Reviews

We cannot recommend Southern Italy Travel Company and Mirella enough! We reached out to her only a couple of weeks before our trip, and she still took time to go to our town ahead of time, research the ancestry documents, and make connections with not only our family members but also the mayor and a few key people in the town. Read more

I have been doing ancestral healing for a few years and knew I had a wonderful opportunity to learn more about an ancestral line that we knew little about when my brother decided to get married in Italy. This is likely the only time my very large family will be in Italy together, and I contacted Stefano to see if he could access my great-grandfather’s birth certificate. Read more

I contacted Southern Italy Travel in the spring of 2020, amid the pandemic. No one at the firm, nor myself living in the United States, realized the extent of the pandemic at that time. But Mirella Ammirati took on my request to round out my family tree for which I had a few names, a birthdate, and a marriage certificate. From there, she conducted research to learn more about my maternal grandparents’ Abruzzese families from Spoltore. Read more

My mother’s greatest dream was to connect with her Italian family. Over the years, she lost contact as her siblings passed and people moved.  Stefano and Mirella not only connected my mom with her cousin but also brought together members of our extended family we never knew existed. The reunion with family and witnessing my mother make this connection to her roots will stay with me for my lifetime. Read more

We started with researching our ancestors in multiple branches of my family, just to build a family tree. Your work was top-notch – accurate and thorough. The best part was you visited our ancestral towns and found information and records you can’t find on-line. We also enlisted your help in finding any relatives in our ancestry village in Abruzzo. We did not expect you to find anyone, but we decided to take a chance. What a fantastic surprise you had for us when we arrived! Read more

For a long time, I wanted to know the city from where my great grandfather had left for his new world. Luckily, life took me to his town. I am enormously grateful to life and to all those who collaborated to reconnect with my origins. Delighted to know its streets through Stefano, who was an excellent guide and great professional. Read more

It’s been a dream of mine to visit our ancestral hometown in Abruzzo. With the help of Mirella, from Southern Italy Travel, my family and I had an incredible day we will always treasure. From additional research to help fill in our family tree to meeting new cousins and touring the area where our ancestors had lived, Mirella made it a day to remember. Read more

Thank you Southern Italy Travel for the amazing day you put together for my family! The research you did to identify our ancestors and their stories combined with the historical context you provided during our tour of the beautiful town of Lettopalena was thorough and inspiring -to say the least.  Read more

It is impossible to overstate how grateful my husband and I are for the fantastic work done by Stefano regarding my ancestry search. The information his research revealed was incredible. The visit he arranged and led to my ancestral home of Laviano, Italy was exceptional.  Read more

Stefano was amazing!  I contacted Southern Italy Travel to learn more about my ancestors in Southern Italy.  Stefano connected me with help in Calabria to learn about my father – results were incredible as we learned that we have Spanish blood on my father’s side and was able to construct a tree going back 4 generations.   Read more

Our trip to Italy in last summer was the trip of a lifetime.  While we spent many days in Italy seeing the sights, eating the amazing food, and relaxing and enjoying our entire family, our fondest memories are from the day that Stefano planned for our family in the town of Conflenti in Southern Italy.  Read more

My brother, sister and I were astonished by the information he presented that traced our family back in this small Arbereshe town where they’ve preserved their customs and their language for hundreds of years. We even were blessed to meet a cousin! It was a wonderful day that we will never forget. Our family roots clearly came alive! Read more

The tours that Stefano conducted for us in Campania were an incredible experience. Stefano clearly takes pride in his work, and he truly shared in my joy at discovering more about my roots. I could not have been more pleased with the experience. Read more

My sister and I wanted to visit the village where our grandfather was born on a recent trip to Italy, and we contacted Southern Italy Travel to assist us. I am so glad that we did! I highly recommend them, the experience was worth every penny. Thank you!  Read more

This was my second successful research trip with Southern Italy Travel. My grandmother was born in Carapelle Calvisio, L’Aquila. I have been building our family tree for years and I reached farther back then the records online. I needed to visit Carapelle Calvisio to continue my research but the church where the records are kept has been condemned. Read more

Because of Stefano, I was able to make my dream come true to visit the town where my grandmother was born and raised. It is a small town and no one really speaks English. I do not speak Italian, but with Stefano acting as my researcher, translator and guide, it was a wonderful experience! Read more

Mirella delivered on each and every one of her promises: helping us with genealogy research; meeting us at the site; showing us around; and giving us a wealth of background and history. She had a folder of information ready for us, which she went through and explained, and sent us information as a follow-up as well. Read more

Both days fulfilled bucket list dreams of mine – to visit my ancestral villages and to walk in the shoes of my ancestors! Stefano ensured that both visits were memorable, informative and very interesting. We would most definitely recommend his services. Our visits could not have gone any better! Read more

Stefano of Southern Italy Travel helped me from start to finish in investigating my family tree and connecting me to my family in Italy. Before our trip, he communicated with me clearly and could be relied upon to respond promptly to my inquiries.  He used information that I already had to make connections to cousins in my grandparents’ hometown in Italy. Read more

From the very first correspondence, I knew that I was working with a professional who knew how to bring my ancestry research to a new level. Mirella worked with me to custom tailor our day. She left no stone unturned and did a significant amount of research and on-site preparation weeks before we even arrived. Read more

We spent fifteen days in Italy on this trip, and this one day with Mirella was the highlight of the entire trip. It was the experience of a lifetime and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.  If you hesitate at the cost, DON’T.  It is worth every penny, many times over.  Truly a priceless experience that gets better every time I think back. Read more

