Genealogy is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle when compiling details to verify if a person is eligible for citizenship via Jure Sanguinis (by descent). The initial step to take is to determine the particulars and ascertain certain facts such as where an ancestor was born, when exactly that person immigrated to America, and if that person had actually gone through the immigration process and naturalized as a US citizen. Subsequent steps are different depending on whether an ancestor naturalized or not. If naturalization occurred, it is imperative to know whether or not the naturalization took place before the birth of the US-born child who is considered to be the next direct connection in your Italian family line linking you to Italy. If naturalization did not take place, this information would be the first major factor in confirming your ability to be recognized as a citizen of Italy.
In this article we will explain more of the intricacies of what steps we, at ICA, take to locate the vital genealogical information in order for a person to be able to make a claim to Italian citizenship. This is part of our obligation free preliminary eligibility assessment for those who have not yet been able to confirm their information and meet the qualifications. Our complimentary assessment delves into your family history to discover the necessary information to affirm your eligibility. After 5-10 business days (1 to 2 weeks) during which we conduct our research, you will receive our response regarding our findings and your eligibility status. We also include all of the digital files for the records we were able to gather on your behalf at no cost.
Depending on how much information you have or don’t have, the key to unraveling the tapestry of your family’s past and its history allowing you to obtain the necessary information will depend on your ability to locate the vital information that the Italian government requires. Some people may find information on a draft card, or naturalization papers, census records, marriage & birth certificates of the child of their Italian born ascendant, from asking long lost relatives and so on.
Searching for relevant documents in Italy can be quite a task as well. This may be especially true for someone who isn’t familiar with Italy’s record keeping systems or does not have the necessary linguistic skills to be able to do the research in Italian. Unfortunately, even for many people who are fluent in Italian and born in Italy, this can be quite an endeavor and a daunting task just to locate documents, or simply to find out if the records exist at all. For example, in some cases, a person may have never had a birth record. If that’s the case, very often you might at least find a baptismal record. An important detail to know is that Italy does not keep a centralized system of records; instead, each comune (municipality) or province is responsible for the documents transcribed in that area for the major life events of the citizens residing in those places. Research can require a bit of detective work and patience.
Our team of expert genealogists here at Italian Citizenship Assistance are quite familiar with this process and have access to databases from across the globe. Very often the search for these documents does not start in Italy. Some of our suggestions for the first places to look when carrying out an investigation for a family’s documents or if a client does not have the knowledge of where these documents might be held, would be to go through US census records. We have very often found that census records can be a major key in establishing information such as country of birth, birth year, marital status, citizenship status, residency address, along with significant facts and particulars which may be a determining factor when pursuing Italian citizenship by descent. However, there are times that the information obtained from the census may be incorrect due to the possibility of vital details or facts being withheld during the actual census interview intentionally or unintentionally. Leaving out ‘key details’ sometimes occurred out of fear or hopes of avoiding deportation. It is important to remember that not all of the Italians who came to the USA resided in the nation legally. Additionally, at times we have found that certain details may not have been truthfully noted in the census records or mistakes were made which could be due to human error or made intentionally for purposes mentioned above. Our genealogy experts here at ICA, have had many clients share their numerous stories passed down by their ancestors. There have been repeated stories about the concern of their ancestor(s) that if it was mentioned to the person taking the census that they weren’t a citizen of the US, there could be negative repercussions. Many discrepancies have gone unnoticed for all these years because at the time the information was taken, confirming and cross referencing was not as easy as it is today. There are cases when an ascendant may not have even been fully aware of the information themselves and reported that their citizenship was American when that wasn’t actually correct and they were waiting for their petition for naturalization to be processed. This may have happened because the person misunderstood the question or omission since many people who came to America and didn’t learn English right away. However, the timing of naturalization can make a significant difference in the JS process as to whether someone may qualify or not.
Other very helpful documents are generally ship manifests, draft cards and naturalization records.
As far as the pursuit of Italian citizenship is concerned, it can actually make things easier for you if your ancestor did become an American citizen as the naturalization records would indicate a precise date of naturalization, clearing any doubts related to the exact moment when the naturalization event precisely occurred.
Generally, the naturalization process was a three-step process involving a declaration of intention, a petition of naturalization, and finally an oath of allegiance. The back of the petition for naturalization generally indicates the exact date when the person was admitted to be a citizen of the USA.
Naturalization papers normally include many other important details. In fact, another way that we use to ascertain the important information required in the citizenship procedure is to examine the naturalization papers of your ancestors. This document usually indicates a birth location and birth date, a marriage date and spouse’s and children’s names, a residency address and other details which would potentially allow you to locate more information leading you to other documents necessary on the journey to Italian citizenship recognition.
When the ancestor wasn’t ever naturalized, proving a “non-naturalization” may be harder especially if there aren’t any census records available confirming the citizenship status of the immigrant. On census records, the indication of the citizenship status was generally done with letters: AL for “legal alien”, NA for “naturalized” and PA to indicate that the person was in the process of becoming a US citizen (but was not yet one).
One of the other common issues to do with ship manifests, draft cards and naturalization records is that the birth location of your ascendant may be partially incorrect. We have very often found that people named the province where they were from rather than the specific village/town. While this may give you a good starting point and help you to know the general area, this can also cause confusion to say the least. This may also necessitate looking for additional documents before it would be possible to advance in the procurement of the precise vital pieces of information that are required.
