tracing italian ancestors

You are on the wrong site for tracing your ancestry.  You need Italian Genealogy sites and they will advise you how to go about tracing.  I did it myself several years ago.  Good luck!

I guess that you want to trace your grandfather's birth certificate to obtain the Italian nationality "juris sanguinis" . To start with,you must obtain your grandfather's birth certificate and to do that, you would need his date of birth (at least approximate). The "Anagrafe" of the Comune will be able to issue this document. If he was born before 1865, they may not have a Register of Births and you may need to contact the local parishes in order to get a Baptism certificate. From then on, you need to prove the "lineage", so you will need grandfather's marriage and death certificate and a statement from the country where he migrated stating that he did not renounce to his Italian nationality before your father's birth. then you need your father's birth and marriage certificates and your own birth certificate. All foreign documents must be legalized (The Hague Apostille) and translated into Italian by a certified translator. It takes time, energy or money to pay some agency to get all that paperwork. Check with your local Italian Consulate, as they will be able to provide you with a list of documents, certified translators, etc. IT is time consuming, but good luck!!

I've been doing the same but luckily have managed to go back 150 years purely by talking to relatives. The advantage of this is finding out the anecdotes about your ancestors rather than just dates and places. Although I've not used them here are a couple of sites regarding Italian genealogy. www.initaly.com/gene   http://www.italiangenealogy.com/  I'd be interested to hear how you get on