Civil registry

The State Archive of Palermo preserves the Civil Status of the Restoration – Palermo and municipalities in the province of Palermo, 1820-1865.
The fund includes, for each municipality in the province of Palermo, the registers of births, marriages and deaths, to which are added envelopes of attached documents submitted by the registered subjects. For the registers relating to the city of Palermo, the State Archives contain the ten-year indexes of births, deaths and marriages from 1820 to 1865, which are not kept for the other municipalities in the province. For the city of Palermo alone, the Archive also contains the ten-year indexes of births, deaths and marriages for the years 1865-1905, a period for which the relevant registers are not available.

With the support of the Archival Superintendence of Sicily-State Archives of Palermo, FamilySearch has launched a digitization campaign of civil status archives kept at municipalities in the province of Palermo. The digital reproductions made are published under “Restoration Civil Status (Registers of Municipalities)” and “Italian Civil Status (Registers of Municipalities).”
To obtain reproductions of “Italian Civil Status (Registers of Municipalities)” it is necessary to contact directly the municipality where the act was recorded.

Army census

The Archive holds the following fonds:

Lever acts of the Council of District Lever Offices of the Province of Palermo then Provincial Lever Office, 1891-1924.
The fund includes the registers produced by the Council of Lever Offices of the Province of Palermo and then by the only Provincial Lever Office, concerning the city of Palermo and the neighbouring municipalities, divided into 3 distinct series: Lever Lists (206 bgs.), Summary Registers of Council Decisions (4 bgs.), Registers of the Captains of Palermo (14 bgs.);
Lever acts of the Lever Council of Palermo, 1841-1889.
The fund includes the registers produced by the Council of Lever of Palermo, concerning the city of Palermo and the neighbouring municipalities, divided into 3 distinct series: Extraction Lists (35 bgs), Lever Lists (13 bgs), Summary Registers of Council Decisions (12 bgs). The records should concern conscripts from the period 1841-1890, but a note to the same fund search tool indicates the loss of all records relating to the 1890 class;
Trapani sea conscription lists, conscription classes 1927-1985 (61 reg.)
The series includes the lists of conscription of soldiers produced by the Navy – Maritime Compartment of Trapani and, since 1961, by the Harbour Office of Trapani, concerning the city of Trapani and the municipalities of the Province. The previous registers (classes 1900-1926) are kept in the State Archives of Trapani.
Palermo Sea Lever Lists,Lever Classes 1959-1985.
The series includes the lists of conscripts produced by the Navy – Compartimento Marittimo di Palermo and, since 1961, by the Capitaneria di Porto di Palermo, concerning the city of Palermo and the municipalities of the Province.

Recruitment number and military draw number

The Archive holds the following fonds:

Matriculation files of the Military District of Palermo, Conscription classes 1882-1920 (Troop files); Conscription classes 1870-1914 (Non-commissioned officers files).
The series includes envelopes containing matriculation files produced by the Military District of Palermo – Matriculation Office – Non-Commissioned Officers and Troops Section, divided into two subseries, concerning non-commissioned officers and troop soldiers respectively;
Matricular rolls of troop soldiers of the Military District of Palermo, Conscription classes 1887-1900.
The series includes the Rolls of Registration of Troop Soldiers produced by the Military District of Palermo, concerning the city of Palermo and the municipalities of the Province, accompanied, for each year, by columns showing the names of the enlisted soldiers, their roll number and the number of the annual register in which they are registered;
Rolls of Troops of the Military District of Trapani, Conscription Classes 1873-1900.
The series includes the Registers of Troop Soldiers produced by the Military District of Trapani, concerning the city of Trapani and the municipalities of the Province, accompanied, for each year, by rubrics showing the names of the enlisted soldiers, their serial number and the number of the annual register in which they are registered.

Other sources in the archive

Records of souls and goods, 1548-1800 (Court of Royal Patrimony); 1651-1756 (Deputation of the Kingdom).
The revelations of souls and goods are the result of censuses of the assets of each household carried out in Sicily from the first half of the 19th century onwards. XVI in order to distribute among the various towns on the island the tax burden represented by the ‘donativi’ to be paid to the royal treasury. Censuses were based on declarations by the taxpayers themselves, who were asked to ‘reveal’ the number of family members and the assets they owned. By royal privilege, the inhabitants of the universities (= cities) of Palermo, Messina and Catania were exempt from presenting the revelation. The revelation can also be considered a form of population census, albeit incomplete, because it allowed not only an assessment of the economic activities and assets of each ‘fire’ (= family group), but also a count of ‘souls’. They can therefore also be partially used for research into one’s ancestors from earlier times, replacing – in genealogical reconstruction – parish registers, albeit with some limitations. Censuses were carried out, at irregular intervals, in the following years: 1505, 1548, 1569-1570, 1583, 1593, 1606, 1616, 1623-1624, 1636, 1651, 1681, 1714, 1747-1756, 1806, 1831. A series of revelations can be found in two distinct funds, that of the Tribunal of the Royal Patrimony, the supreme fiscal control body of the kingdom, and that of the Deputation of the Kingdom, an active representative body between one meeting and another of the Sicilian Parliament, to which they were transmitted following the findings made by the T.R.P. The data relating to fires are almost always very close to reality, while for those relating to property (oxen, cows, horses, real estate and furniture), there was no doubt deception and concealment (for example, property could be entrusted to a relative belonging to the clergy, who was therefore exempt from taxation).