I am looking up Genealogical records about my Italian heritage.

I'm already on ancestry.com which I paid for only for a month. I also tried the free site FamilySearch.org

I've found records from Italy that go back to the 1760s, or 1716 for one relative.

How can I go back further?

I did correspond with a woman I met on ancestry.com who said how she went as far as actually purchasing microfilms of records from Italian villages/towns/comunes that have records of everyone that lived there, moved from there, or died there for a period of time.

I do not have a microfilm reader, and even the local library does not have them anymore. Also I'd be looking for the parents or grandparents of just a few people not the entire village/town or city if the person was from there.

It can get confusing because people had large families and at least in Southern Italy they would have people from one family marry another (From what a Southern Italian friend told me they were often times arraigned marriages is that true?), women would not change their last name, and children would be named after their father/mother, grandparents/great-grandparents, or even great-great grandparents.

Is there any way to find these records online for free?

About 10 years ago I did a lot of research on ancestors/family roots, etc. I got all my info from ellisisland.org. However, I have a few I can suggest. Keep in mind, I have not been to these sites recently but I see they still exist.

cyndieslist.com
familysearch.org
rootsweb.com
gensource.com


TIS

OK thanks. I have used FamilySearch and I found information and records about relatives that were not on Ancestry.com

I will try the other sites.