VIDEO PODCAST (29 minutes) by genealogist Lynn Serafinn on the unique linguistic idiosyncrasies you will encounter when working on your family tree using Italian or Latin parish records from Trentino.
TRENTINO GENEALOGY VIDEO PODCAST (originally broadcast on FRIDAY 21 FEB 2025
The native English speaker (or even the native Italian speaker) can face numerous linguistic challenges when researching their family history using the Trentino parish records. For the English speaker, lack of familiarity with Italian pronunciation is often the first hurdle. But even those who speak Italian must deal with the many quirky linguistic/spelling idiosyncrasies of names, surnames and place names in older parish records, which are different from how they are written today.
In this 29-minute podcast, we will be looking at some basic linguistic principles of Italian pronunciation and spelling (this is mainly for the English speakers), followed by how some of these sounds can ‘shift’ into numerous spelling variants in parish records. After some vowel and consonant basics, we’ll be specifically looking at quirky uses of 6 consonants: C, G, Z, V, H and J, in personal names, surnames and names of places.
I hope you find this video informative, and that it will help you in your research. I welcome your comments and questions below. Alternately, feel free to send me an email via the contact form on this website.
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Until next time!
Warm wishes,
Lynn Serafinn
Genealogist at https://trentingenealogy.com
6 May 2025
If you would like to book a time to discuss having me do research for you, I invite you to read my ‘Genealogy Services’ page, and then drop me a line using the Contact form on this site. Then, we can set up a free 30-minute chat to discuss your project.
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https://trentinogenealogy.com/my-tree/
CAVEAT: Please note that the online version is many years out of date, as I have been working on it offline, and have added many thousands of new people and fixed many errors.
Kia Orana Lynn
So my year has been crazily fast paces this year and I have finally found a chance to watch your podcast Linguistic Idiosyncrasies. Grazie, Molto Grazie. I loved all the information you gave. My daughter is studying Linguistics at university and loves it. I have been trying to learn Italian, I desire to visit Italy and go the the Trentino Parish and look for the records of my ancestors. I even one day wish to apply for citizenship, which I know you do not do and that’s ok. I found your podcast very helpful in my studies of the language especially in the writing. I tend to miss spell many words. You did mention one surname that is in my family tree, we do have it spelt Endrizzi and it is good to know that I may come across it spelt differently. So thank you again and also with the “V” sound sometimes sounding like a “W” such as Violao or Guglielmo. It was all very interesting to me. Even my name, Lori maybe I should change it up to be Jori, just to have a little fun with it. Thank you again. Lori
I am so glad you watched the video podcast on linguistics and found it useful! It’s a geeky topic, and I often wonder if I’m the only person who finds it fascinating, lol.
Regarding ‘L’, linguistically the letter ‘L’ is more likely to be changed to an ‘R’ than a ‘J’. So, perhaps you can start calling yourself ‘Rory’. 😉