Lentini

Lentini, Provincia di Siracusa, Sicilia, Italia Genealogy

Most of your genealogical research for Lentini, Sicily will be in two main record types: civil registration (registri dello stato civile) and church records (registri ecclesiastici). This article will teach you methods for locating and searching these two record groups. In addition, cemetery records can be helpful to researchers. Online cemetery sites can be a useful source.

History and Geography

• Syracuse Province (Wikipedia)

City of Lentini

Lentini (Sicilian: Lintini, historically Liuntini; Latin: Leontīnī; Ancient Greek: Λεοντῖνοι) is a town and comune in the Province of Siracusa, southeastern Sicily (Southern Italy).

• City Website Descriptions of city services with contact information for city officials. (In Italian)
• Lentini Online- History of the city and biographies of Lentini people with a bibliography of Lentini historical sources. (In Italian) (Access pages in English by clicking on the British flag.)

History

The city was founded by colonists from Naxos as Leontini in 729 BC, which in its beginnings was a Chalcidian colony established five years earlier in Magna Graecia.

It is virtually the only Greek settlement in Sicily that is not located on the coast, founded around 10 km inland.

In Roman times it seems to have been of small importance. It was destroyed by the Saracens in 847 AD, and almost completely ruined by the earthquake of 1693. After the complete destruction caused by the 1693 earthquake Lentini was entirely rebuilt in the 17th century keeping the present urban street configuration.

Map of Historic Center of Lentini

Storia di Lentini antica e moderna: 1, Volume 1 by Sebastiano Pisano Baudo, 1898

Storia di Lentini antica e moderna ... Vol. 2 by Sebastiano Pisano Baudo, 1902

Church History

Lentini's churches include:

• Santa Maria la Cava e Sant'Alfio: Chiesa Madre ("Mother Church of St Mary of the Cave and St Alphius"): Baroque church built after the 1693 earthquake by Vincenzo Vella of Malta. It has a basilica plan with three naves; the three-order facade is from the 18th century. The central portal has scenes of the martyrdom of Saints Alphius, Philadelphus and Cyrinus. The interior houses a 12th-century Byzantine icon.
• Santissima Trinità e San Marziano ("Holy Trinity and St Marcian"): church was built over the ruins of the 16th-century Palazzo La Palumba. It has a noteworthy pavement in ceramic of Caltagirone (18th-century) and a polyptych of Antonello da Messina's school. The high altar tabernacle is made of lapis lazuli.
• Chiesa dell'Immacolata ("Church of Mary of the Immaculate Conception"): 17th-century church, which houses a Romanesque lion sculpture, a Christ at the Column and the tombstone of Queen Mary (1402).
• San Luca: (St Luke) church has a canvas depicting St Francis of Assisi, attributed to the school of Bassano and other artworks. Next to the church are the remains of the Castle of Frederick II, the hypogeum of St. Lucy with 14th-century frescoes, the Crucifix Grottoes with frescoes from the 12th–17th centuries and the ruins of the old parish church of San Pietro (16th century).
• San Francesco di Paola: 18th-century church with a rare organ and artworks from churches which were destroyed by the 1693 earthquake.

Maps

• Map of Lentini

Population

Census of Population of Lentini 1861-2021 (In Italian)

Resources

Italians of Omaha

• Italians of Omaha explains the chain migration from Carlentini and Lentini to Omaha, Nebraska. The Salerno brothers, Joseph and Sebastiano, who came from Carlentini were the driving force in the process of chain migration. Sicilians from Carlentini and Lentini became the predominating group in the Omaha Little Italy that developed in the 1900's. In 1904, Sebastiano Salerno, received an appointment as a steamship company agent and went back to Carlentini to increase the passenger transportation business between Sicily and American ports.
• The History Harvest - Omaha's Little Italy, compiled by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In the Fall of 2018, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s “History Harvest” project focused on the Italian American communities in Nebraska. The main event was held on October 28, 2018, at the Santa Lucia Hall, in the heart of Omaha's historic Little Italy. Partner organizations included the Santa Lucia Festival Committee, the Sons and Daughters of Italy, and the American-Italian Heritage Society. Seven undergraduate and two graduate students under the guidance of Prof. Gerald Steinacher were looking for diaries, photographs, letters, maps, images, war memorabilia, and other family and cultural heirlooms. “Harvested” family artifacts were photographed, digitized and returned to the owners. This exhibition features a selection of items that document the experience of growing up in the immigrant community of Little Italy.

