Getting Italian Citizenship in 2021: Obtaining Naturalization Documents for Your Ancestors who Emigrated from Italy.

Pandemic or not, you can still pursue your dream of becoming an Italian citizen. So, after a pause, I'm resuming this series about getting Italian citizenship. As usual, this info is taken from the Tapatalk Forum.

For proving that someone naturalized in the US:

1. There are 3 sources of naturalization records in the US: (a) NARA, which has only naturalizations from federal courts, mainly between 1906 and sometimes in the 1950s. (b) USCIS, which is part of Homeland Security, used to be called INS, and was establish in 1906. They have records of most naturalizations after 1905 including recent ones. (c) County courts and local archives of records from county courts, scattered throughout the county, which have records from before 1906 and include naturalizations from after then that did not take place in federal court. One can also use an original certificate of naturalization that was issued to a relative who naturalized.

2. You definitely need either a certificate of naturalization (sometimes called a certificate of citizenship) or an oath of allegiance. These are the only official docs that actually state that someone has naturalized.

3. The oath does not contain enough info to be used by itself, so it always must be accompanied by either a petition for naturalization (sometimes called a petition for citizenship) or a declaration of intent. We've actually only seen one case where someone used a declaration and oath without the petition, a long time ago, so I can't promise that this will work now.

4. The certificate of naturalization is usually acceptable by itself, but not always. This is because it often lacks identifying information such as an exact date of birth (instead of just an age). For this reason, if you present only a certificate of naturalization, you may get asked to submit a petition as well. And if you get asked for the petition, then you may get asked for the oath, too, which is usually on the back of the petition, because if they're not sure that the certificate is really for your ancestor then they'll also need proof of naturalization and a petition without an oath does not constitute such proof. Of course, if you already have the petition and oath then you didn't need the certificate in the first place.

5. An original certificate of naturalization is much more likely to be accepted by itself than a certificate of naturalization from some other source, such as USCIS or a county court. This is because if someone has an original certificate, then in all likelihood it belonged to a relative. OTOH, anyone can obtain docs from USCIS, so a certificate from them is more likely to be for a person who just happens to have a name that is similar to your relative's. NY and Chicago are the only consulates that we have ever seen ask for a petition when presented with an original certificate of naturalization; they don't do this consistently.

6. When one submits docs from a source (USCIS, NARA, etc.), you will often be asked to submit all docs from them, even though all of them wouldn't have been necessary if they weren't available. For uncertified docs you are more likely to be asked for a cover letter or the envelope they came in, too.

7. Consulates generally like to see certified docs. Those from NARA are certified, and often county court ones are, too, although recently we've seen more local archives refusing to certify docs. USCIS docs were certified a long time ago, but now are not, although it is still possible to get a special certification for them, which is necessary if you want to use them overseas. Consulates differ in their requirements for certification. For example, Boston (and only Boston) requires an additional extra certification from a courthouse in Boston for NARA docs from Massachusetts. (They seem to have a harder time dealing with NARA docs from other regions which lack this extra certification.) San Francisco insists that, unless you submit the original certificate of naturalization, then you must submit some sort of certified naturalization doc, although all of them do not have to be certified.

8. NARA docs, so long as they include the petition and oath, are properly certified (which has a different meaning in Boston), and do not contain "major" discrepancies, have always been accepted as sufficient by themselves, at all consulates in the US, even though NARA rarely, if ever, has the certificate of naturalization.

9. County court documents are often the best - they tend to include both the certificate of naturalization and the petition/oath, as well as other docs such as a certificate of arrival; they usually can be certified; they tend to be better quality copies than those from USCIS; and they usually contain a cover letter. The problem with these docs are that they can be hard to find, since there is no centralized source for them, and it may be hard to get the archives/county to certify them. Still, especially for naturalizations before 1906, they may be your only source for the naturalization docs.

10. Note that the sources mentioned in the last 2 items (NARA and county courts) do not overlap. You will be able to find docs at one or the other but not both. And sometimes neither, since some docs that were held at county courts have been transferred to USCIS and now can only be found there.

11. Some naturalization records, including those for more recent naturalizations, are only available from USCIS. USCIS records are uncertified (although with some difficulty can be), so they are not accepted by themselves at some consulates, such as SF. Even some consulates, namely, NY and Chicago, that will usually accept USCIS records by themselves will sometimes ask to see other records, too, because the USCIS records are uncertified, often of poor quality, and have some identifying info blacked out.

Look here for examples of acceptable and unacceptable US naturalization documentation.

 Stay tuned for the rest of the series!

​And if you need help, just shoot me an email!