When 2020 began (feels like a lifetime ago) I thought I would write a Guide to Get Italian Citizenship. 
2 months later, Covid-19 (Coronavirus) hit my country.

I'm not in one of the most severely hit areas, we have only 7 cases so far. But what's the situation now?
Let's briefly recap what happened:

20 February: first case of Covid-19 reported in Lodi (Lombardy)
Vo' (Padua province) is also considered a red zone, first person to die lives there

27 February: the virus is spreading. The Italian Goverment isolated the cities of Lodi, Codogno (Lombardy region) and Vo' (Veneto region) for 14 days

8 March: quarantine is over. The disease has considerably slowed down in Veneto. Sadly, in Lombardy it's going ahead at breakneck speed. About 460 people have died up to this moment. There are cases in all Italian regions.

9 March: all Italy is decreed "red area". Which means that the people on our territory can go out for 3 reasons: 

1. work
2. necessity (grocery shopping)
3. health (medical appointments)

And we must carry an affidavit certifying why we are out of our house. For any false declarations we risk spending 3 months in jail and a 206 euro fine.
Schools, gyms, theatres, museums etc. will be closed until April 3rd.

This latest measure will be effective until April 3rd.

So, if you are in my beautiful land right now, what can you do?

Can you go around visiting cities? No. Checks will be made at train and metro stations, on buses, at airport terminals.
Can you go drink a coffee? No, everything is closed.
Can you go shopping? Grocery shopping. And keep at 1 meter from anyone. 
Can you go to the restaurant? No, they are closed. Many of them offer home delivery though. Check apps like JustEat, Glovo, EatinTime.

If you are here to submit your dual citizenship documents, you may wonder: are public offices open?
The decree of the Government provides for banks, insurances, public offices and post offices to stay open. Yet the answer is: it depends on the city. 
Opening hours vary from week to week now, and be resigned for it to be this way until this emergency is over.

In Rovigo, the offices of the local court are open, so I can certify your translations. 
There's no need for you to travel to bring me the documents: I'll send you a courier to pick the documents up and to send them back to you. It's the safest option.

Be patient though. In this period, things will change by the hour, and everything may be slowed down. But you'll make it in the end ;)

It's blog post #4 in my series Get Italian Citizenship in 2020. Today it's all about obtaining documents from an Italian comune - not an easy feat, right?
If you don't have much time to read the full article, just know that you'll have to request documents preferably via snail mail or fax. Or even better, if you know someone who can go to the comune you need, just send them over to the Ufficio Anagrafe and let them do the trick.
In Italy, everything still works better if you do it in person, especially in smaller cities.

Now, let's go on to the main article, which I've taken from the Tapatalk forum.
​
Obtain documents (generally, vital records) from Italy for your ancestor(s) (or yourself, if applicable) who were born there.

You will need a birth or baptismal certificate for at least one ancestor from Italy (your LIRA), which could be yourself. You may also need a birth certificate for that person's spouse, if he or she was born in Italy and your consulate requires it, as well as a marriage certificate for your LIRA if the marriage occurred in Italy. Occasionally, you may need a death certificate from there if your ancestor returned to Italy and died there or if the 1st spouse of your LIRA died in Italy before your LIRA immigrated. These birth, marriage, and death records can be obtained from the Stato Civile of the comune at which these events occurred. One can obtain these certificates by writing to the comune (in Italian, of course) and requesting them; one does not need to demonstrate a need or prove that one is related to a person named on the certificate. See below on how to contact your comune.

Some consulates also require that you submit a certificate of citizenship or a certificate of residence. The former states that someone was a citizen of Italy; it is necessary (in the cases where it is requested) because mere birth in Italy is usually not sufficient to confer citizenship - one must have an Italian parent. The certificate of residence may be requested by a consulate because you are to have your documents registered in the last comune in which your LIRA lived, which is not necessarily the comune in which he or she was born. To date the only consulates that have been known to ask for these certificates are Montreal, which demands both, and Miami, which used to ask for a certificate of citizenship but apparently no longer does.

