Gathering all documents

A Big plus that I have when it comes to gathering the documents required for the Italian citizenship, is that my Grandmother, as well as my aunt, Tata, and my Mom, have either copies or the original Birth Certificates, as well as, the Marriage and Death Certificates, pertaining to my bisnonnos.

Nevertheless, I wasn't aware of my family having such documents, therefore, I went ahead with my first instinct: WWW.  I researched how to get my bisnonnos' BC, Marriage and Death Certificates, and I was able to find a company that will do it for you, called MyItalianCitizenship, they are able to obtain BCs, Marriage and Death Certificates, as well as, Italian Citizenship Certificates; they also have a Forum where its people are very helpful!

Each certificate cost is $55, so I went ahead and gave them all the information I had about my bisnonnos, their DOB, parents names, as well as, their place of birth, Novara and Genova.  The entire package was $125 ($55 x2 BC, plus $15 for Shipping). They sent out two letters to the comunes in Italia and they make one phone call with their service.

I sent in my request on October 25th, and I have yet to receive anything although I contacted them by email and they assured me that the request letters had been sent out.

So, there I was again! I went back to the WWW and searched how to get the documents by myself...and then, just then, I found this Great Forum, they are called ItalianGenealogy.com. 

I found out that I could obtain the BCs all by myself directly from the correspondent comunes.  So, I went to the Italian Comunes page, Comuni.it, and searched for Novara and Genova.  I sent them an email request in Italiano, as well as, a formal letter, also in Italiano.  Here's the format that I used:

Your Name
Address, State, ZipCode
US

____________________________________________________________________________

Ufficio dello Stato Civile

Comune di [comune name]

[5-digit Cap code] [comune name] [2-letter province]

Egregi Signori,

Il mio nome e’ Your Name. Sono una cittadina americana discendente da Italiani e sto cercando di ottenere anche la cittadinanza italiana.

Per questo richiedo, cortesemente, il Vostro aiuto, poiche’ mi necessita l'estratto dell'atto di nascita, in formato internazionale, della mia relation RELATIVE NAME. Ellgi/Ella nacque il day/month/year in City da Relative Father Name e da Relative Mother Name.

                     

Poiche’ io necessito di questo documento per formalizzare la mia richiesta di cittadinanza italiana, e’ molto importante che il suddetto certificato riporti i nomi di entrambi i genitori.

I documenti andranno inviati al seguente indirizzo:

Your Name

Your Address

La mia e-mail: Your Email

Se ci saranno spese da sostenere Vi prego di comunicarmelo e sarà  mia cura inviarvi quanto dovuto a stretto giro di posta.

Molte grazie in anticipo  per la Vostra cortesia ed il Vostro aiuto.

Cordiali Saluti,

Your Name

You can also call them directly, but that is...if you can speak Italiano!  I stuck to the emails and letters, since it seems it's what I do best!

At the Italian Citizenship Message Board, I was told that it may take some time to answer any correspondence received from outside of Italia, since this process is done in person, and usually, they have loads of people to help each day.

I kept my optimism and send the emails and letters anyways.

Exactly a week after my requests had gone out, I receive a letter from the Novara Comune with my bisnonno's brother's BC instead, apparently they confused the BCs.  I emailed them and I sent another letter of these occurrence, and I thank them for their prompt response.  Two weeks later I received my bisnonno's BC in the mail, with a letter attached, that recognizes him as an Italian citizen, descendant of Italian family.

For those of you who don't know this process and how Italian citizenship is obtained, read carefully...

A person born in Italia doesn't mean is Italian, Italian citizenship is acquired by blood, only those born in Italia or abroad from Italian descendants are Italian.

A few days later I was contacted by email by the Comune in Genova, they couldn't find my bisnonna's BC.  As my blood pressure was rising rather quickly, I turned to my friends at Italian Genealogy Message Board, and I was told that Genova is a big city, I needed to find out in which town my bisnonna was born.  I quickly turned to my bisnonna's passport scanned copy that my mom had sent me, and found out that she was born in Isola del Cantore.  With that information at hand, I turned back to my friends who gave me its Comune's address.

The next day I mailed the letter to them.

Three weeks past and today I received a letter from the Isola del Cantore's Comune with....my bisnonna's BC!

Success!!