Locating Town of Origin in Italy

In order to research your family in Italy, it is essential that you have identified the place where they came from. You must know the city, town, or parish that they came from. it will be difficult to identify the place of origin by going directly to Italy sources. Therefore, you will need to search in United States (or other country of arrival) sources first. See Italy Gathering Information to Locate Place of Origin to learn how to search for the Italian place of origin in United States records.

Names in Latin, Italian, Sicilian and English

This is a handy guide to understanding how names are translated in four languages. Italian names are usually found in civil records but church records are usually in Latin.

Sicilian and Italian Occupations

This list of Sicilian and Italian occupations will help to translate occupations found in vital records. If you cannot decipher the occupation, you can search this page for the word beginning, middle or ending to find the correct occupation.

Civil Registration (registri dello stato civile)

• Civil registration records (registri dello stato civile) are government records of births, marriages, and deaths.

• Dates: In southern Italy, registering births, marriages, and deaths began in 1809 (1820 in Sicily). In central and northern Italy, civil registration began in 1866 (1871 in Veneto). After this date, virtually all individuals who lived in Italy were recorded.

• Contents: For detailed descriptions of the information you might find in each record, see Information recorded in civil registers.

• Language: The records were almost always kept in Italian, except for records kept during the rule of foreign powers such as France and Austria. In the northern regions, many records are in French and German. Some church records were transcribed into civil registration records in Latin.

• Accessing the records: Civil registration records were and are kept at the local registrar’s office (anagrafe) in each town or city. A copy of each record is sent to the tribunale (district court).

• Determining the locality: You must determine the town where your ancestor lived before you can find the records. Your ancestor may have lived in a village that belonged to a nearby larger town. Large cities may have many civil registration districts. You may need to use maps, gazetteers, and other geographic references to identify the place where your ancestor lived and the civil registration office that served that place. See Italy Maps and Italy Gazetteers for information on how to find civil registration offices.

• State of the Family (Stato di famiglia): A civil record unique to Italy is the stato di famiglia, or state of the family certificate. The comune keeps a record of each family and updates each change, including births, marriages, deaths, and emigration. All individuals in a household are included. Some households include more than one family. Historical states of the family (stato di famiglia storico) are kept at the provincial archive (ufficio dello stato civile). These records document past generations of families. Not all areas have kept this record, but where they exist, they are a valuable research tool.

• To learn more about Italian Civil Registration, read Italy Civil Registration.

Online Digital Records for Civil Registration

• The FamilySearch catalog contains listings for civil birth, marriage and death records from 1820-1945 obtained from Archivio di Stato di Siracusa, Tribunale di Siracusa and Lentini Ufficio dello Stato Civile for various periods. Many of these records are accessible online with a free FamilySearch account but most of the pre-1900 records must be viewed at a FamilySearch Center or a FamilySearch affiliate library or by using the Portale Antenati as described below. (Browsable images mostly in Italian and some in Latin, incomplete.)
• Portale Antenati for Lentini includes civil birth, marriage and death records from 1820-1899 and death and marriage records from 1943-1945. (Browsable images mostly in Italian and some in Latin, incomplete.)
• Siracusa, Sicily, Italy, Civil Registration Records, 1900-1929 at Ancestry ($) - images, in Italian, incomplete. Includes civil birth records from 1903-1910, civil marriages from 1900-1910 and civil deaths from 1900-1929. The indexes in this collection are especially helpful.

Most of these records are in Italian. "Nati" are Births. "Matrimoni " are Marriages. "Morti" are Deaths. "Allegati" are Supporting Documents. "Cittadinanze" are Citizenship records. "Indici decennali" is the 10-year index. "Pubblicazioni di Matrimonio" are Marriage Banns. Some church records were transcribed into civil registration records in Latin.

Lentini Cemetery

A volunteer effort to photograph the Lentini Cemetery is in progress. The grave photographs are being uploaded and transcribed on FindaGrave: Cimitero Comunale di Lentini.

If you visit the Lentini Cemetery, you are encouraged to use the FindaGrave app to add pictures for graves that have not yet been photographed. There is a steward at the Lentini cemetery that can help you locate graves for a particular individual.

Lentini Cemetery Services Office (In Italian)

The Lentini Cemetery Services Office offers services relating to information on burial places, preparation of requests for burial, exhumation and assistance to people regarding the preparation of documents relating to the cemetery service. For more information please write to the cemetery services office in Italian at this address: ufficio.cimiteriale@comune.lentini.sr.it.