When one requests a vital record from a comune, one usually receives an extract of the original record. The extract will be a form filled in by hand by a clerk based on the original record that they have on file. Only basic information is included - e.g., name, name of parents', date of birth - much less information than is found in the original record. At the bottom of the certificate will be a signature and seal of the comune. Some certificates are in "international format," with everything written in several different languages, including English and French. Occasionally someone may receive an image of the original record in the books of the comune. Either type of certificate is perfectly acceptable at a consulate - unlike vital records from outside Italy, Italian records do not have to be in long form.

Birth certificates will often have marriage details of the person in question at the bottom. If the person had more than one marriage (say, because of the death of the first spouse), only one marriage will be listed, and it could be either one. Despite having this notation on the birth certificate, a separate marriage certificate is usually required by the consulates. Moreover, such a notation can potentially cause problems for you if the person listed is different from the spouse on the marriage certificate that you submit, requiring you to explain the discrepancy and produce further documentation about a previous or later spouse who is not your ancestor and has nothing to do with your claim. But even in the case where such a discrepancy is present, consulates sometimes ignore it, so it wouldn't necessarily cause such difficulties.

In order to request such a certificate, one should contact the comune, by letter, email, fax, or phone. The comuni have generally responded better to fax or snail mail than to email, but it varies by comune. There are templates on this board for constructing such a letter. Generally you will need to know your ancestor's name, approximate birth date or at least year, and parents' names. If you are unsure of some of this information you can give them your guesses or date ranges, or just leave the information out. However, if your request is not specific enough, they may tell you they can find no records even when the records are there, so it pays to have as much information as possible about your ancestor before requesting a certificate.

It may take weeks or even months to receive a response from a comune, by email or post, or you may not receive a reply at all. If one method of contact fails, it usually is a good idea to try again with a different one. If you know someone, such as relative, in the comune, it often is easier if that person goes to stato civile and orders the certificate in person. The certificates themselves are free, but some comuni require payment for the sending of the certificate, which is generally done by snail mail. This cost is usually no more than a few euros, which you can pay by International Reply Coupons or just euro cash. It usually is best to wait until receiving a request for payment before sending it, although some members have reported not receiving any response until they included such a payment while others have reported sending money and having it returned to them.

If the comune does not have a civil record, it is possible that a Catholic church there has an ecclesiastical one. For births, this would be a baptismal record, whereas for marriages it would be a church marriage certificate. These are acceptable to consulates as substitutes for the civil records. You may also want to submit to the consulate a letter from the stato civile stating that they do not have the record in question, but (unlike in the case of foreign certificates) this doesn't seem to be strictly necessary. One can search for churches by comune here.

Some records are also available from state archives (Archivio di Stato). One would contact them as one would a comune. Some comuni were badly damaged during WWII and their records destroyed. For these one may be forced to rely on archives or church records. If the person for whom you need this certificate is not actually in your line (such as the spouse of your LIRA), a consulate is more likely to be understanding if you can't locate this record from such a comune - in this case just get a letter from the comune explaining why they have no such records.

The LDS church has records, both civil and ecclesiastical, copied from Italian comuni. Some of these records are online, at http://www.familysearch.org, but they have many more records on microfilm that you can view at one of their Family History Centers. (Look at posts linked to in the Index of Topics for more information in how to view these records.) These are the actual original records, which contain a lot more information than the extracts, although they can be hard to read. Generally such LDS records cannot be used for your application, except in rare cases when the certificate in question wasn't really that important to begin with, but they can be used to verify that a comune has a record for an ancestor, to find information that one would need in order to request a certificate, or to determine whether a certificate that one has obtained from a comune has an error.

If you find that a certificate that you have received from Italy may contain an error, or may be for the wrong person, you can contact the comune, point out the error, and request a new one. It is not that common to find that information was mistranscribed when creating the extract. If you have access to LDS records, this can be a good way to verify whether the information in the extract that you've received reflects the original record. It also sometimes happens that information in a marriage record differs from that in a birth record - in this case one can point it out to the comune, and they can perhaps write you a letter acknowledging the discrepancy in their records, which you can then show to the consulate. Be warned, though, that we have never had a member who was able to amend a record in a comune.

