If you have started looking into the process of applying for recognition of Italian citizenship jure sanguinis (by right of blood), regardless of whether you are applying via an Italian consulate abroad, via a 1948 case through a judicial proceeding in Italy or via an application at a municipality in Italy, you will need to provide the relevant authority with certified copies of your family’s vital records. These entail certified copies of birth, marriage, divorce (if applicable) and death certificates, including the ones pertaining to the Italian ancestor through whom you are claiming citizenship, as well as your ancestor’s naturalization records, or proof that your ancestor was never naturalized.
But what if you cannot locate a record of birth? What if that specific record is your Italian great grandparent or great-great grandparent’s birth certificate through whom you intend to claim citizenship? It will be the aim of this article to provide you with a few tips which will help you gather more information regarding your Italian ancestor’s birth record.
Firstly, your ancestor’s birth certificate from Italy must be retrieved from the municipality in which the event occurred. A municipality (in Italian comune) is the smallest administrative unit in Italy, and each town in Italy has its own municipality. There are also cases in which a small number of villages might be grouped under one municipality. More specifically, vital records are held by the municipality’s registry office (Ufficio di Stato Civile or Anagrafe), which is responsible for providing certified copies of vital records. You will need to provide the office with your ancestor’s name, potentially his or her parents’ names, and the date on which the event occurred.
Note: in some cases, the local Court or the State Archives which cover the area in which the birth occurred may hold copies of birth registries. This is helpful if the municipality in which the birth occurred does not hold birth registries (perhaps because they were destroyed or lost).
If you have very little information regarding your ancestor’s date and place of birth, below is a list of some documents that are worth investigating to narrow down your research.
Passenger lists
Passenger lists can be found on genealogy websites such as ancestry.com, familysearch.com or statueofliberty.org. In particular, statueofliberty.org has a database which allows you to look for family members who arrived at the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957. A passenger list will typically show name, age, port of departure and arrival, ship name, nationality, occupation, last residence overseas, but also your ancestor’s hometown and destination. Therefore, if you do not hold many details regarding your Italian ancestor’s date and place of birth, a passenger list can potentially provide you with that information. In some cases, finding information regarding the birth of one of your ancestor’s family members may help you determine the place of birth of your ancestor (it is likely that your ancestor’s sibling, for instance, was born in the same place as your ancestor).
Censuses
Censuses can be retrieved from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which hold government and historical records. A census will show details regarding where a family lived, their names, age, level of education, year of marriage, profession and citizenship status, which is divided as follows:
- “na” (naturalized),
- “al” (alien),
- “pa” (first papers), which means that the alien had filed his or her declaration of intention and was in the process of naturalizing but had not yet fully naturalized.
If naturalized, the census will also list the year of naturalization. A census will also typically state the country or town of birth of your ancestors and the date of emigration. As with passenger lists, censuses can be found on genealogy websites such as ancestry.com and familysearch.com.
Cross-referencing multiple census records may help confirm the identity of your ancestor (for instance, by comparing the address or occupation).
Naturalization records
Naturalization records comprise the following: Declaration of Intentions, Petition for Naturalization and the Certificate of Naturalization. These documents can be retrieved from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), or the County in which the naturalization took place. These documents generally listed the immigrant’s name at time of entry to the U.S., date and place of birth, marital status, spouse and children’s names, dates and places of birth, date of first arrival to the U.S. and occupation. In some cases, if the naturalization records pertaining to the ancestor through whom you intend to claim citizenship are unavailable or difficult to locate, it might be worth looking for his/her spouse’s naturalization records which may list your ancestor’s date and place of birth. As a matter of fact, it was quite common for naturalization records pertaining to women to list their husbands’ place of birth and vice versa.
Before 1906 immigrants could naturalize in any of the 5,000 federal, district, state or local court which had the authority to grant citizenship. Therefore, you might need to search the court records of each place where your ancestor lived in order to locate their naturalization records. It might be the case, for instance, that your ancestor filed a declaration of intention in one court and then filed the petition several years later in another court and perhaps in a different state. A few county court naturalization records are now held by the National Archives (NARA) whereas others were donated to state archives. Nevertheless, more information can be found on familysearch.com. After September 26, 1906, all county, state and federal courts were allowed to naturalize using specific forms that were created by the Bureau of Naturalization which later became the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (or USCIS). In addition to the Declaration of Intent, Petition for Naturalization and the Certificate of Naturalization, additional documents were created: the certificate of arrival showed the immigrant’s place of entry, name of ship and date of arrival; the certificate of registry was created to document immigrants who arrived in the United States prior to July 1, 1924, and listed the immigrant’s biographical information when no original record could be located. Other documents include visa files, which were compulsory beginning with the Immigration Act of 1924 and continuing until 1944. Visa files included birth information, parents, children and previous residences. Finally, if the individual was not naturalized he or she might have held an alien registration file, which listed the immigrant’s name at time of entry to the U.S., other names used, date of birth, citizenship/nationality, gender, marital status, race, height and weight, port, date, ship, date of first arrival in the U.S., occupation, date and number of Declaration of Intention and Petition for Naturalization (if filed), and city and state where filed.
Draft cards
Other useful documents are draft cards which were issued by the Selective Service System to identify individuals who were eligible for service in times of war, specifically the two World Wars. Draft cards typically showed the registrant’s name, residence, age, date and place of birth, race, US citizenship and occupation. Some draft cards also showed the individual’s marital status and the name and address of a contact person. Microfilms of these records can be found on genealogy websites such as ancestry.com and familysearch.com.
Finally, other documents which are worth investigating are passports, military papers, newspapers and obituaries, cemetery records, vital records, voting registers and tax records. Please bear in mind that in researching these records your ancestor’s surname or name might have changed due to language differences, misunderstandings due to a foreign accent or to Americanize the name.
Italian Military Records
Italian Military Records contain precious genealogical information. The records were usually issued in dual copies; one was held in the military archive of each military district, whereas the other was held by the “Procura della Repubblica” (a Court at the province level) and after 75 years it was sent to the State Archives of the main province. The records held by some State Archives can be accessed online. These records include information regarding your ancestor’s height, eye color, skin color, birthmarks (if any), parents’ names, place of birth, profession, education (whether your ancestor was able to read or write), the ability to performs military service and the date in which the service began.
U.S. Marriage Records
U.S. marriage records such as marriage licenses and marriage certificates often provide the spouses’ country of birth and the date in which the event occurred. In some cases, they also list the exact place of birth and the spouses’ parents’ names.
Italian Marriage Records
Italian marriage records also show the spouses’ date and place of birth and their parents’ names. If you cannot locate your male ancestor’s place of birth, for instance, but you have details regarding where his wife was born, you can use that information to try and locate a marriage certificate as couples often married in the wife’s municipality of residence. Locating a marriage certificate might in fact provide you with additional information regarding the male ancestor’s date and place of birth.
Church records
Finally, according to Italian law, church records, such as a Certificate of Baptism, can be used to file a citizenship application only if birth registries did not exist when the birth occurred (most municipalities started to hold birth registries between 1861 and 1871). However, it might be difficult to locate the exact church in which the event occurred because there are often several churches in every town in Italy.
We hope that this article has provided you with the necessary information to be able to narrow down your research. For any queries regarding locating and retrieving vital records and for help and further information regarding applying for Italian citizenship, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We’ll be happy to help you.
