Do I qualify?

[Katedato]

Hi everyone! So glad to have found this forum! I started researching my ancestors from Italy and was wondering if anyone can tell me if I qualify for dual-citizenship or if I'm on to something or right or wrong...

I found on Ancestry.com that my great-grandparents never became naturalized citizens. Based on the census documents from 1910 and 1920 in Hoboken, NJ, my great-grandfather (who I would use as the connection) submitted papers but never received naturalization status. I found 1930 and 1940 census docs and they both said "papers" but not naturalization. I believe he died in 1940. My great-grandmother had alien status on all census documents. My grandfather was born in 1915 in Hoboken, which means he was born to Italian citizens. My father and myself were both born in NJ.

First question, I am assuming that "papers" doesn't mean naturalization? I should submit a request of non-existence to confirm this?

2. Based on my research for obtaining dual-citizenship, it says that the Italian heritage cannot be "interrupted" by the ancestor becoming naturalized before giving birth to my grandfather, which is true because he never naturalized. BUT my confusion would be that wouldn't it be interrupted because then my grandfather and my father are both American? I know that my great-grandfather never transferred any citizenship to my grandfather. I am confused about how I can prove that there is a direct line.

3. I do not have any documentation from my GGF and GF. Is there a way I can obtain the correct documentation without having to travel to Italy and learn Italian?

4. After receiving information USCIS, where do you go from there?

5. Does my father have to become an Italian citizen first before I could apply for dual-citizenship? In other words, does every person that directly descends from my GGF have to be an Italian citizen in order for me to be one?

Apologies for so many questions but any feedback would be super appreciated.

Thanks!
Kate

[mler]

Kate, it appears you qualify. Your obvious path is ggf gf f you.
Citizenship was transferred to each generation automatically at birth. You can apply for recognition if you prove that you ggf never naturalized, and your father can apply as well although this is not a requirement.

You can write directly to your ggf’s comune to request documents or you can hire a service to assist you. There are many of them.

Then you need to gather all birth, marriage, death certificates in long form with apostille.

You will indeed need a statement indicating no naturalization from USCIS as well as census records for confirmation.

It may be wise to schedule an appointment with the consulate at this time. There is a long wait, which should give you much time to gather documents.

[Katedato]

Mler, thanks for your reply! This is great info!

Only other question would be, do I only get my ggf’s documents or do I need everyone’s documents ie my gf and f documents too? I think I read somewhere that you need to provide documents from everyone in the line.

Thanks!
Kate

[mler]

Yes, you will need documents for everyone in the line and also birth certificates for out-of-line ancestors.

[Katedato]

Ok. This all sounds daunting but possible.

For the Request for a Certificate of Non-Existence, it states that we must provide an obituary, death certificate or other documents proving that the person is deceased. Do we need to provide an original death certificate or can I print off the obituary from Ancestry.com??

I would like to start by sending this out but I don't have the originals just yet.

Thanks!
Kate

[Qliner]

Ok. This all sounds daunting but possible.

For the Request for a Certificate of Non-Existence, it states that we must provide an obituary, death certificate or other documents proving that the person is deceased. Do we need to provide an original death certificate or can I print off the obituary from Ancestry.com??

I would like to start by sending this out but I don't have the originals just yet.

Thanks!
Kate

Katedato, I went through the actual citizenship process through the Italian court system since we were faced with the 1948 rule and I did it for 11 members of my extended family, I did all the paperwork myself, it was easier that way. You can order vital records through Vitachek or you can go directly on state websites to their vital records site pages and do it from there. Some might actually send you to Vitachek to do it. Once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty quick. For naturalization records, this site might help you https://www.archives.gov/research/immig ... ralization

Once you have all the records and the line is proven, by blood you ARE a citizen, but you are unregistered and to register you have to prove your line. You should be able to work through the consulate for your AIRE to register, but will need all the paper work in place. So, you've gotten your documents from all over, now what? You have to then send them back to the states where you got them to get an apostille for each one. This sounds more daunting than it is, every state has a site for this process and it tells you what to do. Just follow the instruction, send your docs in, and in a few weeks you get them back with an attached document with the official seal on it that it's authentic. The apostille process is a way of proving document authenticity between countries. Then, the sucky part is they have to be translated and they say "it needs to be a professional translator" which is a bit loose in translation itself. I ended up going on my state's site and finding a list of translators and used one of them for one of the documents. I live in Maine, it was a bit of a stretch to find one! For the rest of the docs, I had Luigi's translator do it for a nominal fee.

If you need vital records from Italy, the lawyer I used there was Luigi Paiano and he also does vital record searches for people, not just citizenship cases (which is what I did). He dug up my mother's birth cert in her little comune in Italy. He's super honest and reliable. Just remember, things in Italy happen about 5 times slower than here, they're very relaxed about time it seems, but none the less thorough and fair.

All that said, you can also hire a service to do a lot of this for you such as the one this site, which has all the information I just gave you, plus the name of a service, which I cannot vouch for but there are a ton of these out there now: https://www.thelocal.it/20191108/how-to ... ance-tlccu

Good luck and keep us posted!!

[Qliner]

Oh and to answer your question, yes they have to be certified copies but they don't need to be the original documents. The states can send death certs, birth certs, marriage certs -- I got certified copies because I didn't want to send out my old originals since you don't get them back, or I didn't anyway, my case was different from yours so it's possible you will have different requirements, but I think it's essentially the same, it's just in my case I had to prove it in court via a law suit basically, where you have to prove it outside of court.