Another type of document that you may need from a comune is a so-called (on this board at least) positivo/negativo. Look at this post for more details.

For tips on how to identify the comune of an ancestor or determine his or her parents' names, see this post.

If you already have the documents and just need a quote for their translation, shoot me an email!

2020 is all about getting your dual citizenship. In the previous posts I talked about how to determine if you qualify ad where to apply. Now it's time to talk about the documents you need. 

As usual, I'm taking the full explanation from the Tapatalk Forum, but I also wrote about this topic in the past. 

As a rule of thumb, remember that you will need different documents based on where you decide to apply, i.e. in Italy or in any consulate abroad, and that translation requirements will vary based on that too. So be sure to ask for any specific information to the comune/consulate you choose before you actually have anything translated!
In my experience, if you apply in Italy it's best to have documents translated in Italy. To understand why, read here. 
If you apply abroad, have documents translated where you'll apply. This will save you time and money in the long run.

In order to establish your claim of citizenship, you'll need documents (vital records) supporting the descent of each person in your line from the previous person. You'll also need documents establishing whether and when your LIRA naturalized, which will show that he or she did not lose Italian citizenship before the next person in your line was born. In addition, all recognized Italian citizens are required to keep their home comuni up-to-date with any changes in their status, such as marriage, divorce, or the birth of their children.

Each consulate (or comune) establishes a list of the documents that they will require to support your application. Some, but not all, consulates list these documents on their websites, but these lists are not always accurate. On this board, we have may posts detailing what documents were required during appointment at various consulates - the results are summarized in the ConsulateFAQs forum.

The documents you may need are the following:

• 1. birth certificates for everyone in your line
  2. marriage certificates/license applications for everyone in your line and their spouses who are the parents of the next generation
  3. death certificates for at least some of the people in your line
  4. naturalization papers for your LIRA and possibly your LIRA's parent (usually, father) or documents showing that your LIRA (or the LIRA's parent) didn't naturalize
  5. birth certificates for the non-line parents of the people in your line
  6. death certificates for the non-line parents of the people in your line
  7. a marriage certificate/license application for your own marriage, if you are married
  8. birth certificates for any children you may have
  9. your spouse's birth certificate
  10. divorce records for any divorces by you or someone else in your line
  11. marriage certificates/license applications for previous/other marriages for you or anyone else in your line
  12. in rare cases, birth or death records for a spouse of someone in your line, when that spouse was not the parent of the next person in your line
  13. court records for any legal name change down by anyone in your line, including you
  14. certificate of citizenship for your LIRA, if your consulate requests

1. Birth certificates for everyone in your line (including you). This is the most important set of documents, as they establish the parents of each successive generation, and Italian citizenship is passed from parent to child. The birth certificate from Italy for your LIRA is particularly important - see below on how you can obtain it. In some cases, if your LIRA immigrated as a minor, you may need to go back one generation earlier and obtain the birth certificate of that person's Italian parent(s). The birth certificates should be in "long form," and include the parents' names (including the mother's maiden name), their ages, and their places of birth, in addition to the child's city/town of birth (and date of birth and name, of course). Long-form certificates generally contain a lot more information about the birth; sometimes they are called a "certificate of live birth," and often contain information such as the length and weight of the baby.

If the father is not indicated on the birth certificate, you will need to provide proof of paternity, such as a court order.

2. Marriage certificates for everyone in your line, for the marriages that produced the next generation in your line. These are important because they help to link one generation to the next and rule out coincidences. If the only evidence of ancestry were birth certificates, there would be the possibility that 2 people might be born in the same town, with the same name, in the same year. But since the marriage certificate of someone's parents contains the same names as on that child's birth certificate, but also contains the names of the parents' parents, which match the names on the parents' birth certificates, so it ties both generations together and makes the identification of the parents much stronger.

Marriage certificates often don't include that much information, and for that reason a marriage license application may also be required. The license application is something filled out before the marriage, and usually contains information on the groom and bride's parents and the bride and groom's places of birth and ages or dates of birth. Some consulates insist on the marriage license application in all (possible) cases, some want it only when the marriage certificate is missing important information, and some have never asked for it. It is best to try to obtain it whenever you order a marriage certificate.

