emigration is unusual in Italy: it was maritime and mercantile, and it went early.
The Riviera di Levante villages were shipowning communities. Camogli families held shares in vessels, and the capitani of Camogli, Recco and Sestri Levante traded worldwide through the nineteenth century. When steam displaced sail, those communities emigrated — heavily to Argentina and Peru, where the Genoese presence in Buenos Aires and Callao is old and documented, and where the La Boca quarter of Buenos Aires was largely Ligurian.
The Val Fontanabuona sent slate — ardesia — quarried from the medieval period and shipped worldwide from Lavagna; its quarrymen emigrated as a trade group.
Chiavari made the chiavarina chair, exported across Europe from the early nineteenth century.
The inland valleys toward the Apennine passes were chestnut country, poor, and their emigration was agricultural rather than maritime.
The city itself absorbed people from the whole Riviera and from Piedmont and the south, especially after the port and steel industries expanded from the 1880s; Sampierdarena, Sestri and Cornigliano were separate comuni until 1926, when Genoa absorbed nineteen of them to form the Grande Genova. A record before that year may be under the old comune's name.
Province established
1860
Comuni covered
67
Historic names
Repubblica di Genova · Repubblica Ligure · Dipartimento di Genova · Tribunale di Chiavari · Grande Genova (1926)
Languages & dialects
Italian · Genovese (Ligurian) · Levantine varieties toward Chiavari · valley dialects inland
Traditions
Camogli's shipowning families · Fontanabuona slate · the chiavarina chair · emigration to Argentina and Peru · the Casa di San Giorgio
The Città Metropolitana di Genova identifies 1 March 1860, when the first provincial council met, as the birth date of the Province of Genova.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Genova
Settle the tribunal district for 1866-1915: Genova or Chiavari. The eastern Riviera answers to Chiavari, and asking the wrong one wastes a letter.
For 1838-1859, if the family is from the mandamento di Rapallo, ask for the parish registers held here — most Ligurian families have no civil option for those years and this one does.
For a city family before 1926, check whether the comune was independent then: Sampierdarena, Sestri Ponente, Cornigliano and sixteen others were.
If the family were shipowners or seafarers, the maritime and notarial fonds will often carry more than the civil registers. Say what trade they followed when you write.
What to see
Camogli — a village that owned one of the Mediterranean's largest merchant fleets.
The Val Fontanabuona — slate quarries worked since the middle ages, shipped from Lavagna.
Chiavari — the tribunal seat for the Levante, and the chair that carries its name.
Quarto — where Garibaldi's Thousand sailed in 1860.
The Grande Genova comuni — Sampierdarena, Sestri and Cornigliano, independent until 1926.
Portofino and the Monte di Portofino — the headland between the two rivieras.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Genova represented?
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