records just came!

[davidlatour]

Hi everyone,

I just received the certified copies from the supreme judicial court archives of my g-grandfather's certificate of arrival, petition for naturalization with affidavit of witness and Oath of Allegiance, and his declaration of intention. Do i still need the FOIA documents from USCIS? I would be applying at the SF consulate.

Thanks for your help!

[Luca722]

Hi David,

I do not have any experience with the SF consulate (someone may want to interject here), but from experience in Boston, you need a copy of the Naturalization Certificate or a letter from USCIS confirming his Naturalization on top of the records. OR maybe a letter from the court he Naturalized through.

I would submit to FOIA anyway just to cover your tracks.

Luca

[davidlatour]

Hi Luca,

Thanks for the info. By "certified" i mean they sent me the documents with an attached letter from the Massachusetts supreme judicial court with a seal stating that the documents were authentic. It gives the date, declaration number, and certificate number of his naturalization on the letter. I'm worried that the consulate still might want the USCIS document though. I sent in a FOIA request about a month ago so i have like 17 months to go :-/ Maybe I'll try Italiamerica

-David

[kilarney]

My experience is that you still need the actual naturalization certificate that is obtained through the FOIA request.

[Gildone]

The court record is the actual certificate because that's where his ancestor naturalized. Every consulate is different, though.

[Luca722]

Gildone,

Do you think a certified letter from the court where Naturalization took place would work in replacement of the actual Certificate?

[davidlatour]

If the consulate does want certification from USCIS as well, could i just copy the documents and send them to the D.C office for certification? I'm sure all Lee's Summit will send me is bad copies of the same documents.

[Gildone]

Luca722: I guess I'd have to say that I don't know for sure.

David: You probably ought to call the consulate and ask. It certainly won't hurt to put in a FOIA request to be safe or call DC and ask if you can send copies for certification. I've always found that only the times that I didn't cover all the bases are the ones when I actually needed to.

[davidlatour]

Gildone:

Thanks for the advice! I e-mailed the SF Consulate and I got a response from Anna Maria Stone stating that they were sufficient if certified by the court.


-David