There is no requirement that the parents must be married in order for the child to inherit citizenship. In fact, if the parents were not married, generally no documents are required to prove this (but you may run into trouble if a death or naturalization certificate says they were married).

3. Death certificates for the deceased in your line. These contain information generally found on birth and marriage certificates, such as the date of birth, the parents' names, and possibly a spouse's name, and thus serve to corroborate them. However, since the information is often reported by someone who did not know the deceased that well, or at least did not know the parents' names that well, death certificates are often filled with errors, and consulates seem to make some allowances for that. One piece of information on a death certificate that is not found on other vital records is the nationality of the deceased. Consulates will often check in the case where someone claims that their ancestor didn't naturalize that the death certificate states that the ancestor was a citizen of Italy at his death; if the certificate reads "United States" in this case, it could cause major problems (see below). Consulates vary in which death certificates they require - some want them for only ancestors who were born in Italy (perhaps to update the records in the comune for them), whereas others want them for all deceased people in your line. Look at this topic to see what was required at various consulates.

4. Naturalization-related documents. These include documents proving that someone did naturalize, such as a certificate of naturalization (sometimes called a certificate of citizenship, not to be confused with item 14 below), a certificate of derivative citizenship (also sometimes referred to as a certificate of citizenship, distinct from the other 2 meanings), or a completed petition for naturalization with an oath of allegiance, along with other supporting documents, such as a declaration of intent to naturalize or certificate of arrival. These also include documents proving that someone didn't naturalize, such as no-records letters from the proper agencies, certificates of non-existence of record, census records, passports, alien registration forms/cards, or draft cards. See belowfor more details.

5. Birth certificates for the non-line parents of the people in your line. That is, birth certificates for the spouses of the people in your line. Some consulates ask for these, but they don't really seem to have a purpose, unless the person in one's line was female and there was some question about whether the spouse's citizenship could've been transmitted to her. Often a consulate will ask for these certificates, but will not reject an application if they are missing. See this topic to see if they were required at various consulates. In general, it is better to come prepared with them just in case they ask for them.

6. Death certificates for the non-line parents of the people in your line. This is similar to the case of birth certificates for people not in your line, except that they are even less likely to be required and consulates tend to be even more forgiving with errors on them. In rare cases a death certificate may be used in lieu of some other certificate that is unobtainable, such as a birth certificate. See the topics linked in (3) and (5).

7. Marriage certificate/license application for your own marriage, if you are married. Since this isn't really necessary to establish your own citizenship, unless you are a woman who was married so long ago (before 1948) that you could've lost your Italian citizenship, consulates will often let you apply without it and just allow you to register it later (as all Italian citizens are required to do) after your recognition. This certificate will be necessary for your children's recognition, if you have any, as well as for citizenship by marriage that your spouse may acquire through you.

8. Birth certificates for any children you may have. Similarly to the case for your marriage certificate, while you may not need this to apply for your own recognition (although some consulates will still insist on it), you will need it to fulfill your obligation to register and they will need it for their own citizenship claims. In general you only have to register your minor children, as your adult children will have to apply for recognition on their own (with you as their LIRA), but sometimes consulates have allowed people to register their adult children as if they were minors (cf. this topic).

9. Your spouse's birth certificate. This is required under the same circumstances as when your marriage certificate is required, except that if you have no children, they still often don't ask for this until after you are recognized and your spouse is applying for citizenship through you. Still, it is listed in this topic.

10. Divorce records for any divorces by you or someone else in your line. If you have been divorced you'll need to submit records for this event, as part of your obligation as a citizen, although it is not strictly speaking part of your application (some consulates will still insist on them before they'll recognize you, though). For your ancestors who are not applying for recognition, it is generally the case that you need divorce records only when there is some evidence that they divorced, such as an indication of previous marriages on a marriage certificate of a different spouses name on a death certificate, and even then it isn't always necessary. As usual, look the following topic in the ConsulateFAQs: what-divorce-other-marriage-records-were-not-needed-t1410.html.

