Our next meeting is July 25, 2026 at 10:30 am at the Independence Branch of the Cuyahoga County Library, located at 6361 Selig Drive, Independence, Ohio. We will be having an open forum meeting, where members share their stories, research, questions, and expertise. Bring your questions and brick walls for assistance from the group. If…

Our May 16, 2026 meeting was held at the Parma-Powers Branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library. Our first speaker Kathy Bathgate from the Library demonstrated genealogy resources available through the CCPL library system.  Our main speaker Roslyn Torella presented “Researching Italian Civil Records in Antenati Portale” which provided an overview of Italy’s records and comprehensive…

As of 25 March 2026 Cleveland Italian Ancestry Organization (CIAO) is now an OGS Affiliate Chapter! To find our more about OGS and its member benefits, check out their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/OGSpage) and their website (https://www.ogs.org/).

At our March 21, 2026 meeting held at the Parma-Powers Branch of the Cuyahoga County Library, Tom Kaschalk from the Cuyahoga County Archives presented “Your Cleveland Ancestors Are Waiting: Researching at the Cuyahoga County Archives”. Mr. Kaschalk, who is a long-time archives volunteer, provided an excellent overview of the vast array of records and documents…

On Saturday, January 10, 2026 we met at the Cleveland Museum of Art for the Renaissance to Runway featuring four exhibitions focusing on Italian artistic culture. The exhibits included:

At the Saturday, January 24, 2026 at 10:30 am meeting with Noel Portier, Executive Director of the Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS), he presented an overview of genealogical resources available through the OGS and shared some of the benefits OGS can provide to CIAO (now that we are about to become an affiliate member). Check out…

At our 21 September 2024 meeting Christine Cohen joined us via Zoom to present“ Cousin Baiting and Cousin Stalking”. Cohen shared her insights on how to reach out to living cousins and explore online trees, lineage societies, cemetery indexes, obituaries in newspapers, living people-finder websites and social media to help break down those brick walls in…