The Patron
Sant'Alberto degli Abati
Alberto degli Abati is Trapani's listed patron, celebrated on 7 August.
— Castellesi
CASTELLESI COMUNE
Trapani,
Sicilia
A maritime province where old names and sea records matter.
Trapani lies on a sickle of land at the western tip of Sicily, closer to Tunis than to Rome, with salt pans on one side and the Egadi islands offshore.
Its archive holds one of the longest civil-status runs in Sicily — 1820 to 1928 — and a notarial series beginning in 1297 . It also files one of the province's principal towns under a name it no longer uses.
The Name
Monte San Giuliano
Modern Erice appears in the archive under its older name, Monte San Giuliano. A search using only the modern name can therefore miss a substantial civil and judicial record series.
The Landmark
Santuario dell'Annunziata
The Santuario dell'Annunziata is one of Trapani's principal listed religious landmarks. For a family search, parish identity should be paired with occupational clues such as fishing, salt work or membership in a trade-based confraternity.
Did you know?
SEA AND LAND RECORDS ARE SEPARATE
Search both levies
Trapani's civil-status fond runs unusually late, from 1820–1928, but maritime men may appear in separate leva di mare rather than land conscription. The archive also uses historical names such as Monte San Giuliano for modern Erice.
LA PARLATA
How they speak
Italian is standard. Sicilian is widely represented in local speech and culture.
The right name, the right levy
Trapani was the port of Eryx , the Elymian sanctuary town on the mountain above, and it became a Carthaginian stronghold — this was the corner of Sicily Punic longest and most firmly. The First Punic War ended in these waters, at the battle of the Egadi in 241 BC.
Under the Arabs and then the Normans and Aragonese the city prospered as a Mediterranean port, trading coral, salt and tuna, and looking as much to North Africa and Spain as to the rest of Italy. That orientation still shows: in the food, in the language, and in the fact that Tunisia is visible from the province on a clear day.
Salt has been worked in the pans between Trapani and Marsala since antiquity, with windmills to move the water and brine, and it remains the landscape's defining feature.
Tuna was the other great industry. The tonnare — the trap fisheries of Favignana, Bonagia, Scopello and San Vito — employed whole communities in a seasonal rhythm built around the mattanza , and their records are among the archive's more unusual holdings.
Under the Bourbons this was the Valle di Trapani , one of the seven Sicilian provinces from 1817. Its towns — Marsala, Mazara, Alcamo, Castelvetrano, Salemi — were substantial in their own right, which is why the province has no single dominant city in the way Palermo's does.
Postcards from Trapani
Wear Trapani
Carry your heritage with pride. Timeless designs inspired by the heart of Trapani.
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Where this
belongs
belongs
PROVINCIA DI TRAPANI
Discover the beauty, culture and traditions of Trapani and its remarkable comuni.
EXPLORE TRAPANI →REGIONE SICILIA
From the mountains to the sea, Sicilia is a region of history, flavor and soul.
EXPLORE SICILIA →From the passenger index
At least 1,825 people who gave Trapani as their home are recorded by name among Italian arrivals in the United States — each with the ship they sailed on and the day they landed.
A floor, not a total. The index covers arrivals through 1912, holds nothing between May 1907 and December 1911, and many passengers were written down with no home town at all. Where a name is there, it is there with its record.
Have Orso look for your family →Ready to visit
Salt pans, a mountain, and islands
Getting there
The nearest major airport is Trapani Birgi Airport.
Trapani is a working port with a handsome old town on its spit of land, and it is the base for the whole western corner.
The two essential trips are up and out. Erice — the Monte San Giuliano of the records — sits eight hundred metres directly above the city, reached by cable car, and is a walled medieval town in the clouds. The Egadi islands , Favignana above all, are a short ferry and hold the great tonnara.
The salt pans between here and Marsala, with their windmills, are best at sunset. Marsala , Mazara del Vallo and the Greek temple at Segesta are all within an hour.
The province is large and its towns are substantial — if your family were from Alcamo, Castelvetrano or Salemi, plan around that town rather than the city.
What to see
The old town and the port — the spit of land, the fish market, the baroque streets.
I Misteri — the twenty groups, kept in the church of the Anime Sante year-round, in procession on Good Friday.
Erice — the walled town on the mountain, catalogued as Monte San Giuliano.
The saline — the salt pans and windmills toward Marsala.
Favignana and the Egadi — the islands and the former tonnara.
Segesta — the Doric temple inland, unfinished and alone.
Your family's parish — the record-keeping institution before 1820.
Family history
Where the records are
Archives and registers
Erice is catalogued as MONTE SAN GIULIANO. Search that name, not Erice.
Find the Trapani archive on Antenati
Reach the Archivio di Stato di Trapani from the map or list. Note that its land and sea conscription series are separate — a seafaring ancestor may be absent from the army lists entirely.
antenati.cultura.gov.itWhy Sicilian records begin in 1820
Antenati's explanation of the systems and their dates.
antenati.cultura.gov.itRelated places
Keep exploring
The journey does not end at the boundary of one comune. The province, the region and the neighbouring towns often hold the rest of the picture.
Your Roots. Their Story. Your Place.
Trapani is more than a place on a map. It is a part of you.
FIND YOUR COMUNE →