As for which actual documents are needed for a divorce, while this also varies with the consulate (cf. the previous link), it usually consists of the full divorce judgment (often 30 pages long) and the certificate of no appeal. The latter document in particular can be hard to obtain as they are not issued in every state. See below for more information about obtaining it.

11. Marriage certificates/license applications for previous/other marriages for you or anyone else in your line. That is, marriage certificates for any of your previous marriages, or marriage certificates for any of the people in your line when the marriage was not between the parents of the next person in the line. For your own case, you need to keep your own status and history complete, as explained in (7)-(9). If you are a man who was previously married before 1983, your ex-wife may actually be an Italian citizen via your former marriage and thus may claim citizenship at some point in the future, but even if this is not applicable, consulates still insist on having a record of all your marriages, and some won't recognize you until you provide it (cf. the link in (10)). For your ancestors, as with the divorce records in (10), if there is no evidence of the other marriage(s) in the documents that you submit, you won't need to provide any marriage records for it/them, and even when there is some mention of the other marriage, consulates sometimes ignore them anyway.

12. Birth or death records for a spouse of someone in your line, when that spouse was not the parent of the next person in your line. In other words, the birth or death certificates for a spouse named on a marriage certificate in (11). This is pretty uncommon, but has happened in such cases where the first spouse died and the second spouse was the parent of the next person in the line, but there was an annotation on the birth certificate from Italy for the LIRA's marriage to the first spouse. Again, look at the example in the link in (10).

13. Court records for any legal name down by anyone in your line, including you. If anyone in your line, including you, has legally changed either the given or family name, a record from the court is required. Even in cases where the person's birth certificate has been amended to reflect the new name, consulate's sometimes ask for the court record anyway. If the legal name change occurred on a naturalization document, no further court record is required.

14. Certificate of citizenship for your LIRA, if your consulate requests. Some consulates ask that you supply a certificate of citizenship for your LIRA (from his comune) in addition to his birth certificate. This is because technically mere birth in Italy does not confer citizenship, so it is possible that your ancestor could've been born there but not have been an Italian citizen. Only a few consulates ask for this, and even then it is inconsistently requested. Look at this topic to see when it has been necessary: did-you-have-to-provide-a-cert-of-citizenship-for-ancestor-t1417.html.

In addition to these documents, depending on what discrepancies and missing documents you have, you may be required to submit additional supporting documents such as baptismal certificates, obituaries, birth announcements, censuses (for purposes other than naturalization), letters from vital records officers, no records letters, letters from your comune (e.g., a "positivo/negativo"), or court orders for declaratory judgments that the person named on one certificate is the same as that on another. I'll discuss what these are and when you would need them in the following posts on handling discrepancies and missing documents.

Let's go on with our series to get Italian citizenship in 2020, talking about where to apply. As usual, information comes from the Tapatalk forum. But I had also talked about it in other posts that I'll link to down below. 

Determine the consulate at which you must (or can) apply.

If you reside outside Italy, you can only apply at the consulate (or embassy) that covers the place where you live. However, each consulate sets its own requirements for what constitutes proof of residence, so you may be eligible to apply at more than one consulate if you have evidence, satisfactory to each consulate, that you reside within their jurisdiction. For example, a university student often may be able to apply either at the consulate that covers the student's home state, using the parents' home address, or at the consulate that covers the state where the school is. Typical acceptable proof of residence would be a drivers' license (or non-driver ID) and a utility bill, or sometimes a bank statement. Some consulates have become more strict about this in recent years - for example, NY now insists on a utility bill instead of a bank statement.

If you are a resident, but not citizen, of a foreign country (i.e., not Italy), a consulate in the country where you reside may tell you that you have to apply in the country where you are a citizen. This is not correct, although if your residence is only temporary it is probably better to apply in your home country than to argue.

Even if you can apply at more than one consulate, it is probably best to actually only apply at one at a time; that is, if your application is accepted at one consulate, do not apply at another without first withdrawing your application from the first. However, if your application was not accepted at the first consulate, you are free to apply at any other consulate that considers you to reside in its jurisdiction. In any event, if you have the possibility to apply at multiple consulates, there is no harm in scheduling simultaneously appointments at multiple consulates and then canceling unneeded ones later.

