Do this yourself and save money with my helpful tips jure sanguinis

[wolfpaw5555]

Hey everyone, please note when ordering documents within the USA, make sure you request apostille copies for everything or the Embassy will reject your paperwork. Documents that you will order from Italy, will not need to be apostille copies. I cannot stress this enough!

YOU CAN DO THIS ALL BY YOURSELF WITHOUT SPENDING MONEY TO HAVE SOMEONE DO IT FOR YOU! HERE'S HOW:

1. Gather all legal documents such as: Your birth certificate, your mother and father's birth certificates,
death certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees, your drivers licenses, you will need a current USA passport.

2. When you have these documents make at least ten copies of each if not more depending on where you need to go to send your proof to.

3. If you are missing any of these documents contact the state department of vital statistics of where it applies such as Albany, New York, the website will give you a list of requirements of specific requirements of what they need from you to prove you are related.

4. Print out their form and fill it out and follow instructions as provided, they will process it faster if you get a money order.

5. If you need church records like my mom and I did, for example we contacted the Brooklyn Archdiocese office,
they have staff that can assist you. They also have a list of all their Catholic churches with websites, phone numbers and addresses.

6. Compose a mass email that you can copy and paste to each church's rectory and or secretary, be sure to include the names of the people you are searching for, be sure to include dates of birth, death and marriage if applicable.

7. Most churches do not charge a fee and will require a SASE, be sure to give a phone number so they can call you if they have the record or not.

8. For example if you know they were married Kings County, which is now known as Brooklyn, contact the New York City Vital Records Office, to see if they can help you.

9. New York City and surrounding areas for example have a bride and groom registry of which you can check the list to see if your family names show up. If you locate the names I strongly recommend you print out the form from their website and order a copy make sure it is an apostille copy, which means they will have a notary republic that will provide a notarized statement indicating they have verified the information and you will receive that document, it will take about two weeks, there is a fee for this.

10. Research immigration records from Ellis Island. Once you have located them you can order a passenger manifest and the page from entry that will note what ship they arrived from, the date, how much money they had with them, height, eye color, whether or not they could read or write in English, where they will be residing once the process is completed i.e a relative that already came over. There are fees for this, you can use a credit/debit card for this.

11. Go on to the homeland security website which is where you can order copies of naturalization papers, there is a set fee for this.

12. Go to ancestry.com and you can review marriage, birth and death records, social security index and US Census information.

ORDERING DOCUMENTS FROM ITALY

1. Make contact with the local archdiocese historian/ archivist and they will research the exact church where baptismals, marriage records took place, they cannot provide the documents but they will tell you the name address etc to get in touch with if they find the record. Please note when you contact these historians be extremely polite and make sure you send your email both in English and Italian not everyone in Italy reads and comprehends English! Do not be demanding and be PATIENT, it will take several weeks before you get a response. Do not send multiple requests for the same information or they will not respond at all!




2. When making the request at the church, ask them if there is a fee and what the postage costs would be to mail the documents to the U.S would be.

ITALIAN EMBASSY

1. Make contact with the embassy as it can take a few years to get an appointment with them.
Do this before you have all your documents gathered, as it will take you time to gather all the necessary documents, this way you won't have to wait two or more years to get the appointment.
The Italian embassy has a list of documents you will need to provide them with.

2. Our family research four months ago, we finally located and have ordered the missing documents, we don't expect to have the paperwork from Italy before the new year. I hope this helps you. Good luck!