Genealogy Tours FAQ

No, when you book a private tour with us, it will be tailor-made
exclusively for you and with the itinerary you choose, that’s why
we won’t allow other clients to join, unless it’s your specific
request.

This is one of the questions our clients often make, particularly
those who want to connect to their family roots and village! The
answer is YES, Calabria is 100% safe, organized crime,
unfortunately, only affects local businesses, but it does not
affect tourists at all who, on the contrary, are really welcome.

Calabria enjoys a relatively mild weather all year round, yet, best time to visit would be from April/ May to October/Mid-November.

We specialize in custom tours with Private Guide/Driver, if you’d like a bilingual Guide or Driver, just let us know. We’ll be happy to plan your custom vacation accordingly.

Yes! We will help you plan your trip so that you can choose what you think works best for you and we will  be constantly in touch with you to help you with tour planning and arrangements and you want to include other areas in your tour, we can help with that, too.

1. Camera and memory card

If you’ve never traveled to Southern Italy, you will be surprised by the rocky landscape, green mountains and blue and green emerald seas …Make sure your camera is fully charged and ensure you have plenty of memory, because you will really want to take many pictures, guaranteed!

2. Walking shoes

Medieval villages in Italy are full of steep hills and winding streets, so be prepared to wear a v pair of very comfortable shoes.

3. Travel clothesline

A traveling clothesline is super thin, it can easily fit into your luggage and can be easily placed to dry in your hotel’s shower or bathtub, so that you can have it ready on the following day.

All our private tours are fully customized so we will work
together to choose the itinerary and include activities such
cooking classes, wine tours, sailing excursions, mountain hikes
or archaeological visits and more.

Price varies depending on how
many days you choose, when and where you want to go, the
activities you want to include and how many people are in your
group. If you have a budget in mind, just send us a message and
let us know. It’s way easier for us to create your ideal tour for
you when we know how much your group members are expecting to
spend.

You will really need to hire a car or minivan to get around in
Calabria and South Italy. There are many reasons for that some of
which it would be too complex to explain: Picturesque medieval
villages, castles and other highlights are often located on the
hills or mountains, more or less away from the coast. Public
transportation is often unreliable and oftentimes does not serve
internal areas of Southern Italy, you might very easily end up
waiting for hours for a train or a bus and your vacation would
really turn into something different… a real nightmare! It’s a
lot more easier to hire a private car and, best option possible,
a Private Guide/Driver. You can go where you want, when you want
and not be tied to a timetable and if you don’t feel like driving
on winding mountain roads and villages which are often, among the
other things in very bad conditions, particularly in mountainous
areas, we really suggest you hire a car with Driver, who is
expert on the area and this is really the best advice we can give
you, just avoid venturing out by yourself if you want to really
enjoy the tour in total relax and without any kind of
inconvenience.    

There are many reasons why a Private Guide is the best solution
for your tour, following some of the most relevant:

1. You can fully relax and enjoy the landscape and highlights
   instead of having to drive.
2. A good Private Guide can get the most out of your tour by
   optimizing your time so that based on the time available you can
   see the best highlights.
3. Particularly in a Country like Italy full of culture, history
   and archaelogical sites, really an open-air museum, a good local
   Guide can be a precious source of information, stories, legends
   and anedoctes  you won’t probably find in any travel guides
   which can really enrich your knowledge of the Country.
4. Our Private Guides will meet you at your hotel or place and
   drop you off at the end of the day, so that you can relax with
   your family in total privacy.
5. All transfers and daily excursion will be done by a 9 seats
   van or car with air conditioning and English speaking Driver/Tour
   Guide . The van or car have an NCC plate (it is a license close
   to the one of a taxi); the driver has a “K” driving license, the
   “K” allows driving cars with NCC plate. So clients are fully
   insured.
6. Our Private Guides will assist you during the entire tour for
   anything you may need and they will help you with any last minute
   changes you may need for your tour, to make it fully
   customizable.
7. Our Private Guides are extremely professional and discretion
   is very important for them and they will not touch on any issues
   which are normally considered as sensitive.

These and many other reasons for hiring a Private Guide and we
are committed to make your vacation a lifetime experience.

Collect as much information as possible names, dates, places, old
pictures(they were decisive in more than one occasion!) relating
to your family and we’ll do the rest.Doing this before any
genealogy research or Ancestry tour can save a lotof time. If you
have very little information about your ancestors, we will help
you anyway.

No, you don’t have to.But if you already have a family tree and
want to take an Ancestry Tour, we are here to help.

No,we conduct genealogy researches and ancestry tours all over
Italy. The price may vary according to the distance from the
ancestral town.

Well,we can’t have fixed prices for our tours, because they vary
based on our customers’ needs and interests, that’s why we will
be able to give you a price only when we know the services you
need.

The research we conduct is based exclusively on certified documents from the local Registry Office, church, etc…we will need to be authorized directly by you to start the Genealogy Research by presenting an official request with a PEC(certified email).

