I reconstruct your family tree through careful research of the sources, starting with the direct testimony of heirs and then moving on to civil and military status records, documentary traces of emigration and immigration, censuses, land registers and land examinations, public and private deeds, ecclesiastical records and medieval parchments.
I can extend the research to the assets owned by the family, to the variation of its social status in the succession of generations, to the point of proposing interpretations and keys to the economic, matrimonial, political and social choices pursued by its members over time.
Historical and Genealogical Research
With multidisciplinary training and excellent knowledge of archival organization and legislation, I can offer a wide range of services, viz:
Your family history
History of Your Family Buildings
Do you wish to know more about the house or building you live in? Are you interested in investigating the changes of ownership, the transformations it underwent, the neighboring properties, the workers who built it, the historical events that took place within its walls?
Are you the manager of a restoration company, or of the municipality's technical office chief, and you need documentary investigations on the building in order to proceed to its consolidation or redevelopment?
I can give you a help.
Historical Consulting
If you wish to investigate an aspect concerning the history of an ancestor of yours, or of an person you know; or you want detailed information about a historical fact; or, again, you want to be accompanied in your personal research, I can offer you addresses and advice or, in certain cases, I can help you find those who will effectively follow you.
Archives and sources
At the beginning of my career, I could only work on the physical material preserved in libraries (I remember the days spent among the old volumes of the Braidense and the Marciana in Milan, Italy, the library of Tirano and that of Sondrio, or of Bolzano - also in Italy) or in the many municipal archives of Valtellina that I used to access, or in the state archives of Sondrio (here I spent years reading notarial papers, surveys, land registers, prefectural fonds) and of Como, Bergamo, Brescia, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, as well as in the cantonal archives of Chur and Bellinzona, the diocesan archives of Como and Milan, and the Vatican Secret Archives; now, thanks to the Internet, I can also critically access a vast amount of previously unreachable data, which has proven useful, in particular, for genealogical reconstructions. In particular, I use the resources and information made available by Ellis Island, MyHeritage, Findmypast and numerous U.S., Australian, Canadian, Brazilian, Argentine, Swiss and German sites.
My reach extends physically from all over Italy and Switzerland, virtually around the world.
Estimates and costs
A genealogical search may concern a limited phase of time or extend to all traceable generations; it may also concern only the progenitors (be patrilineal), or it may also investigate the mothers and may extend to collateral branches; still, it may be enriched by flanking the construction of the tree with the history of the family's assets and possessions (houses, land, businesses), until it takes on the aspect of a true family history, which investigates through documentation the roles played over time by certain family members.
Hence the need to accurately define what information is to be acquired during the first interviews with the client.
These will be followed by:
the collection of oral and written information from the client(s) of the work, including photos, notarial deeds, personal and official documentation, and anything else that can help ground the ancestor research work;
survey of available documentary sources, public and private, both disclosed (in print or through the web) and archived;
preparation of a work plan to be submitted to the principal;
actual research work on the identified sources;
delivery of the paper. Upon request, publication of the same.
It will only be after the first two stages (collection and census of sources) that it will be possible to formulate an estimate, which will be calculated taking into account:
The depth and extent of the research requested by the client;
Of the ease of access to the sources;
of travel in case it is necessary to physically consult several archives and at a distance.
The same procedure indicated above will also be followed for historical researches. And also in this case, as in the previous one, the cost of the research is determined by a rough estimate of the days needed to collect and interpret the sources, indicated in the work plan and signed by the client.
In this case, however, there is an additional cost calculated on a lump-sum basis for drafting the written memoir, a cost that will be assessed in days of work by mutual agreement with the client.
The rate per day is €75 in the case of work done in Italy, €110 for work done abroad.
Any transportation costs remain the responsibility of the client, as will be budgeted in the work plan.
Payment will take place in three stages:
1/3 upon acceptance of the work plan
1/3 in the middle of the work
1/3 upon delivery of the work plan.