I want to get dual-citizenship and do qualify juris sanguinis through my mother’s grandparents-my great grandparents who were never naturalized. In fact, they never had any papers of any kind. I have found their names Ellis Island inbound ship’s manifest . . . I am thinking of going to Italy to do this . .I was told being there 2-3 years will be easier for me ? DO I register or apply once there ? Your recommendation ?
I am an English Teacher and planning to go and to teach while there . . .Your advice >
Grazie !
Ciao Davide

The process usually goes like this:
1. You get your father’s birth certificate from Sicily. This doesn’t get translated because it’s already in Italian.
2. You have to get every other certificate issued in America. When I went to the NYC offices, I had to ask specifically for long form.
3. Once they’re in your hand, then you bring them to the appropriate office for the apostilles (for each document). In NYC, these were 2 separate offices. I don’t know how it is in your state. Once you have the apostille, you can have them translated. Actually, I’ve never heard of a consulate asking for a translated apostille, but sometimes people get nervous and I do them because it’s best to be on the safe side. But in theory you can have the documents translated as soon as you receive them. There’s no need to do the apostille.

If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask! Good luck with everything.

Best,

Thanks for your comment.

I can only describe my own experience. I was turned away due to a one letter discrepancy in my last name despite all dates and everything else matching. The difference in my last name is that it used to be di Falco (in Italy) and de Falco (in America) and they didn’t overlook that and I had to battle with them for a long time without seeing any results. So I took my application to Italy, where they were relieved to see a difference of *only* one letter (they’re used to Brazilians coming in with Hispanized spellings of Italian last names, so going from i to e was easy for them!) and my application was finished in literally a month.

I would recommend applying in Italy to everyone that asks me. However, every single consulate save for NYC seems to be great (esp. Houston and Miami) and appear to want to help. I’ve also heard that different consular agents within the NYC consulate itself apparently have their own rules, so it depends on the luck of the draw I guess!

Good luck.

Sorry for the late reply.

I didn’t run into any issues since I was fairly diligent with the whole name situation, plus when I started both my grandparents through which I obtained citizenship were still alive and well. I went through the NYC consulate and they were *quite* nitpicky, even requiring documents from the other side.

However, I grew increasingly frustrated with them and took my application to Italy where they didn’t even need those documents. In my opinion, the consulates are widely different (that should be your first taste of how unorganized things are in Italy! hehe) and all seem to make up their own rules. I would get your paternal documents just to be on the safe side.

Contact me any time with questions/comments. I love to help.

All the best,
Audra

I would also recommend http://www.expatsinitaly.com for some good discussion.

I’d have liked a description of how things went at the Consulate though – I hear they are very strict/nitpicky!

Very helpful info! I’m in the process of obtaining all the documents needed to claim Italian citizenship through my great grandfather, and it can be quite a headache! I wanted to mention that to obtain my g-grandfather’s death certificate from NY State, I need to submit proof that I’m related to him – which means ordering an additional copy of all the birth and marriage certificates for the generations between him and me. Since I don’t know his parents names, I need to wait until I have that certificate to request his birth certificate from Italy. Did you run into any issues like this trying to obtain records?

My other question is, is it absolutely necessary to have documentation for the “other” side of the family? For instance, since I’m going through my maternal side, do I need my father’s birth certificate too? Or is this different depending what consulate you go through? (I live in DC.)

Thanks again!
Jessica