he thought of the individual is constantly aimed at only one objective, which is always the same: knowing the truth at all costs and with any means.

Each person can normally go back three or four generations with his memory: people remember their grandparents, sometimes their great-grandparents, but they are no longer in the habit – as they once were – of keeping trace of the places the family came from: in a word, of their origins. The phenomenon is certainly to be attributed to this moment of loss of identity of the family and of the bonds of relationship with the context that they belong to, which results in a strong ideological void.

Instead, if we just think about it, each one of us has two parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents; only 8 generations ago we were on the eve of the French Revolution; our twelfth ancestor was the same age as Michelangelo and the seventieth was a contemporary of Christ. Tracing the line back from son to father, we would come to the early days of humanity and, substantially, we should all be related.

Genealogy is the science of the blood and, as such, it must be respected: for this reason we seek exclusively the truth and do not produce a pack of lies to satisfy anyone’s vanity. While many people may find more or lest illustrious figures among their forefathers, this kind of research can of course also discover a skeleton in the attic – for example an illegitimate birth or a “no-good” ancestor – but it can also prove very useful for solving a situation or righting a wrong.

The interest is general, because everyone likes to know something more about his or her own history and roots. Indeed, I would say that in our unconscious each one of us feels the need to seek comfort in someone, in something, in a history, that can sometimes compensate the frustrations of everyday life. Our clients are men and women from every walk of life, of all ages, not only in search of “blue blood” but, above all, of clear origins.

The aim is also to keep alive the cult of tradition, the respect of the established authorities and feelings of honour and duty, and, through the memory of the magnanimous deeds and generous actions of their ancestors, to encourage them to follow their high, glorious and upright example. We have indeed set ourselves a great task.

Writing the history of a family, the origins of which are lost in the mists of a distant past, reconstructing its main lines, tracing it from a few fragments that have survived the relentless work of time, is an arduous and difficult task, which requires long experience and scrupulous, patient work, accessible only to a few privileged beings who, by character and vocation, possess an exquisite gift for history.

To succeed in this, we therefore believe it is indispensable and necessary to trace the family tree in a straight line, following the canonical method of notary and military archives (and sometimes even the record of Letters Patent), because only from research carried out meticulously and scientifically can convincing documentation be obtained concerning even claims to heredity or noble titles, coats of arms, predicates, qualifications, treatments, including the discovery of possible errors by scribes, referring to the family or to the person.

Scientific genealogical research in the straight line is the graphic representation of the names of each direct family member that preceded us. We are able to back even 20/22 generations, that is 500 years of fantastic family history.

The researches are real, highly accurate investigations, which normally take from eight to twelve months but which, sometimes, may even last years on account of the extreme difficulties encountered along the way to revealing the truth. It may happen that genealogical research has to be abandoned due to the scarcity or impossibility of finding information, because of destructions, disasters, fires or wars that have taken place over the centuries, or due to the discovery of illegitimate or natural filiation.

The monographic structure of a tree is made up of hundreds of documents, comprising records of birth, baptism, marriage conventions, marriages, deaths, family aggregations and sometimes even noble documents. To put all this together, our skilled researchers must work their way through a vast number of archives since, going back to the Unification of Italy (1861), we find part of the data in the municipal records, whereas through the parishes we are able to go back as far as the Council of Trent (1545/1563), when the religious authorities, encouraged by St. Charles Borromeo, required the parish priests to keep registers in Latin, one for births, one for deaths, one for baptisms and one for marriages (this became common practice in the early years of the seventeenth century).

To go even farther back, we may find help in the State archives, which have an office in each province, and in the notary archives, through which it is sometimes possible to go back as far as the eleventh century.

The hope that inspires us is that of contributing to the renewal of ancient virtues, continuing in the steps of those who preceded us, and of paying tribute to the history of our country and its children, through the infinite spaces of times and its alternate fortunes, as well as perpetuating the memory, strengthening the affections and handing down the bonds and relationships between present and past generations, so that all this wealth of experience and family history can also teach something to our descendants.