B34: I know the name of the church in Italy where my ancestors' records are, how do I find its address?

The various methods suggested for tracking the location of Italian church records seem to be:

• 1. Even with just a comune and CAP postal code but no street address, trust that letters addressed to a church or a government agency are usually delivered. If you don't know the name of the church, address the letter to Chiesa Madre, or Chiesa Madre Latina in case there are non-Catholic Churches in the town.

Postal codes can be found online through the Italian Village Locator.

Follow the Web links from Tardio's Italian Genealogy Homepage: http://www.italgen.com

Or else use the direct URL address: http://www.italia.com/epi/city_loc/form.html

• 2. Check the Italian yellow pages under the category "religione" for all the active churches in a comune. Either follow the links from Tardio or use:

http://www.saritel.interbusiness.it/cgi-bin/pge/ANONYMOUS/anonymous/sess/02

Be patient with the error messages you're likely to encounter along the way. Inactive parishes probably won't be listed here at all.

• 3. Look up the giant "Annuario delle Diocesi d'Italia" in a well-stocked library.

If it's an LDS library, request microfilms 0780555-556.

• 4. Write the provincial bishop's office for the names and addresses of the relevant parishes and priests. (At least the address list for these offices is of manageable size: five pages in Cole's book. And the bishop's office, if knowledgeable and cooperative, can expedite the search considerably.)

It's hard to say which of these different methods is better in which circumstances, but it's clear there's no shortage of approaches.