You may apply at a comune in Italy if you actually establish residence there, rather than just visiting on a tourist visa. This may be any comune - it doesn't have to be the one from which your ancestors came.

While it is usually the case that one does not have any choice in where one can apply, in situations where an applicant does, this is a very important consideration that can impact the rest of the process greatly. Wait times to get an appointment or to be recognized, required documents, acceptable and unacceptable discrepancies, whether one needs to go through the time and expense of a court order, which documents need to be apostilled or translated (and by whom), and even whether one is considered to qualify or not can all depend on the place (consulare or comune) at which one applies.

Let's take translations. If you're applying in Italy, it's best to have your documents translated in Italy, period. In my experience, translations brought from other countries usually lack something (like translation of the apostille, which is required in Italy). They often lack an apostille on the translation itself (which is why an Italian comune would not accept it in the first place).
You can ask quotes from translators everywhere in Italy, the place where translations are certified is not important. 
If you're not sure what to expect and how this process works, read these posts:
Official Translations in Italy
Apply in Italy or abroad: how to choose
How does translation work?
​
Still got doubts? Just write me!

Let's continue our series on Italian citizenship. Today we talk about losing citizenship. For the full article, see this link. 
If you're interested in Part 1 and 2, read here.

Losing citizenship

Italian citizenship can be lost in the following ways:

• A. By naturalizing voluntarily as an adult (age 18 and over after 10 March 1975, age 21 and over before then) in a foreign country before 15 August 1992.
  
  B. By renouncing one's citizenship abroad in front of an Italian diplomat or consular official OR stating the intention to renounce one's citizenship to a government official while still residing in Italy and then moving abroad within 1 year.
  
  C. By continuing to serve in a foreign government or military after being ordered to cease by the Italian government and failing to do so within a specified time period. After 15 August 1992, one can also lose Italian citizenship by serving in a foreign military at war with Italy.
  
  D. For an Italian woman,
  • 1. by marrying, and residing with, a foreign man, before 1 January 1948, whose citizenship is automatically transmitted to the woman by marriage.
    2. by the loss of Italian citizenship of her husband, with whom she resides, before 1 January 1948, if she also posses another citizenship (and thus would not be rendered stateless by losing Italian citizenship).

E. For an Italian minor child,

• 1. before 1 July 1912, by the loss of citizenship of the father, if the child resides outside Italy. (This is the so-called 1912 rule.)
  2. on or after 1 July 1912, by the loss of citizenship of the father or legal guardian (after 27 April 1983, of both parents), if the child resides with the father or guardian abroad, if the child is not emancipated, if the child possesses a foreign nationality, and if the child did not acquire that foreign nationality by virtue of being born in a foreign country. An exception to this rule was also made if the mother was the guardian and she lost citizenship by virtue of a new marriage after the death of the child's father.

How can you use this information in practice?

Start with your last Italy-registered ancestor (LIRA). Check that by the time the next person in your line was born your LIRA ha not lost his Italian citizenship (reasons include: naturalization, marriage - for women -, moving abroad as a child). If your LIRA has not lost his citizenship, then the next person in your line is an Italian citizen. Rinse and repeat for all the people in line up to you. 

Why do you need to know if someone in your line lost citizenship?

The main reasons for losing citizenship is through naturalization. Therefore, your line may be failing for these reasons:

1) your LIRA naturalized as a citizen of another country (usually your home country) before the birth of the next person in line
2) your LIRA naturalized as a minor, and his father or mother did too
3) someone in your line's father naturalized before 7/1/1912
4) someone in your line was born after 1948 from an Italian mother, but not an Italian father
5) an Italian woman in your line married to a non-Italian man and got his citizenship, before 1948 and before the birth of the next person in line
6) the husband of an Italian woman in your line naturalized before 1948 and before the next person in line


After examining the above rules and your family history, you can arrive at one of the following conclusions:

• 1. You qualify as a citizen. In this case, you should apply (if you wish).
  
  2. You may qualify, but you're not sure because you lack certain information, such as whether an ancestor naturalized or the date of such naturalization if it occurred. In this case, you may as well make an appointment to apply while you continue to search for this information.
  