Normally, our research is mostly based on living relatives, so if
necessary, we can put you in contact with them and arrange a
meeting for when you visit in Italy.

Yes, we work EXCLUSIVELY with fully Licensed Guides and Drivers, according to the current Italian legislation.

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We cover the entire Italy with our Genealogy Research and services, thanks to our network of genealogists and specialists.

It is a very common situation that you write to the Registry Office of your family’s village or town in Italy, but you receive no answer, why?

Probably, the reason is due to the fact that many local administrations today will only answer to certified emails (PEC, Posta Elettronica Certificata, a special type of email with legal value which is largely used in Italy). In this case, we can send the PEC for you! (PECs are available only in Italy!)

Depending on where in Italy you have to do the Research, price can vary! Clearly, a Genealogy Research which involves 2 or 3 villages or towns will be more expensive than a Research which will have to be made in just one village or town!eraldic Price can also vary, depending on the type of Research, a historic or heraldic research, for instance, will be more expensive than a regular family research!

If you’re planning to book a Genealogy Research with us but you can’t travel, this is how it works:

You contact us with the name of the village/town in Italy where the research should be done!

You provide date of birth(DOB) of the family members you’re looking for (even an approx date!)

The exact village/s or town/s where the Research should be made. (Not doing so would mean a waste of time and money for both parties and cause the failure of the Genealogy Research!), in other words, knowing that your Grandfather was from Calabria(Region) is not sufficient information for a Genealogy Research, but if you know the town, Reggio Calabria for instance, we will know exactly where we will have to go to do the Research for you!

You will provide us all the family information that might help us in the Research (certificates, photos, etc…)

You will have to authorize us to do the request for you with a PEC to make an appointment with the Registry Office to get the documents for you( We will need a copy of your ID, Driver’s License or any documents that we can attach to the PEC as evidence that we were authorized by you to do the Research on your behalf.

You will book the Genealogy Research with a 50% deposit of the total cost (remaining balance when we have the documents, and we can send them to you. The Research will start only after booking it with a 50% deposit.

Well, if  you need Genealogy Research and family documents from your Italian village or town in Italy, we can do the research for you, we will visit the Registry Office, Church and Cemetry to find deceased relatives for you, we will get you all of the certificates we can find, scan and email them directly to you, wherever you’re in the world(please, be aware that because of the Covid pandemic delays are possible!)

Yes, Ancestry Tours and Genealogy Research and if you can’t travel, we will do the research for you in your Italian family’s village or town and we will send you the results!

Normally, our research is mostly based on living relatives, so if necessary, we can put you in contact with them and arrange a meeting for when you visit in Italy.

All of our Private Heritage tours are customized and include a wide range of travel options.

We can include hotels, private transfers, train tickets to and from your ancestral village, your Ancestry Tour research and tour days, and other unique experiences such as cooking classes, wine-tasting, guided tour days, and more.

No, there is not. We accept all tour requests, even a one-day ancestry tour!

All of our tours are fully customized, meaning travelers choose how many days and nights they’ll spend on their tour, whether they’ll have a private driver or rent a car themselves, how many days their Private Guide and Heritage Specialist will spend with them and what additional activities and excursions they include.

We work with the travelers to choose their base location, help them select accommodations, and make suggestions on day trips.

Genealogy websites are a great way of finding your family’s documents online! Unfortunately, particularly in Calabria and Southern Italy in general, in many cases, many family documents are not yet available online, but directly at the Registry Office or Church where your family is from, and you probably would look in vain for them online!

So, very often, the only way you can get them is making a request directly at the local Registry Office of the village or town your ancestors were from….as simple as that!

Each case can be quite different because what we can do depends on how much accurate information we get from the traveler. We then travel to the village, meet with the city hall employees and continue to search for more documents, if needed.

We use the information we find to locate the neighborhoods, streets, piazza, or homes where ancestors were born. We look for the church they attended and inquire about cemetery information. We talk to locals about the family, how the town would have been during that time, and in some cases, we inquire about and search for Italian relatives.

Once you are here, your Guide and Heritage Specialist will meet you, introduce you to the people he met during his research day and show you the home, neighborhoods, streets, and churches from your family’s past.

You will have a chance to talk to locals about your family and meet people in the village. You can visit the church or cemetery if you like. You’ll have a full multi-course lunch, with wine, either in or near your ancestral village.

Before starting a Genealogy Research, you need to know the exact village or town your family was from! For instance, if you’re looking for your Grandfather’s birth, marriage or death certificate and you know he was from Calabria, this information will not be enough for a successful research!

You need to know the exact village or town in Calabria where the research should be done, your Grandfather’s date of birth( or an approximate one!), and provide as much information as possible that might help in the research(certificates, family’s photos, etc…), if you don’t have this basic information(your family’s village or town, date of birth,et…), your research is probably destined to fail and it could translate into a real waste of time and money on expensive online services and commissioned genealogy research.