Roslyn Torella
Roslyn Torella, Contributing Writer
Discovering La Famiglia: Finding Your Family in U.S. Birth Records
April 2018
When your ancestors settled in America, many of the important events that happened in their lives and their families’ lives were recorded in U.S. vital records. The main types of records that may yield valuable information about your ancestors are...
Discovering La Famiglia: Finding Your Family in U.S. Death Records
March 2018
A death record will be the most recent record available for your ancestor. There are several types of records available that record not only death information but may also contain other genealogical information such as an original Italian surname,...
Discovering La Famiglia: Finding Your Family in U.S. Marriage Records
February 2018
When your ancestors settled in America, many of the important events that happened in their lives and their families’ lives were recorded in United States vital records. The main types of records that may yield valuable information about your...
Discovering La Famiglia - Finding Your Family in U.S. Military Records
January 2018
You may not have thought about using U.S. military records to find out more about an Italian-born ancestor, so in this month’s column, I am going to share with you what records may exist and contain information about your ancestors and where to...
Discovering La Famiglia - Finding Your Family in U.S. Census Records
December 2017
Using U.S. Census records to discover your Italian ancestor’s early life in America can be both exhilarating and frustrating! Census records hold a wealth of information about your ancestors such as when they came to America, their age, place of...
Discovering La Famiglia - Finding Your Family in Immigration Records
November 2017
Last month we looked at ship manifests; this month we will explore U.S. immigration records. We are focusing on immigration records created in the late 1880s through 1956 because it was during this period many Italian immigrants became U.S....
Discovering La Famiglia - Finding Your Family Surname in a Ship Manifest
October 2017
We were very excited to introduce to you last month our new column, Discovering La Famiglia. The column’s author, Roslyn Torella, is a genealogist and a family historian. Her grandparents hailed from Molise and Roslyn grew up in Lowellville, OH....
Discovering La Famiglia - Starting Your Italian American Family History Journey
September 2017
Learning about your ancestors can be extremely interesting and extremely frustrating at the same time, but I can tell you from my 25 years of research experience that it is worth every bit of the joy and the anguish along the way. If you have an...
Creative Ways to Use Social Media to Find Your Italian Roots
March 2017
Many Italian Americans are becoming interested in discovering more about their Italian roots, but they may have been overlooking a place that can help them with their journey - social media. On Facebook, the number of Italian American genealogy...
How Did Your Italian Family Get Its Name (Cognome)?
April 2016
If you are like me, you may have wondered how your family got its surname or cognome in Italian. I find the sound of Italian family names very melodious, particularly here in America, where they are often butchered in both pronunciation and...