Military district sources
Documentation on military conscriptions and military districts (PDF, 25 KB)
(by Carmela Santoro, State Archivist, 2015)
Available documentation
List of documentation on the military districts of Milan, Lodi and Monza, regarding privates and non-commissioned officers, held at the State Archive of Milan (PDF, 12 KB)
(by Giovanni Liva, State archivist). File update.
N.B.: for the Conscription records 1841-1873 (point 4) for Milan city, visit the Citadel of Archives of the Municipality of Milan (Milano, Via F. Gregorovius 15).
1. Conscription records:
Milan: 1876 – 1925; Lodi: 1876 – 1925; Monza: 1876 – 1925
2. Conscription rolls:
Milan: 1841 – 1925; Monza: 1875 – 1925; Lodi: 1832 – 1925 (N.B.: 1 vol. 1832-1855; 1 vol. 1838; 1 vol. 1859-1871; 1 vol. 1857- 1874; consecutive years 1840-1924 but the years 1841, 1851, 1854 are missing)
3. Conscription roll indexes:
Milan: 1874 – 1925; (1841 – 1873 are preserved in conscription roll folders); Monza: 1875 – 1925; Lodi: 1876 – 1925; (1841 – 1873 are preserved in conscription roll folders)
- For a List of Conscription roll indexes for the Districts of Milan, Lodi and Monza (PDF, 75 KB) and a List of Soldiers for the Military District of Lodi (1832-1875) (PDF, 3675 KB) see page Inventories-D.
- The complete digital reproduction of the conscription roll Indexes for the military districts of Milan (relative to years 1874-1881; 1883-1884; 1895; 1898-1925), Lodi (years 1876 to 1925) and Monza (years 1875 - 1925) are published on the ICAR- Digital Archive portal and available for online consultation.
4. Conscription records of the District of Milan:
1874 – 1940 (list). N.B.: 1874-1882 only revised cohorts; consecutive years: 1883-1940; for years 1841 to 1873: only relative to Milan city, visit the Citadel of Archives of the Municipality of Milan (Milano, Via F. Gregorovius 15).
General information (by Bernadette Cereghini, State archivist, June 2001; revised by Giovanni Liva, State archivist, November 2013)
Before contacting the Archive, those looking for information on their parents, grandparents or ancestors are invited to read the useful and important general information provided below.
It is only possible to trace documents if you know the Municipality of birth but also the Municipality of residence on the 17th birthday of the person in question: in fact, every year the Municipalities produced and filled out the conscription records of male citizens resident in that Municipality when they were called up for compulsory military service; it is also necessary to know the year of birth of the subject: there is room for a little leeway but the range cannot be too broad (e.g. in the case of an ancestor born “between 1855 and 1860”, the chronological interval is too extensive to be able to carry out research via correspondence).
This documentation regards private soldiers and non-commissioned officers.
For information on officers, contact:
- up to the conscription cohort of 1890, the Ministero della Difesa, Direzione generale per il personale militare, V Reparto, 14° Divisione documentazione esercito, V Sezione, via XX Settembre 123/a, 00187 Rome;
- for years 1891 – 1970, requests must be sent to the Centro Documentale dell'Esercito, Via Vincenzo Monti 59, 20145 Milan.
Over the last few years the State Archives have received many requests from descendants of Italian families that emigrated abroad (particularly to South America), also a considerable number of years ago, to trace documents that attest to their origins. As an institution, the State Archive of Milan feels duty bound to perform these researches as thoroughly as possible; however, in the absence of key and accurate basic information from the applicant, regrettably it will be unable to respond to such requests. As such, please be aware that requests which do not indicate Municipality and year of birth will NOT receive a reply.
We also recommend contacting the immigrant museums and archives of Montevideo, Buenos Aires and São Paolo which preserve the landing cards of all immigrants. These documents often provide more detailed personal information including, at the very least, the place of birth of the Italian immigrant; having established the Municipality of birth, or at least the Italian province of birth of the immigrant, it will be possible to forward the request to the vital records services or registry office or the municipality or province that has been traced. As regards searches of vital records, sometimes the information that families have on such events can be inaccurate: for example, when telling their stories to their children and grandchildren, it could be that, rather than giving them the name of the town in which they lived and from which they departed, perhaps small and little-known, some emigrants preferred to say they came from a bigger and better known city (Milan, Turin, Venice, Naples, etc.) that dominated the surrounding area. This vagueness can make searches difficult, if not impossible.
Before the recent creation of the province of Lodi, the province of Milan - the remit for which lies with this Archive as opposed to the State offices - comprised 247 Municipalities (out of 8103 in Italy). Each of these local entities preserves its own independent historic municipal archive with its own registers of vital records - unless these have been destroyed by natural disasters, war, fires or other catastrophes - which should be consulted as a priority.
At the same time, there are no general lists of Italian citizens, divided by year and birth and indicating their Municipality of residence: consider that when the first general census of the population of the then-Kingdom of Italy was performed in 1861, the number of subjects was already over 25 million. For this reason, in this Archive as in other State Archives, there is no documentation that makes it possible to identify people’s Municipalities of residence (“legal domicile”). Finally, the Archive of Milan does not possess any documentation relating to the issuing of passports for overseas travel. For more information see the following page on this website: Sources for research on births, deaths and marriages, and the page The sources for genealogical research held by State Archives on the Ancestors Portal of the DGA.
Last updated: 24/05/2024