It is clear to us that Mirella puts her heart and soul into her work. Our day visiting my dad’s ancestral towns was wonderful! It even exceeded our expectations! We met relatives from both sides of the family. Mirella picked us up at our hotel and drove us to both towns. Read more

We spent two magical days visiting the ancestral towns with Mirella and Stefano. They were both well-informed and professional, yet very warm and friendly, and chatting with both of them was lots of fun. We highly recommend their services for anyone who wants to look into their ancestry, or just tour areas of Italy that are off the beaten path. Read more

For many of us, satisfying our natural curiosity about where we came from takes us to the internet where we are presented with abundant misinformation and mistaken identities. Also for many of us, the folks who could fill in the blanks are long since passed. Indeed, it is missing these relations that drives us to honor their memory by documenting their story. Read more

Stefano did a thorough search of my family records in the small town in Southern Italy where my grandfather was born and where he lived until he left to come to the United States in 1906. Until then I only had stories that my grandfather told me when I was a young child and the minimal records I could find on the ancestry search I did from the U.S.. Read more

After not really knowing how to find Italian records, my daughter spent some time and found Southern Italy Travel.  We knew we wanted to visit the little towns my great-grandparents came from, research records and see if any family was still there.  What a fabulous job Stefano did! He met us at the train station and drove us to both towns that they came from. (About a 30-minute drive) From there our true adventure started. Stefano is the PERFECT GUIDE!! Read more

I still cannot believe we actually got to live our dream. And it was all because of you, Stefano and Mirella! Thank you both so much for the stellar research and the amazing tours. To have actually been where my grandparents were born, the churches they attended, where they were baptized, and also get personally guided tours by local historians of their towns was utterly amazing. Read more

Mirella and Stefano were so thorough with their research and organized. The day they planned was well thought out and very rewarding to us. The lunch spot they found was so genuine and the food home cooked, delicious! The hospitality was outstanding. We were made to feel so welcome in the town and saw and learned so much. Read more

Southern Italy Travel more than exceeded my expectations!  Mirella and Stefano are both extremely professional and extremely capable. My initial thought when I contacted them was to get a tour of my great grandfather’s hometown of Ortona in Abruzzo. I had no idea that I actually had any living relatives still there. Read more

Mirella and Stefano were wonderful to work with.  Any questions I had, whether about the tour or general questions about travel to Italy, were always answered quickly and thoroughly. The tour with Stefano was spectacular! His intense research on the town of Panni and on our ancestors was evident. Read more

What a wonderful tour of Colliano!  I contacted Southern Italy Travel to get a tour the town where my great grandmother was from, and to help me find out where my great grandfather was from.  Not only did I get a solid history of the town, it turns out my great grandfather was from Colliano as well…  Read more

Mirella and her brother did an amazing job. Thorough, professional, creatively dogged in their investigation of our family roots only begins to describe how they made our pilgrimage to the town of our Italian origins an unforgettable, emotional experience. Involving local residents in the day helped add a warm, personal touch we did not anticipate…  Read more

What an outstanding job Mirella and Stefano have done tracking down the Bonatucci and Fedele families! We treasured our trip to Abruzzo and it gave myself and our daughters a much deeper understanding of our ancestors as well as why certain habits are so hardwired in our family. We laughed a lot and smiled more. You and Stefano were fantastic guides. Read more

I want to thank Southern Italy Travel for everything they did for us in researching my family history.  The experience Mirella put together far exceeded anything that I thought was possible. I thought we would maybe find out about who my two times great grandparents were and see the church, but I was completely blown away by how she rolled out the red carpet for us in Spoltore, Abruzzo region. Read more

I found Mirella on the Association of Professional Genealogists. I knew that was an organization to be trusted.  I reviewed the websites of all the Italian genealogists on the site and I really liked what her clients said about her. I was impressed with her response and I hired her to research both my great grandfather and my great grandmother’s lines and to accompany us on the first two days of our trip. Read more

Mirella Ammirati’s Southern Italian Travel is an amazing resource for ancestral research and cultural heritage. .Having provided them with some family names and birth dates, they were able to construct a family tree going back five generations. But that was just the foundation of their exceptional efforts to provide me with a day I’ll never forget. Read more

I feel so fortunate that I chose Mirella Ammirati to assist me in my search into my family heritage!  She was responsive to my desire to learn about my father’s heritage in Pozzilli from the moment I found her on the internet.  Initially only stranger to me off the internet, after months of collaboration with her, she became more than a name, a service. Read more

Our remarkable experience started with a visit with the mayor of Torano Nuovo… who was expecting us!  The mayor, as well as all other town’s people we met, were so welcoming and made us feel like long lost neighbors who had returned home. Mirella’s effortless translations allowed for pleasant conversation with all. Read more

Mirella met us in my grandfather’s village, Cercepiccola, with a lovely man who was the representative for the mayor’s office. They gave us a thorough and personalized tour of the village, showing us my grandfather’s Baptismal records, their church and the house my uncle was born in. Read more

As a fourth-generation Italian American I’ve always dreamed of visiting Italy, dreamed of visiting cities like Rome and Naples, but also dreamed of visiting the rural mountainous towns my great-grandparents knew as home before making the arduous journey to the United States.  Read more

My hope was to see where my dad was born, walk the roads he walked, meet family members that hadn’t emigrated to Canada as my father had, and to ‘experience’ a fragment of what may have been his life. Read more