Our Mission
To offer concierge anthropological genealogy services to individuals interested in rediscovering their Italian roots, connecting with the country their ancestors once called home, and creating new, personal bridges between the past and the future.
Our training in anthropology and archaeology has had a profound impact on how we see people and history. We believe that people, as sociocultural animals, interact with the world in which they live in complex and nuanced ways. These interactions are mediated by their culture and their values. But beliefs and behaviors are not always obvious when looking at the human past. It is often too easy to superimpose our own beliefs and values on those who are no longer with us. In genealogical research, this often affects the stories of those ancestors we have not personally met. Some are reduced to dry compilations of dates, names, and places that say very little about the person behind them. Others become accounts of family lore that have more to do with fiction than reality. We started Beyond the Record to infuse an anthropological perspective in the reconstruction of personal and family histories. We want them to be accurate yet go beyond the basic information contained in public records. We examine multiple lines of evidence, from civil registration records to ship manifests, immigration records, old maps and newspaper articles. From them, we glean something about the people who left those traces behind. And we use all of the information we find to tell those people’s stories. We tell them in a way that is both methodologically accurate and sensitive to the nuances of each lived life.
Giuseppe Vercellotti, PhD
President
I was born and raised in Italy and migrated to the U.S. for my graduate studies in anthropology. For twenty years, as a bioarchaeologist, I have dedicated myself to reconstructing the lives of people forgotten by history. I am a migrant and dual citizen of Italy and the U.S. I learned firsthand what it means to live between worlds and languages. As my distance from Italy grew, so did my interest in learning more about my roots. I also wanted to preserve my family history for my children. I realized that this sentiment echoes across the Italian American community. This led me to share tried and tested Anthropological Genealogy methods with others. They have the same desire to preserve their connection to Italy.
Alessandro Cariboni
Director of Genealogy Services
My background in topography and medieval archaeology led me naturally to archival research. It also led me to the study of ancient documents from my native Tuscany. For more than twenty years, I have worked on archaeological and anthropological excavations with Italian universities and international research institutes. Gradually, my interest shifted from artifacts to the people behind them. That combination of fieldwork, archival research, and historical analysis culminated in my interest in Anthropological Genealogy. It led me to study Italian migrants, including my relatives who crossed the Atlantic in the 19th and 20th centuries.
