Q: My wife’s family was from Italy, via England. We have found United Kingdom records for 1800s London, saying that G. Angeletta and A. Sassani were married in England, but were born in Italy. For information prior to that, we have hit a “brick wall.” How can we extend the search back in time, to Italy? – D.P., California

A: The first step is to recognize that the surnames may have evolved while the family was in England. The original surname for the husband, G. Angeletta, may have been Angeletto or Angeletti; while Sassano or Sassana may have been the wife’s original surname, rather than Sassani.

When unsure of the validity of surnames from any country, not just Italy, I use the Internet to get a feel for the name. Simply “Googling” a surname can be a quick check. If you search for a strange name and get no “hits,” there’s a pretty good chance that it’s not a valid name. If you do get hits, the resulting sites may give some indication of the region or town where such surnames originated.

A similar approach is to enter the surname in a ship’s passenger manifest search engine, such as those found at Ellis Island online (www.ellisisland.org), Ancestry.com, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org), or Dr. Stephen Morse’s site (http://stevemorse.org/ellis2/ellisgold.html).

Again, if the surname is badly misspelled, you probably won’t get any hits, which at least tells you to try another spelling. If these sites do return results, they, too, will often give a place of origin for the person.

Even though the site may be for immigrants to the U.S., the purpose of the searches in this case is not to find a specific individual, but to determine if a surname is reasonable, and where its origins might be. The free Steve Morse site is especially useful here because it displays towns of origin for each name it lists.

Many websites, free or paid, have information about surnames in a town, region, or country. For example, for Italy, GENS (http://www.gens.info/italia/it/turismo-viaggi-e-tradizioni-italia?t=cognomi&cognome) will give a map of the distribution of any surname entered. The site is in Italian: cerca un cognome means “search for a surname.” Enter the surname there, and click on the Trova (“find”) button.

Other examples include, for Ireland, IrishTimes.com (http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/surname), and so on. Search “surname distribution” for your area of interest to find more.

In the case of the England/Italy example, I would look at the distributions of the various forms of the surnames and try to determine if there was one town or area in which both Angeletta and Sassani occurred, then see whether birth, marriage, or death records were available from that place to further the research.

Q: Are Canadian records generally available online? How can I access them? – J.P.D., Hamilton, Ontario

A: Canada has taken nationwide censuses since 1871 and every 10 years thereafter. In the U.S., the delay for releasing the federal census is 72 years, so the 1940 U.S. census is now available. However, in Canada, the limit is 92 years, so the most recent Canadian federal census available is for 1911, with 1921’s being made public in 2013.

The released Canadian censuses can be found on the free site FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org) and the subscription site Ancestry.com. Many Canadian birth and marriage records are also available on these and other sites.

Limited passenger manifests are available for Canadian ports. However, many immigrants to Canada traveled through U.S. ports, and their records may be found in ships’ passenger manifest search engines, as described in the previous answer.

Be sure to check the “Final Destination” column to see whether the traveler was going to Canada. Online sources also have images of border-crossing records for travel between the United States and Canada, often with information on the traveler’s town and date of birth.

Canadian naturalization records must be obtained in hard copy but can be ordered online at the country’s official records repository, Library Archives Canada (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca).

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