Provincia di Teramo
Teramo's military rolls once included Pescara
Teramo holds a clean civil run — 1809 to 1910, with the processetti matrimoniali attached for the pre-1865 half — and one crossing that catches people out. Its matricular rolls cover 1874-1937 and include, until 1927, the comuni now in the province of Pescara. A Pescarese family searching only Pescara will miss half a century of its men. Pescara was created in 1927 out of Teramo and Chieti, and the military paperwork did not follow the new line.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di Teramo
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 Teramo holds
The Atti dello stato civile, 1809-1910, are second copies produced by the comuni of the province: birth, marriage, death and, from 1866, citizenship registers — mostly changes of residence — with alphabetical indexes throughout. For 1809-1865 the fond also holds the Allegati known as processetti matrimoniali, the marriage attachments that typically gather the birth certificates of both spouses and the death certificates of their parents.
The alphabetical indexes are worth emphasising. Many southern archives hold registers without them, which turns a search into a year-by-year read; here a name can be looked up.
Levy records sit in the Distretto militare di Teramo, classes 1842-1949 — a run of a hundred and seven birth years, continuing thirty-nine years past the civil fond.
The matricular holdings are the ones that cross a modern boundary. The Distretto militare di Teramo holds rolls and their registers for 1874-1937, including, until 1927, the comuni now in the province of Pescara. Alongside them sit rolls for the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, 1910-1922, and NCO rolls, 1858-1924.
That NCO series beginning with the class of 1858 is the earliest military material here and predates the ordinary matricular rolls by sixteen years.
The whole archive is marked Completa for digitisation on the portal.
Continue your research
Matricular rolls here include the comuni now in Pescara for anything before 1927.
Archivio di Stato di Teramo on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its holdings, including the Pescara crossing.
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
The 1927 line, and which side of it
Two things to settle before searching.
The civil fond covers 1809-1910: second copies produced by the comuni of the province of birth, marriage, death and, from 1866, citizenship registers — mostly changes of residence — with alphabetical indexes. For 1809-1865 it also holds the Allegati, the processetti matrimoniali. The indexes matter: they make a name search practical across a century.
The military fond crosses the modern boundary. Ruoli matricolari, 1874-1937, include until 1927 the comuni now in the province of Pescara. Pescara was instituted in 1927 from territory taken out of Teramo and Chieti; men from those comuni enrolled before that year are in Teramo's rolls.
Also here: rolls for the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, 1910-1922, and NCO rolls, 1858-1924 — the latter reaching back sixteen years before the ordinary matricular series begins.
Levy lists run 1842-1949, well past the civil fond's 1910 stop.
The province
Abruzzo Ulteriore Primo, and the coast that filled up
The Province of Teramo states that 8 August 1806 marks its birth as Abruzzo Ulteriore Primo — the further Abruzzo, first — in the Napoleonic reorganisation of the Kingdom of Naples. That is its direct institutional lineage and the name under which the first half of the nineteenth century is catalogued.
The province is a wedge between the Gran Sasso and the Adriatic, and its history runs along that gradient. The mountain side — Isola del Gran Sasso, Pietracamela, Montorio — was pastoral and tied to the transhumance; the flocks went down the tratturi to the Tavoliere each autumn, and men went with them.
The hill belt around Teramo, Atri and Campli is the historic core. Atri was Hatria, a Roman colony that gave its name to the Adriatic, and later a duchy of the Acquaviva; Campli has a Scala Santa granted in 1772 and a long clerical history.
The coast is the modern part. Giulianova, Roseto, Alba Adriatica and Martinsicuro were small or nonexistent as towns until the railway arrived in the 1860s; the coastal comuni grew in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries and drew their population from the hills behind. A coastal family of 1930 is usually a hill family of 1870.
In 1927 the southern part of the province went to the new Pescara, which is why the archive's reach and the modern map disagree.
Culture & traditions
Gran Sasso, the hill towns and the new coast
The province stacks three lives between mountain and sea within forty kilometres.
The Gran Sasso comuni lived by sheep, and their transhumance ran the tratturo south to Puglia. Wool, cheese and the long seasonal absence of men shaped both the economy and the records — a man might be registered at home and working six hundred kilometres away.
The hill towns — Atri, Campli, Civitella del Tronto — are the province's documentary core. Civitella del Tronto held out for the Bourbons until 20 March 1861, three days after the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, making it the last fortress of the old kingdom to fall; its siege records are a local fixed point. Atri has its cathedral frescoes and its calanchi, the eroded clay badlands around it.
The coast is newer and its culture is maritime and recent: Giulianova's fishing fleet, Roseto's beach economy from the late nineteenth century.
Ceramics at Castelli, under the Gran Sasso, have been made since the middle ages and were supplied to courts across Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — a specialised craft population with its own guild records.
Emigration from the hill and mountain comuni after 1880 was heavy, to the United States and to Argentina, and again after the Second World War to Belgium and Germany.
Province established
1806
Comuni covered
47
Historic names
Abruzzo Ulteriore Primo · Distretto di Teramo · Distretto di Penne (to Pescara, 1927) · Ducato di Atri · Tratturo L'Aquila-Foggia
Languages & dialects
Italian · Teramano · Gran Sasso upland varieties · coastal Adriatic speech
Traditions
Castelli maiolica · transhumance to the Tavoliere · the siege of Civitella del Tronto · Atri's calanchi and cathedral · Giulianova's fishing fleet
The Province of Teramo states that 8 August 1806 marks the birth of the province as Abruzzo Ulteriore Primo. This is its direct institutional lineage.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in Teramo
If the comune is now in Pescara and the man enrolled before 1927, come here for his matricular record. That is the single most useful thing this archive offers a researcher who does not expect it.
For civil status the window is 1809-1910, and the alphabetical indexes mean a name search is realistic. Ask for the processetti for anything before 1865.
After 1910 the comune is the custodian. Between 1910 and 1949 the levy lists still cover the province, so a man may be findable even where his civil act is not.
Name the comune and the year when you write, and say which side of 1927 the man was enrolled.
What to see
The Gran Sasso — Isola del Gran Sasso and Pietracamela under the highest peak in the Apennines.
Atri — Roman Hatria, the cathedral frescoes and the calanchi badlands.
Civitella del Tronto — the last Bourbon fortress to surrender, on 20 March 1861.
Castelli — maiolica made under the Gran Sasso and sold across Europe.
Campli — the Scala Santa of 1772 and a long clerical history.
The coast — Giulianova and Roseto, grown from nothing after the railway came.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di Teramo 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.