  3. You clearly do not qualify, because an ancestor naturalized before the next person in your line was born. In this case, it is advisable not to apply because you will certainly be rejected at any consulate.
  
  4. You fail to qualify, because of the 1948 rule, or because a female ancestor lost her Italian citizenship due to a marriage. In this case, if you wish to pursue this, you should file suit in Italian court, or wait until the law is changed (if it is).
  
  5. You fail to qualify, because of the 1912 rule. In this case, if you wish to try, you should seek to apply at a consulate that is known to not enforce this rule.
  
  6. You seemingly fail to qualify because an ancestor who was born in Italy with both Italian and a foreign citizenship had a parent naturalize after 1912 while that ancestor was still a minor. In this case, you could apply at a consulate that has recognized people in your situation before, or at least one that is not known to have properly understood that such a person would not qualify.
  
  7. You can't determine whether you qualify or not because your case is too complicated. In this case, you should ask experts whether they think you qualify, and if there still is no consensus, apply at a consulate if you wish, being cognizant that you may be rejected.

You already know you qualify and need documents translations? I can help!

Continuing our series about getting Italian Citizenship by Jure Sanguinis in 2020, let's try and understand how to determine if you qualify.
For full information, see this link.

The principles of Italian citizenship are the following:
I. Acquiring citizenship:

• A. A child would be an Italian citizen from birth if:
  • 1. The father was Italian at the time of birth and acknowledged paternity (by, e.g., appearing as the father on the child's birth cert).
    2. The mother was Italian at the time of birth and the child was born on or after 1 Jan 1948. (This is the so-called 1948 rule; see below for a fuller discussion.)
    3. The mother was Italian at the time of birth and the father was either unknown or possessed a citizenship that was not passed to the child.
    4. The child was born in Italy to parents unknown.

B. Everyone who was a citizen of one of the predecessor states of Italy at the time of the founding of the country on 17 March 1861 automatically became a citizen of Italy. This was retroactively true even for former citizens of some states that merged with Italy later, such as the Papal States.

C. Before 27 April 1983, foreign women automatically became Italian citizens upon marriage to an Italian man.

D. Of course one can also naturalize as an Italian citizen, but in that case there would be a record of the naturalization in Italy already and the recognition of that person's citizenship would be unnecessary.

E. Italian citizenship could be reacquired by an adult who previously lost it by returning to Italy and residing there for 2 years, or renouncing any foreign citizenship and returning to reside in Italy within 1 year of the renunciation.

F. A non-emancipated minor child of a man who acquired or reacquired Italian citizenship would automatically acquire Italian citizenship as well, so long as the child was not both living abroad and possessing a foreign citizenship.
N.B.: Mere birth in Italy does not confer citizenship (unless the parents are unknown), so in principle a birth certificate from Italy does not necessarily prove that someone was an Italian citizen.

Are you applying in Italy ad need help with your translations? You're in the right place! Just shoot me an email ;)

A new year has begun. Wouldn't it be great if you got your Italian citizenship by the end of 2020?

If you're new to the process and don't know what I'm talking about, just know that Italian citizenship is based on the principle of jus sanguinis (Latin "right of blood"), which means that the child of an Italian citizen is automatically an Italian citizen from birth. Thus if an Italian citizen has a child abroad, and then that child grows up in that foreign country and has a child, and so forth, every person in that line may be an Italian citizen, whether they are aware of it or not.

But the Italian Government will acknowledge you as an Italian citizen only if you're registered in an Italian comune (municipality), so you'll have to gather documents proving that you descend from Italians.

The basic steps, as explained in the Tapatalk forum, are the following: 

1. Determine if you qualify. (Sometimes you will not be able to do this step until after steps 5b or 2 are completed.)

2. Determine the consulate at which you must (or can) apply.

3. Make an appointment at that consulate. (Depending on the consulate, this step may be postponed until later in the process.)

