Provincia di Messina

The Stato civile fond covers 1820-1865 — births, marriages and deaths produced by the comuni of the circondario now within the province. Civil status was introduced in 1819 under the Bourbon order and took effect the following year, which fixes the earliest possible date for any civil search in this province.

The allegati are almost entirely missing. The archive states it plainly. In provinces where they survive, those files are the fastest route to a further generation; here they are not available, and expectations should be set accordingly before a visit rather than at the desk.

The levy holdings are correspondingly important and unusually long. The Ufficio di leva holds land-levy lists for males born and resident in the comuni of the mandamenti of Messina, Castroreale, Patti and Mistretta, covering 1840 to 1948. It also holds sea-levy lists for classes 1876 to 1985 — more than a century of maritime enrolment, which in a province of ports and islands covers a substantial share of the male population.

Ruoli matricolari cover classes born 1874 to 1911, for privates and non-commissioned officers enrolled in various corps.

The portal marks this archive Completa for digitisation. Given the 1908 destruction, the surviving series are worth more than their date ranges suggest, and the levy lists in particular often outlast the parish books for the same families.

Messina's predecessor administration was created in the Bourbon Sicilian reform of 1817, with Messina as a seat of Intendenza; the districts were later formally called provinces. Civil status itself began in 1820, a year after Ferdinand I instituted it for the kingdom in 1819 — which is why no Sicilian civil search reaches earlier, whatever the family's standing.

The city's history has one overwhelming fact in it. At dawn on 28 December 1908 an earthquake and the tsunami that followed destroyed Messina and Reggio across the strait. Estimates of the dead in Messina alone run to sixty thousand and above; the city was effectively erased and rebuilt on a low, wide plan designed to survive the next one. Archives, churches and parish books were lost with the buildings. When a Messinese record cannot be found, 1908 is the first explanation to consider, and the loss is well enough documented that it can be stated rather than guessed at.

The province beyond the city is long and narrow, wrapped along two coasts. The Tyrrhenian side runs west through Milazzo, Patti and Sant'Agata di Militello to the Nebrodi. The Ionian side runs south through Taormina toward Catania. Behind both rise the Nebrodi and the Peloritani, and the inland comuni there lived quite separately from the ports. The Aeolian islands — Lipari, Salina, Stromboli, Panarea — are administratively Messinese and demographically their own world, with emigration to Australia and the United States so heavy that some islands nearly emptied.

Do not plan a visit around the marriage attachments. They are almost entirely absent, and a search built on finding a processetto will fail here.

Identify the mandamento — Messina, Castroreale, Patti or Mistretta — because the levy holdings are organised that way. For an island or coastal family, ask for the sea-levy lists rather than the land ones; they are a separate series with a different date range.

Expect gaps around 1908 and treat them as documented loss rather than an error in your search. Bring the comune, an approximate year and the record type, and confirm access in advance.

The Aeolian islands — Lipari, Salina, Stromboli, Panarea, Alicudi and Filicudi, each its own comune.

The Nebrodi — Mistretta, Cesarò and San Fratello, where Gallo-Italic is still spoken.

Milazzo — the tonnara, the castle and the peninsula that guards the Tyrrhenian coast.

Taormina and the Ionian strip — tourism from the nineteenth century, unlike the rest of the province.

Tindari and Patti — the sanctuary on its headland above the Tyrrhenian.

Messina rebuilt — the low, wide city laid out after 1908, and the strait it faces.