Professional Genealogist
in Sicily
Your ancestry, documented
With Sicilian Ancestry, you can entrust your family history research to a professional who lives and works in Sicily.
Your project may involve tracing several generations, obtaining a single record or conducting a specialist investigation using historical sources and genetic genealogy.
Giuseppe Sorbello: Sicilian expertise, international experience
I founded Sicilian Ancestry in 2012, after more than ten years of genealogical research. Since then, I have worked with families living abroad who want to trace their Sicilian ancestry and obtain records held in their ancestral towns.
I am a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, have collaborated with AncestryProGenealogists, and carried out research for the US and Australian editions of Who Do You Think You Are? in 2017 and 2022, respectively. My work includes both documentary research and genetic genealogy.
You can follow your project from abroad, communicating in English while I handle the research and inquiries with Sicilian offices. You do not need to arrange requests to municipalities yourself or travel to Sicily to obtain the records.
Meet Your Genealogist →What would you like me to research?
Family tree research
This service traces direct ancestors from an identified person in your family. You can choose a project covering three, four or five generations before that starting ancestor, with a fixed price and documented results.
Research can also be extended to families sharing a surname within a community or to collateral relatives: the siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins of the ancestors being researched.
Record research and retrieval
Not every project requires a complete family tree. You can commission a search for a birth, marriage or death record, or request documents needed to take an existing investigation further.
When the exact date is unknown, the assignment may also include a preliminary search for the record in the registers of the relevant municipality.
Documents for Italian citizenship
Once you have checked the requirements for your citizenship application and the documents requested by the relevant authority, you can entrust me with obtaining the Sicilian records.
The service includes locating the records, submitting requests to the appropriate offices, checking the documents received and preparing them for shipping. I check personal details, annotations, signatures and stamps, and request corrections where a document has been issued incorrectly. The assignment concerns documentation; it does not include legal advice or an assessment of citizenship eligibility.
Genetic genealogy
You can submit your case for a specialist assessment to investigate a family line through your DNA matches.
My expertise in genetic genealogy allows me to combine genetic information with documentary research into the families involved. The initial assessment establishes what investigation can realistically be proposed on the basis of the available data.
Research in Sicilian archives
You can commission a focused investigation without purchasing a complete genealogy project: researching a family in greater depth, consulting a local source or continuing an investigation that requires Sicilian records.
The assignment is defined around the question to be answered and the records to be consulted, using civil and church sources according to the needs of the project and their availability.
Military records and ancestral places
Research can also focus on particular aspects of an ancestor’s life: military service, a burial place or the home in which they lived.
These assignments are assessed according to the starting information and the survival of the relevant records and places. Identifying an ancestral home, for example, requires sufficiently detailed historical information to establish its location.
Genealogy Research Throughout Sicily
I research families originating in all nine Sicilian provinces. Each local area has its own civil registers, parish communities and historical archival collections. A research plan must take account of the ancestor's municipality and the period being investigated.
Explore genealogy research in Catania, Palermo, Messina, Trapani, Agrigento, Siracusa, Ragusa, Caltanissetta and Enna. Each province has a dedicated page explaining its local sources and the services available.
What you receive with a genealogy project
01
Family tree research packages include a research report, a family tree and digital copies of the original records.
02
The report presents the sources consulted, the information found and the results. The tree shows the family relationships established, while the document copies allow you to retain the records used in the research.
03
Follow-up support is also included to clarify the information you receive.
A price agreed before research begins
For standard genealogy packages, the price is established in advance according to the scope you select. The objective, planned work and deliverables are agreed before the assignment begins.
Standard research assignments require no advance payment of the research fee. Payment is due when the agreed result is achieved. If that result is not obtained, the research fee is not charged.
This condition applies to standard research, not to every type of assignment. Preliminary investigations over a wider area to identify an unknown town of origin are a separate assignment and require payment in advance.
Submit your research request
To assess your project, send me the name of the ancestor you would like to start with, a known or approximate date and the Sicilian municipality associated with that person. Include any documents already available and explain what you would like to obtain: a family tree, a certificate or a specific investigation.
Your information does not need to be complete. Explain what you know and what is missing, so that I can determine whether research can begin or whether a preliminary assignment is needed. You can use the contact form, email your documents or send a WhatsApp message.