Click play on the player at the bottom to listen to this podcast or find it on Apple Podcasts.
Since so many of you want to reconnect with your Italian roots, I decided to bring in an expert on the topic.
Mary Tedesco is a professional Italian genealogist who spends all of her time researching her own Italian family ancestry and helps other do the same through tours, research, and helping them get dual citizenship.
She is truly passionate about Italy, its history and its people, and it was such a treat to hear about her stories helping people reconnect with the places in Italy that mean the most to them.
So if you’re interested in tracing your Italian ancestry back, take 25 minutes to listen to this amazing interview with Mary Tedesco of Origins Italy.
You’ll learn:
— What it really means to research your Italian ancestry
— What you can do to get started with exploring your Italian ancestry
— How Mary got started researching Italian genealogy
— How you can get dual-citizenship in Italy
— How she became fluent in Italian and how she maintains it while living in Massachusetts
— Three of her favorite words and proverbs
Retraction: Turin was the first capital of Italy after Unification from 1861 to 1865, followed by Florence from 1865 to 1871, and finally Rome from 1871 to present.
My favorite resources from Origins Italy
— My Home Away From Rome: San Pietro a Maida
— Retracing Noni’s Footsteps, Pt. 1
— To get dual citizenship in Italy
Resources Mary Mentioned
— Getting Started With Italian Genealogy
— Hoha hola – Coca-Cola (Tuscan dialect)
— Frizzante – sparkling, fizzy (for water)
— Quando il gatto non c’è, i topi ballano. – When the cat is away, the mice they dance!
— È meglio di parliamo in Italiano adesso! – It’s better for us to speak in Italian now!
— History of Italian Law (Volumes 1 & 2) by Carlo Calisse
— The Regions of Italy: A Reference Guide to History and Culture by Roy Domenico
— Profilo linguistico dei dialetti italiani by Michele Loporcaro
— Storia della Lingua Italiana by Bruno Migliorini
— Dialect of Maida, Catanzaro, Calabria, Italy
Get to know Mary
— Site: http://www.originsitaly.com
— Twitter: @OriginsItaly
— Facebook: Origins Italy
— Instagram: OriginsItaly
Want ridiculously helpful support when learning Italian? Use Italki.
Italki is an online community of language learners and teachers to help you take whatever foreign language you’re learning to the next level.
What’s cool about it is that you can learn directly from home via Skype on your own schedule and skip the traditional school curriculum – which I love because I’ve always been a rebel.
It’s totally affordable, too. I spend $10 with my tutor Giulia – a native speaker – for each 45-minute session, and the lessons are based on what I want to learn, which helps me retain information because I’m genuinely interested.
This style also encourages me to take note of the areas I need to strengthen throughout the week when I watch Italian movies, read books or newspapers, and talk to friends from Italy.
Signing up with Italki is completely free, and you can use the site to find language partners for free until you feel ready to hire an informal or professional teacher.
Go to Italki and start tackling those problem areas you’ve been dealing with alone, like those pesky prepositions, the endlessly confusing sentence structure, and that subjunctive tense that’s been driving you crazy.
Visit Italki now and sign up for a free account.
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