Categories: Podcast

Pursuing Italian Citizenship — Step 3 — The Documents Complete

Step 3

Well it took almost 16 months to collect all the documents. I never would have thought it would take so long to get my mom’s birth and death certificates. Also, we were really having a tough time obtaining my paternal grandmother’s birth certificate and the marriage of my paternal grandparents. I was not really sure about the exact location, but I had a pretty good idea that they most likely got married in Cercola.

My dad’s first cousin, Nicola, lives near there and I figured let me take a shot and ask him if he would go to the comune. Within a week he had an appointment and both documents! Fate? Luck? I don’t know.

So I am now on a very long waiting list, number 6000 in NYC. We’ll see how it goes. I am hoping that maybe we can petition the court in Italy. The other option is to live there for 45 days. I’m hoping for some divine intervention similar to what I got with the Cercola records.

ITAMCAP has done a marvelous job and you can find their link at the bottom of the post and their ads in the sidebar.

Good luck in your pursuit.

Step 2

Step 2 is all about gathering the required birth, death and marriage certificates. Shortly after I approved going forward, I was contacted by ITAMCAP for some more details on my parents and grandparents and just had to send copies of mine and my wife’s license so that they could order the certificates.

Two weeks ago I started to receive the documents and have to send them to ITAMCAP for translation. Two things to note when you order yours. First, while my mom was living in Queens County NY, she actually passed away in a hospital in Nassau County NY, so we got a “not found” from NYC. It took me a few minutes to realize my mistake and we have to resubmit. So something to think about when you start the process. The second thing that I noticed on my grandfather’s death certificate was that his mother’s name was written as “Julia Prince”, the real spelling is “Guilia Princi”. Also, my grandmother’s name was spelled Piromalo, not Piromallo. Everything has to be exact so it is comforting to know that ITAMCAP knows how to deal with these differences.

While you can do all this on your own, for me it was a lot easier to have the experts take care of it. Especially when it comes to translating the American records and searching the records in Italy.

Step 1

For sometime now I have been considering applying for Italian citizenship. I thought about going about myself, but after interviewing Giorgio at ITAMCAP, I decided that in my case it’s best to use a professional. The reason for this decision is mainly because I am up there in years and cannot wait 6 to 8 years for it to go through.

I learned, from Giorgio, that you can get it much quicker if you spend 45 to 60 days in Italy after your paperwork is completed and you have approval from the consulate in the US. Gathering the proper paperwork, getting apostiles and translations can still take a significant amount of time, but once approved you are on the fast track.

Step 1 with ITAMCAP is to fill out a short from so that they can determine if you are eligible “by blood”, through either your mother or father. I was pretty sure I was good, but this was just confirmed by the team at ITAMCAP and I gave them approval to start the research.

Here is my full interview with Giorgio to learn more about ITAMCAP.