Region: Campania Province: Salerno

Tracing your Italian roots back to Cetara, in Salerno province, Campania region?

This comprehensive guide empowers you to understand the records available in Cetara, unlocking your family’s rich history.
Where to Begin Your Ancestry Journey in Cetara
If your ancestral trail leads to Cetara, Italy, their vital records are likely housed in two key locations:

• Cetara City Hall Archives: Established in 1809, these archives hold civil registry records like births, marriages, and deaths for Cetara residents since then.
• Cetara Parish Churches: For records pre-dating 1809 or for religious ceremonies, exploring Cetara’s parish church archives might be necessary.

Civil Records in Cetara

In towns and villages of Campania and in Salerno province civil registry offices were established in 1809: it means that you could find your ancestors records in Cetara Town Hall archives as of that date.

(If your goal is to get your Italian Citizenship and you need official certificates from Cetara Municipality, follow this link).

So, if your ancestors lived in Cetara during the past centuries, then you should start your family research from the City Office of Cetara to know more: our local expert is ready to help you in your research!
With his deep knowledge of people and local history he will assist you not only finding names and dates (births, marriages, deaths) but he will reveal to you many other precious information on the life of your ancestors available in the old registers.

• Professions: do you know what your ancestors did for a living? Our genealogist will be able to give you this info!
• Addresses: the house where your family lived (a great information if you intend to visit Cetara !)
• Churches: where they were baptized or married

(If you can’t visit Cetara, our researcher will give you the necessary info to find by yourself the relevant places on the maps available online)

• Signatures: if your ancestors knew how to write, he will be able to show you their original signatures.

Any other useful info available on the old documents.

Next picture shows the demographic trends in Cetara from the Italian Unification (1861).
This is a necessary info to understand how many people lived in the town in the past.

To go on quickly in your research is important to know if the last name you are investigating is a frequent surname in Cetara. As more your surname is common, as more it could be difficult to find the right branch of your ancestors family in Cetara archives, expecially if you have not exact dates (there could be cases of homonymy).
It’s useful for you to know that some of the most common surnames in Salerno province are:
Alfano, Amato, Annunziata, Apicella, Bruno, Califano, Caputo, Cirillo, Coppola, Cuomo, D’Amato, D’Ambrosio, D’Angelo, De Luca, De Martino, De Rosa, Esposito, Ferraioli, Ferrara, Gallo, Giordano, Greco, Grimaldi, Iannone, Lamberti, Landi, Manzo, Marino, Napoli, Pagano, Palumbo, Pellegrino, Pepe, Rinaldi, Rizzo, Romano, Ruggiero, Russo, Santoro, Senatore, Sessa, Sica, Sorrentino, Tortora, Trotta, Vitale, Vitolo, Volpe.

Church Records in Cetara

Church archives in Salerno province may store even older information. You will find religious records of the same events (births, marriages and deaths) but, most important, you could go further back in time!
So in case you would like to go back in centuries, it’s good for you to know that the parish registers in Campania started during 1500!

Parish archives are far less accessible expecially from abroad and very hard to read and decipher if you are not used and skilled.
But our local genealogists, are graduated in history and archivistics so, with their expertise, they can research the church registers of Cetara on your behalf to gather info about your family history during centuries.

For our experience, if you plan to come here to visit Cetara, we always suggest to start the research months before the arrival.
This because a comprehensive genealogy research is time consuming!

Starting from home, you will have time to get a complete research avoiding to waste your holidays in the offices or in the churches dealing with italian bureaucracy .
(Remember that archives are not open to public and officers and priests are not required by law to give you access to the local archives)
With the results gathered by our genealogist and translated in your language before your arrival, you will have the possibility to plan carefully your visit.
In this way you will have more free time to enjoy your tour to the roots on your ancestors footsteps.

Another important source of information are the notary documents available to expert researchers in the State Archives of Salerno.

If you need a professional help from our local genealogist in Cetara area , write to cetara@italianside.com or fill the form here.

Our expert will study your request and will reply to you with a plan and a quote for your family research.

If you think to contact the town hall by yourself, we suggest you to read our tips for your search. They are useful advices to search in Campania and of course in Cetara too.

Here below you can read the messages received from other visitors in Cetara forum:
if you only want to discuss with other people interested in genealogy in Cetara feel free to leave a message below.