Italian words in old records · card A

atto

Atto is Italian for an official act or record: atto di nascita is a birth record, atto di matrimonio a marriage, atto di morte a death.

Atto, from Latin actus, means an act or deed and also an official document. In civil registration each entry is an atto, and the registers are grouped as atti di nascita, atti di matrimonio and atti di morte. Atti diversi are miscellaneous records.

Each act has a number for its year, which you need to request copies and to find the matching processetti. Civil acts were written in two copies, and the second copy, sometimes with indexes, went to the court and later to the State Archives.

As seen in a recordHeading of a civil birth act, Kingdom of Italy, 1870s
Atto di nascita numero ventitre, Vincenzo Coppola
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How to cite this page

Daily Ancestor. "atto." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/italian/atto. Last checked 2026-10-28.

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