Alittle off topic but my son is an italian with the last name Noble as is his father and his father and so on.

If you are serious about tracking the noble side of your families, you must visit the Italian web sites that are dedicated for this purpose. Though they are all in Italian, good old babelfish will be able to translated and give you a flavor of the discussion regarding different family names. Here is a list of the few:

http://www.cognomiitaliani.org this gives you the origins and spelling variations of your name.

http://www.iagiforum.info/ This site will give you the different discussions regarding noble families - very informative.

http://cognome.alfemminile.com/w/cognomi/italia.html This site will give you (via census records) how many people have your surname in Italy and where these families are located.


http://www.antichefamiglie.net/index.html#A Very good for northern Italian family information (North West section of Italy near France).

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.regione.si...- Sorry for the Google web connection but I find this site hard to find. Good for looking up Sicilian nobility and their Coats of Arms

http://www.famiglia-nobile.com/ Another web site for basic information regarding Sicilian nobility.

http://www.collegio-araldico.it/italiano/collegio.htm This is the real McCoy, They will try and research your coat of arms if it is listed in the Italian “Book of Gold”

Hope this helps some of you.