4. Determine which documents you will need to submit to the consulate.

5. Obtain those documents.
a. Obtain documents (generally, vital records) from Italy for your ancestor(s) (or yourself, if applicable) who were born there.
b. Obtain naturalization-related documents for your ancestors who emigrated from Italy.
c. Obtain vital records from outside Italy for your ancestors and yourself.
d. Obtain the full set of documents required for divorces, such as a certificate of no appeal.
e. Obtain no records letters, court orders to release records, or alternative records in the case where vital records don't exist or can't be found.
6. Treat discrepancies on your documents.
a. Determine which discrepancies require amendment.
b. Amend documents.
c. Write affidavits for minor discrepancies.
d. Obtain letters from Italy (such as a "positivo/negativo") to resolve discrepancies.
e. Obtain letters from vital record officers concerning discrepancies that cannot be amended.
f. Obtain court orders to amend discrepancies or declare that a person named on one document is the same as that named on another (a "finding of one and the same," a.k.a. a "declaratory judgment").

7. Have documents translated into Italian.

8. Have documents issued from outside Italy apostilled. (This step can often be done concurrently with or before step 7, but sometimes a translation or its certification will require an apostille.)

9. Have documents issued outside the area that is covered by the consulate at which you are applying authenticated by the consulate(s) that does cover the area where they were issued. Consulates vary in the degree to which this is necessary.

10. Fill out forms for you and your ancestors indicating that you have never renounced your Italian citizenship. This step may often be done at the consulate. Such forms for your living Italian ancestors may need to be filled out (and had notarized) by your ancestors themselves.

11. Go to your appointment and apply for citizenship recognition. This step may be done earlier in the process, before all the previous steps are completed, but in that case you'll probably need to have a follow-up appointment.

12. If your application is not accepted, repeat the steps 3 through 11 until your application is accepted. Even if your application is accepted, there may still be missing documents or discrepancies requiring amendment. In that case also, repeat steps 3 through 11. In some cases you may be able to submit new documents without having to do so at a follow-up appointment.

13. When your application has been accepted and is deemed complete, wait for acknowledgment, from either the consulate or comune, depending on the consulate, that your birth has been registered in Italy and you may apply for a passport. This acknowledgment may come in form of a letter, an email, or a phone call, or be told to you in person.

14. Apply for your passport. Some consulates require you to obtain your own birth certificate from the comune where your birth has been registered in order for you to be able to apply for a passport, others merely require confirmation from the comune that your birth has been registered, and some allow you to apply for a passport as soon as they accept your application. Strictly speaking, this step is optional.

If you want to know more about this process, read my other blog posts on the topic!​
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If you're applying in Italy, do not hesitate to contact me for a translation quote!

Happy New Year!

After a long break, where a lot of work and a lot of life happened, I’m back with posting here more regularly. So, a happy new year to all you readers.

Since this is the beginning of a new decade, I’m giving you a couple of videos that will help you make it special: a 3-part series of videos by Marie Forleo on how to review the past decade and plan for the next one and an all-time favorite of mine from TED.

​Enjoy and see you on the blog!

To have the full answer, you can watch this video:

If you don’t speak Italian you should definitely think about hiring help. Italian officers often don’t speak English, so it’d be very difficult for you to understand them and be understood.

You can hire an Italian translator to get your documents officially translated, which is something I strongly recommend you do in Italy if you apply here, and ask her if she could help you in case of need. 

As you can read from this testimonial of one of my clients, I did this for them and helped them save their application. A phone call works wonders sometimes!

Over six months after submitting his paperwork for Italian citizenship, with translations of all required documents certified by a translator in the United States, my husband learned that the translations we had could not be accepted because they were not done by a certified Italian translator in Italy.  We were both dismayed as visa deadlines which would force me to leave Italy were fast approaching.
That’s when we found Natalia Bertelli.  She responded to our first call, understood our situation immediately, and volunteered to work directly with the local official responsible for processing the paperwork to ensure that there would be no further issues.  Within two days, she had reviewed the translations of all eleven documents, found a few errors that our US translation service had missed, certified the documents, and had them back in the hands of the commune official.  Before the week was out, my husband got his official Italian citizenship.  All we had to do was supply Natalia with electronic copies of the originals and the translations.
Natalia was efficient, responsive, and easy to do business with.  She met all her promised deadlines with room to spare and, as far as we are concerned, she saved the day. ​

If you have any questions, let's talk!