The Patron
San Liberale
San Liberale is Treviso's patron, celebrated on 27 April. His remains are kept in the Duomo, alongside Titian's Annunciation.
— Castellesi
CASTELLESI COMUNE
Treviso,
Veneto
A water city where wartime destruction was sometimes deliberate archival strategy.
If a Trevigiano comune's records stop in the 1940s, the reason may not be carelessness or bombing.
The Archivio di Stato di Treviso states it plainly: during the Second World War numerous communal archives were set on fire , precisely in order to obstruct — through the destruction of demographic documentation — the forced enlistment of young men into the armed forces of the Italian Social Republic , or the internment in Germany of those who failed to appear .
Registers were burned to make men unfindable. It worked, and the cost is a permanent hole in the record.
It is worth knowing before you conclude that a family was never registered, and worth knowing for its own sake.
The Loss
Records burned to save lives
Some wartime demographic records were destroyed intentionally so authorities could not identify men for forced enlistment or German internment. Gaps from that period may therefore have a precise historical cause.
The Landmark
Duomo di Treviso
The Duomo di Treviso holds San Liberale's remains and Titian's Annunciation. Earlier family research, however, often runs through parish records rather than the State Archive.
Did you know?
AN EMPTY REGISTER MAY REFLECT DELIBERATE WARTIME DESTRUCTION
Some demographic gaps were created to protect people
Treviso records that communal archives were sometimes burned intentionally during the war to obstruct RSI recruitment and deportation. For missing twentieth-century material, destruction must be tested before assuming non-registration or family departure.
LA PARLATA
How they speak
The local speech is Trevigiano, a central Venetian variety.
Some registers were burned to hide men
Treviso stands where the Cagnan joins the Sile , and water runs through the middle of it — canals, mills and washing places, with the sixteenth-century walls built by Venice still ringing the centre.
The city submitted to Venice in 1339 , the first mainland city to do so, and remained Venetian until the Republic ended on 12 May 1797 . That date matters here more than elsewhere, because the archive cites it as the origin of the confusion over who holds what: every subsequent regime arranged the civil records differently.
Under Napoleon the territory formed the Dipartimento del Tagliamento , named for a river well to the east — a reminder that the French departments ignored older boundaries entirely. The Prefettura del dipartimento del Tagliamento fond runs to 602 bundles and registers .
Then Austria returned. Treviso was reoccupied on 2 November 1813 ; an edict of 8 November 1813 provisionally confirmed the existing territorial and administrative arrangement; and in execution of the sovereign patent of 7 April 1815 the new territorial organisation was established.
Under that regime the parish priests kept the registers, and they continued to do so through annexation to Italy in 1866 until 1 September 1871 .
The twentieth century treated the city harshly. Treviso was heavily bombed in 1944 , and much of the historic centre was destroyed and rebuilt — which is why a city that looks medieval is in large part a careful reconstruction.
And it was in those same years that the communal archives of the province were burned, deliberately, to protect the men whose names they held.
Postcards from Treviso
Wear Treviso
WANT TO SEE TREVISO REPRESENTED?
Castellesi hasn't made anything for this place yet. Requests are how we decide which comuni come next — every one is read, and the places people ask for are the places that get made.
REQUEST TREVISO →Where this
belongs
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PROVINCIA DI TREVISO
Discover the beauty, culture and traditions of Treviso and its remarkable comuni.
REGIONE VENETO
From the mountains to the sea, Veneto is a region of history, flavor and soul.
EXPLORE VENETO →From the passenger index
At least 953 people who gave Treviso 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
Canals, a fish market on an island, and the Prosecco hills
Getting there
The nearest major airport is Venice Marco Polo, Treviso, or Verona Airport, depending on the destination.
Treviso is a walled Venetian city with water running through it, and far quieter than Venice half an hour away.
Walk the canals of the Cagnan and the Sile , and find the Pescheria — the fish market set on its own island in the middle of the current, which is exactly why it is there.
See the Duomo for Titian's Annunciation and the remains of San Liberale , and San Nicolò for the enormous Dominican church with its frescoed columns.
Walk the sixteenth-century walls built by Venice, and go through the Porta San Tommaso .
Remember as you go that much of what you are looking at was rebuilt after the bombing of 1944 .
Then drive north into the hills between Conegliano and Valdobbiadene — the terraced Prosecco landscape, UNESCO-listed since 2019 , where Conegliano has had a school of oenology since 1876 .
And in winter, eat the radicchio rosso , blanched in running spring water before it reaches the table.
Family history
Where the records are
Archives and registers
Treviso's archive holds only one civil-status fond, its military records begin late, and communal archives were burned in the war to prevent conscription.
Archivio di Stato di Treviso - ricerche anagrafiche
States that during the Second World War numerous communal archives were burned in order to obstruct, through the destruction of demographic documentation, the forced enlistment into the armed forces of the Italian Social Republic or the internment in Germany of those who failed to appear; that the archive cannot issue anagraphic certification because it does not hold civil-status acts, which belong to the comuni or the parishes following the end of the Republic of Venice on 12 May 1797, the sole exception being the Atti dello stato civile del Dipartimento del Tagliamento; that military research can establish only the year and comune of birth, and only for men declared fit and enrolled; and that the matricular rolls begin at birth year 1874 and the conscription lists only in 1902.
ricerchegenealogiche.archiviodistatotreviso.beniculturali.itArchivio di Stato di Treviso on Antenati
Describes the Stato civile napoleonico of 1806-1815 as the second copies of the birth, marriage and death registers with alphabetical indexes and annexes consigned by the comuni of the Dipartimento del Tagliamento to the local tribunals, covering 188 localities of the districts of Asolo, Castelfranco, Ceneda, Conegliano, Montebelluna, Motta, Oderzo, Serravalle, Treviso and Valdobbiadene, and notes that from 1816 the functions passed to the parish priests so that research for 1816-1870 must be conducted at the diocese and parishes.
antenati.cultura.gov.itRegione del Veneto - ricerche anagrafiche
Lists the Treviso holdings - the provincial conscription office lists for classes 1902-1928, the Venice office lists for classes 1912-1920, the Treviso military district indexes and rolls complete for classes 1874-1905 and with gaps for 1906-1924, the Venice district likewise, and the communal historic archive documentation on the levy from about 1860 to 1873, an unordered fond with gaps.
regione.veneto.itGuida agli Archivi di Stato - Treviso
Gives the Ufficio di leva di Treviso as 1,122 registers for classes 1874-1920 and the Ufficio di leva di Venezia as 135 registers for classes 1900-1915; records the Prefettura del dipartimento del Tagliamento in 602 bundles and registers; notes that a further notable part of the communal archive from 1866 remains with the comune; and records the Austrian reoccupation of Treviso on 2 November 1813, the edict of 8 November 1813 and the sovereign patent of 7 April 1815 establishing the new territorial organisation.
maas.ccr.itArchivio di Stato di Vicenza - ricerche anagrafiche
Establishes the regional rule that Veneto civil-status registration began in 1871 from the first of September, the Veneto having been annexed in 1866, with registrations before that date entrusted to the parish priests by the Austrian authorities.
archiviodistatovicenza.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.
Treviso is more than a place on a map. It is a part of you.
FIND YOUR COMUNE →