PAST in Practice

Advancing Genealogical Excellence


A partnership between the Society of Australian Genealogists and Family History Academy, Past in Practice offers specialist courses designed to advance the skills and knowledge of experienced family historians.

Specialist Courses

Deep, focused learning experiences that challenge and extend advanced research and analytical skills in family history.

Collaboration

Courses delivered in partnership with leading educators, institutions and archives to provide access to specialist expertise and collections.

Practice in Context

A commitment to applied learning — exploring real records in repositories, solving research problems to strengthen advanced skills.

Commune and Chiesa: Unlocking Online Italian Town & Church Records

This course is about Italy — the towns, parishes, and archives where your ancestors' lives were recorded. Whether your Italian family emigrated to Melbourne, Chicago, Buenos Aires, or anywhere else in the world, the records you need are in Italy, and this course will show you how to find and use them. 

Across four live online sessions, participants will learn to locate, read, abstract, and cite birth, death, and marriage records in both civil and church collections using major online repositories such as Portale Antenati and FamilySearch, with each session combining instructor demonstration and structured classwork. No specialist knowledge of Italian or Latin is required — the course covers the language patterns and terminology you will encounter in the records and builds your understanding from the ground up, taking you from historical context to hands-on research.

About the Course

Discover the records that document your Italian ancestors — wherever they came from, wherever you are.

This focused online course, delivered in partnership by the Society of Australian Genealogists and Family History Academy, guides you through navigating Italian civil registration and church records with confidence. The course covers the full range of birth, death, and marriage records across three historical periods — and gives you the practical tools to use them, whatever your background and wherever your Italian ancestors settled.

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