documents supporting citizenship application

[chriszap]

Hi,

A couple of questions:

1) Does anyone have the addresses for the vital statistics and records offices in the following comunes:

Balsorano, L'Aquila
Panni, Foggia
Pedara, Catania

I'm traveling to Italy at the end of the month and I'm going to try to visit the offices in each of these comunes to get the birth records for my great-grandparents.

2) I'll be working with the Consulate in Boston on my citizenship application. (I'm going great-grandfather, grandfather, mother. My great-grandmother was born in Italy as well, though my great-grandparents met and married here.) From other posts in this forum I can see that this can be one of the more challenging ones, in terms of requirements, to deal with. I've sent off an FOIA request to the National Records Center in Lee's Summit. I already have my great-grandparent's declarations and petitions and even their certificate numbers from NARA. Unfortunately, I don't have any certificates. I've read that people have requesting an authenticated letter or some certification from DHS/BCIS (in lieu of a copy of the certificate itself) stating when their relatives became US Citizens or were naturalized. Can someone who has gone through that process please clue me in as to how to do that and to what address I should make that request?

3) Probably the most important one. I'm having trouble figuring out which Comune from which to request my great-grandmother's birth certificate. According to family, she was born in Panni, Foggia. However, according to her naturalization papers she was born in Balsorano, Abruzzi though it does list her last place of residence (before emigrating to the US) as Panni, Foggia. Also, her brother (who was born a year later) who also emgrated to the US lists Panni, Foggia as his birthplace. I'm trying to track down his naturalization papers to see what they say.

Her name was Assunta Paglia. Does that surname sound familiar to anyone who knows surnames in these areas?

I have a copy of her marriage records from church. The record indicates that she was baptized in "Belsacario." This absurd spelling left me little clues as to the actual place of baptism, because there is no such place! The Irish priest who married them obviously knew nothing of Italy. Finally I got hold of her naturalization papers and Balsorano made sense given "Belsacario."

Apologies for the longish post. I'm new and I wanted to get it all out. I plan to participate actively here and return the favor of help to our little community.

Thanks,
-chris

[wldspirit]

To locate comune infos........
http://www.comuni.it./
on the right hand side of the page type in the name of the town and click the green arrow.
wldspirit

[mfjp]

Hi Chris,

Here's a link to her manifest... please confirm if this is the correct one... others willing to help would most likely want to look at the manifest...

First Name: Assunta (her sister Costanza is on line 22)
Last Name: Paglia
Ethnicity: Italy, Italian South
Last Place of Residence: Panni
Date of Arrival: July 24, 1903
Age at Arrival:  14y    Gender:  F    Marital Status:  S  
Ship of Travel: Citta di Milano
Port of Departure: Naples
Manifest Line Number: 0025

http://ellisisland.org/search/shipManif ... 2670060324

Just did a Balsorano town - Ellis search... and not one Paglia manifest from Balsorano....

mfjp