Document Collection (Part 1- Where to Start)
Some of our certified documents in their final form with their notarizations and apostilles
To Do List:
✅ Get an Ancestory.com Account
✅ Identify our L.I.R.A (Last Italian-Registered Ancestor)
✅ Request Naturalization Documents
✅ Create a Spreadsheet to Keep Track of Your Documents
In this episode we find our main character adrift in an endless sea of paperwork, wondering if she’ll ever find the shore or if she’s doomed to a life of unceasing bureaucratic hurdles and paper cuts.
Any american who has undertaken the process of collecting documentation for a dual-citizenship will tell you that it can be daunting, and overwhelming, and frustrating as hell. It is very likely that they will also tell you that it is an incredibly interesting process, and that you learn so much about your family history. The process of documentation isn’t one I can synopsize in one post, so today I’m going to stick strictly to starting points.
The biggest question people have when they start thinking about collecting and processing their documentation is “where do I start?!”. There is a ton of information out there. Some of it is great, some of it is terrible, some of it not applicable to Americans. One thing I’ve learned while doing our case is that it is important to find reliable information about the process before you start to prevent you from wasting precious time and money - two things we all wish we had more of. With that said, I’m going to go out of my way to remind you that I am just a random person on the internet, guys. I am not a citizenship professional and I speak to my personal experience only. While I hope that recounting our experience can help other people, please folks, do your due-diligence and take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Hands down, the best and most consistently helpful source of information and assistance for me was the Facebook group “Dual US-Italian Citizenship”. Now hear me out before you completely dismiss this because it’s on facebook. We all hate facebook, yet for some reason most of us still have it. That “for some reason” for me was this dual-citizenship facebook group. I kid you not, this group is the only reason I still use that platform at all. It is a wealth of information, it has amazing moderators, it has both first-hand amateur knowledge and knowledge from operating professionals. Additional, IT IS SO POSITIVE. It may be the only corner of the internet that isn’t an echo chamber or cesspool of troll-ish negativity. If it weren’t for the help of the members and mods in this group I would have been so lost and so frustrated. There were many occasions where their collective knowledge saved me time and money while working through our own particular lineage issues. I highly recommend joining that group and using the learning units that they have created to help you learn more about the process and what to expect. Now that I’ve gotten that FB recommendation out of the way, let’s proceed with talking about starting points.
The first step in the journey of obtaining dual US-Italian citizenship is identifying your L.I.R.A (Last Italian-Registered Ancestor) and determining whether you have an unbroken line of citizenship. A great way to start finding and collecting documents is on Ancestry.com. In recent years Ancestry has tightened its membership to the point where you can not save, or even see, most documents without a membership. It is truly a shame that they’ve made such a great resource so inaccessible due to their steep membership costs (its over $40/month. woof). HOWEVER, ancestry does have a one-month free trial membership. I highly recommend cashing in on that offer and being as aggressive as you can be in regards to research for the duration of that month. PRO-TIP: Download everything. once that one month is up you will not be able to access those documents. even if you save them to your family tree they will only be visible when you are paying for membership! Download! Download! Download!
Your citizenship case is going to rely on whether you can prove that your L.I.R.A either did not naturalize at all or did not naturalize until the next in the line of descent was born. So it makes sense that you should prioritize the obtainment of your ancestors naturalization documents first. It would be a bummer to spend months researching just to realize you’re ineligible once you get around to your naturalization documents. To do that you will first need to find your L.I.R.As date of birth and when they immigrated to the United States. Once you have that information you can then request naturalization documents. If you and your family have a lot of knowledge about your lineage and perhaps your family members have asserted that they do not believe that your L.I.R.A naturalized, then I would suggest that you request a C.O.N.E (Certificate of Non-Existence) from USCIS. You can request a cone by submitting the G-1566 form found here: G-1566 Form. It is free to request (aside from the cost of postage and the postage on the return envelope that you will need to provide) and has a relatively quick return time of just a few weeks (which is very fast in comparison to a lot of document turn over times.). The C.O.N.E will essentially provide you with a certified statement from USCIS and the Department of Homeland Security saying that within their archives no naturalization documents exist for the person who you listed on your G-1566 (your L.I.R.A). Additionally, you should submit an Index Search Request through the USCIS Genealogy Program (Here is the link to that: USCIS Geneology Program) The cost for the record search is $65 and current wait times for that form are well over a year. For reference, we ordered ours in March of 2022 and still have not heard back from them. Luckily for us, we ended up not needing that search as we found out from family members that he most likely did not naturalize, and when we ordered the C.O.N.E. it verified that he had, in fact, never submitted naturalization paperwork. So in retrospect if I had known then what I know now, I could have pocketed that $65 and bought like 2 dozen eggs (I can’t wait for that joke to age incredibly poorly).
My parting advice to you is to create a document tracking spreadsheet. This process is labor intensive, and redundant, and convoluted. At any given time you may have a dozen requests for a dozen different documents at a dozen different counties in a dozen different states. You will need either originals or certified copies of every single one of the documents (I suggest certified copies - as originals, in my mind, are family heirlooms, and none of the documents will be returned to you after you have submitted them with your application), those documents then need to be notarized if they aren’t vital documents, and then all of the documents will need an apostille. Finally, all of the documents will need to be translated to Italian. Do you see what I’m getting at? Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be impossible to keep track of everything without a well structured spreadsheet… but it is definitely highly improbable that you could keep track of everything without errors without one.
Ciao.
A photo of the ship that my husbands Great-Grandmother immigrated on.
“It is very likely that they will also tell you that it is an incredibly interesting process, and that you learn so much about your family history.”
