Why Italy

Italian ancestor born in Venice Italy?

Do you perhaps know where I can find information regarding my Italian ancestors? My greatgreatgrandfather was Luigi Peter Fonda and was born in Venice in the 1860's before emmigrating to South Africa.

Public Comments

1. Many Italian civil and church records (generally good) have been microfilmed by the LDS. You can check their catalog at www.familysearch.org and research films from your local FHC (the familysearch website has a directory of all of them). Before undertaking any searches, be sure that your ancestor was actually born in Venice, not outside Venice, or something else. Also note that Venice wasn't actually part of Italy until 1866.
2. If you have more details about your g.g.g.father you can find a way to visit the Venetian People Anagrafe. You need the exact name and the exact date of birth, with the place. Anyway, your surname doesn't seem to be venetian. The problem is that in Italy this kind of information (so far, 1860) doesn't have any film or record but papers. You can ask someone in the city where your gggf was born to ask about, or you can visit the city... !, I made a quick reserch and I find out the link: http://www.istrianet.org/istria/genealogy/town/pirano/fonda.htm it is about the Fonda surname in Istria, not in Venice. Well, before the war it was in the same region of Venezia... if you can read italian....(!) ok, I've read the article, it's about your surname, and there's also a man named Pietro Fonda who lived in Trieste (end of 1700), there's maybe a relation between them. You know, in Italy there's a long tradition about naming new born babies: they always have the same name of the granfather (or the father). This is why (until 1990) there are always same names in one family. One more clue to add to your search. 1 more: do you read italian?