We have noticed that ship manifests are public records that normally (but not in all cases) indicate an accurate place of birth (the village instead of the province).
When looking at ship manifests, it is worth keeping in mind that if your relative came to the United States with family members (siblings, spouse, parents or uncles etc.), consider that it’s possible that if their own place of origin is not listed, perhaps the places of origin of relatives might be listed along with other pertinent details. During immigration to America and other countries where Italians settled, you frequently find people immigrated with siblings or a number of other family members and they very often stayed together moving to the same location even living on the same street. We have found this type of research to be invaluable sometimes giving clues in locating the information of the person we are searching for. Looking at records of people who lived on the same street who had the same last name and uncovering the vital information of others may lead you to determine a birth place, birth date or other info which may be relevant to the procurement of necessary documents for the Italian citizenship process.
There may be times when no records can be found because names have been modified or translated upon arrival in the USA. It’s not uncommon to find an ancestor who may have a completely different name from their birth name. At times though, the first name or last name may give an indication as to where the family could have originated. This may not necessarily help you on your quest for citizenship, but can be quite interesting historical information of your own family origins. You will often discover some first names may be more common in the north, some more in the south, and some very clearly from Sicily. We have often observed people from different parts of the country will share similar last names with variations in prefixes or suffixes which may give an indication of where to look further. For example, a common Venetian suffix is ‘-ato’…Cavinato or Simonato, just to name two. Then, there are names that you find across the entire peninsula. There may also be those times when an ancestor may have had a common name, for example an Italian name equivalent to ‘John Smith’ in the US. If your great grandfather’s name was ‘Mario Rossi’ and you are looking at ship manifests and historical records, it could be very possible to find multiple entries for that name on various ship manifests for different men from different parts of the country born on different dates with different marital status. The question of course would be: which one is your ancestor? When searching for records, people often run into these kinds of difficult situations and red tape which can seem to be a conundrum to pinpoint the exact information that you require. This is why it may sometimes be necessary to search for multiple records before finding the one that has the key piece of information necessary. It’s not uncommon for one record to lead you to the next document, this can be a true test of one’s patience.
It is necessary to acquire these documents and records because these are critical pieces of information that are absolutely imperative when determining and proving that you are eligible for citizenship. It is essential to verify facts such as place of birth, naturalization status of your ancestor or the registration as an alien during the census. If your ascendant was male, generally the most important pieces of information are: the date and place of birth, if he naturalized and if he did the specific date he naturalized. If your ascendant was female, in addition to the same information as a male being required, the question to know about your grandmother is: when she came to the U.S., was it only her husband who naturalized or did she naturalize as well? She may have never had her Italian citizenship officially revoked since there was a time in America when a woman’s citizenship was contingent upon her husband’s citizenship status. What is possible is that an Italian male naturalized as a citizen of the US and as far as the US is concerned, he was a citizen of the US which automatically made his wife, minor children, and any children born thereafter citizens of the US. Although, according to the Italian government, even if he never on his own accord formally renounced his Italian citizenship, due to the way that the law worked at that time, his Italian citizenship would have automatically been considered renounced. Whereas, in this situation his wife never intentionally renounced her citizenship which means she never lost her Italian citizenship status in the first place. This is why we currently have what is referred to as the “1948 Judicial Case” which is a process that can allow for a judicial process to obtain citizenship through a female ascendant.
These are some of the steps which we take when we offer our obligation free eligibility assessment to determine if you qualify to proceed with the recognition process. For more information and how to get started with your free eligibility assessment.
If you would like to do some of your own research into your family history here are few websites we can recommend.
Ancestry.com – Available in English, a wonderful resource for public records from the USA and one of the most popular, if not the most popular, genealogical resources online. It also allows for people who upload their family tree to become connected with others that may share a common ancestor. Please note that their DNA testing kit will not be able to offer you any information that would be relevant to the legal process for Italian Citizenship by descent. Italian citizenship only can be proven through documented events, not genetics.
FamilySearch.org – Available in English, this is a website similar to Ancestry.com but allows you to create a free account and create a family tree. It’s a site run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a community which very much values the importance of genealogy. Some professionals in the field even say that FamilySearch has a much larger library of content and the only advantage that ancestry has over it, is their user interface. This website is a good option for those who may be a little bit more comfortable with computers, but still not difficult to use by any means.
Ellis Island Passenger Search – Available in English, a website with electronic archives of the arrivals who came through Ellis Island. Even though there may be times when it can be difficult to locate your ancestor, it does not mean that your ancestor did not arrive through that port of entry. It may simply be that the name was either not entered into the system, the name was misspelled upon arrival, or the name you may know your ancestor by was not the same name that was used upon arrival in the USA.
Antenati.san.beniculturali.it – Available mostly in Italian with limited information in English and Spanish. A resource for records in Italy that have been digitized. Keep in mind that not all provinces have been fully indexed or digitized yet. This site may require more extensive knowledge of Italian and the organization system they use. The system is slowly being updated with records being added in chronological order. You may find some provinces have digitized documents through the 1920’s whereas other provinces only have so far digitized documents until the 1860’s
If you have any questions or would like to use take advantage of our free preliminary assessment please contact us.
