Provincia di Potenza
Potenza preserves the pre-unification processetti
Basilicata is a small region that sent an extraordinary share of its people abroad, and the archive at Potenza holds the record of the world they left. The 1809-1865 fond is unusually complete: not only births, marriages and deaths, but memorandum books, marriage attachments and a series called atti diversi that records the things ordinary registers miss — children who died at birth, deaths away from home, adoptions, corrections. For a family that emigrated, those margins are often where the evidence is.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Potenza
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 Potenza holds
The central fond is the Atti dello stato civile della provincia di Potenza, 1809 to 1865, and it is broader than the usual second-copy series.
It contains the second copies of birth, marriage and death registers; the memorandum registers, which record marriage notifications with the details of the future spouses and their parents; the allegati and processetti matrimoniali; and the atti diversi, which among other things note children who died at birth, judgments rectifying civil status, deaths away from the home comune, bodies found, and adoption judgments. The archive's list of the comuni covered is published in SIAS.
Remember what the province was in those years. Until 1927 this was the province of Basilicata and it included the territory that became Matera, so a pre-1927 act for a Materano comune may be in this fond.
Levy records run well past the civil series: the Ufficio di leva di Potenza holds lists for classes born between 1842 and 1948. Matricular rolls are in the Distretto militare di Potenza, classes 1840 to 1932, recording service, unit of assignment, war campaigns and final discharge for privates and non-commissioned officers.
The portal marks digitisation Parziale here. For a province with this rate of emigration, the levy registers are frequently the last Italian record of a man before he vanishes from the country altogether.
Continue your research
Until 1927 this province was Basilicata and included the Matera territory. Check the date before choosing an archive.
Archivio di Stato di Potenza 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
Ask for the atti diversi by name
Most provinces hold births, marriages and deaths. Potenza holds those and four further series that answer questions the main registers cannot.
The memorandum books record marriage notifications, giving the details of the intended spouses and of their parents — so they can establish a generation even where the marriage act itself is missing.
The allegati and processetti matrimoniali are the marriage attachments: normally the birth certificates of both spouses and the death certificates of their parents, gathered into one file.
The atti diversi are the series to ask for explicitly. They record children who died at birth, judgments rectifying civil status, deaths that occurred away from the person's home comune, bodies found, and adoption judgments. An emigrant who died abroad, a child never entered in the birth register, a name corrected by a court — these are the cases that break a search elsewhere and are documented here.
The archive's own list of covered comuni is in SIAS; check the comune against it before travelling.
The province
Basilicata, Lucania, and a province renamed
The naming here is genuinely confusing and it matters for searching. The State Archives date the Province of Basilicata, seated at Potenza, from 1861, and it was renamed Provincia di Potenza in 1927 — the same year Matera was carved out of it as a separate province. So for the whole of the nineteenth century there was one province covering what are now two, and it was called Basilicata.
The region itself was called Lucania officially between 1932 and 1947, a Fascist-era revival of the Roman name, then reverted to Basilicata. A document may use any of the three names depending on when it was written, and none of them is wrong.
The practical consequence is that a pre-1927 record for a Matera-area comune may sit in the Potenza fonds, because Matera did not exist as a province when the record was made. A researcher who searches only under the modern province will miss it.
The territory is mountainous and was desperately poor. The Apennine spine runs through it; the Vulture massif in the north is volcanic and more fertile; the Ionian coast at Metaponto was malarial until reclamation in the twentieth century. Emigration between 1880 and 1914 was proportionally among the heaviest of any Italian region, and the Lucanian diaspora in the United States, Argentina and later Germany is large relative to a population that never exceeded a few hundred thousand.
Culture & traditions
The Vulture, the Apennine and the Arbereshe
Basilicata's internal divisions are sharp for a province this size.
The Vulture in the north — Melfi, Rionero, Venosa, Barile — sits on an extinct volcano, grows Aglianico on its slopes and has a history quite unlike the rest. Melfi was a Norman and then Hohenstaufen centre; Venosa was Horace's birthplace and had one of southern Italy's significant Jewish communities in antiquity and the middle ages. Several Vulture comuni — Barile, Ginestra, Maschito — are Arbereshe, Albanian-speaking since the fifteenth century, and their records and naming customs reflect that.
The central Apennine around Potenza itself is high, cold and hard, a country of small comuni strung along ridges, and it is from here that the heaviest emigration came.
The south, toward Lagonegro and the Pollino, looks to Calabria and shares its transhumance routes.
The Ionian strip at Metaponto and Policoro was largely uninhabited until the malaria was cleared — the towns there are twentieth-century foundations, and a family recorded at Policoro before then will have come from somewhere else.
Brigandage after unification was more intense in Basilicata than almost anywhere, and the repression that followed is part of why so many left. A family story about a grandfather who 'went to the mountains' in the 1860s is not always folklore.
Province established
1861
Comuni covered
100
Historic names
Basilicata · Lucania (1932-1947) · Circondario di Melfi · Circondario di Lagonegro · Circondario di Matera (to 1927)
Languages & dialects
Italian · Lucano · Arbereshe at Barile, Ginestra and Maschito · southern varieties toward Calabria
Traditions
the Maggio di Accettura · Aglianico del Vulture · Arbereshe rite in the Vulture comuni · transhumance to the Pollino · emigration 1880-1914
The State Archives date the Province of Basilicata, seated at Potenza and predecessor to the Province of Potenza, from 1861; it was renamed Provincia di Potenza in 1927. The predecessor date is used.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Potenza
Check the comune against the SIAS list, and check the date against 1927. If the comune is in the Matera area and the event is earlier, Potenza is very likely the right archive despite the modern map.
Ask for the series by name. The main registers are the obvious request, but the memorandum books, the processetti and the atti diversi are where this archive is unusual, and they are the reason a Lucanian search that stalls elsewhere can succeed here.
If the family emigrated, the levy lists to 1948 will usually outlast the civil series by eighty years. Bring the comune, an approximate year and the type of act, and confirm access in advance.
What to see
The Vulture — Melfi, Rionero, Venosa and the Aglianico slopes of the extinct volcano.
The Arbereshe comuni — Barile, Ginestra and Maschito, Albanian-speaking since the fifteenth century.
Potenza and the central Apennine — high ridge comuni and the country of heaviest emigration.
Lagonegro and the Pollino edge — the southern march toward Calabria.
Metaponto and the Ionian strip — reclaimed in the twentieth century; the towns there are new.
Venosa — Horace's birthplace, with its abbey and its ancient Jewish catacombs.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Potenza 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.