Oops!

I'm pretty sure my great-grandfather was an illegal immigrant. I may be screwed in my attempts to get an Italian passport.

Great Grandpa's Brother

I found the arrival record for someone named Francesco DiJusto, who came to America from the town of MACCHIA VALFATORE!!!!!!

This is significant, because we know for sure that my great grandmother also came from Macchia Valfatore, Italy.

It was a common practice for immigrants to America to marry people from their hometowns.

The only question is: who is Francesco????

As it turns out, he is my great-grand uncle. In his ship manifest record, he claims that he has at least one relative in the US -- his brother Nichola, who lives on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.

That's the man I'm looking for!

A new airplane can't fly until the weight of the paperwork generated by its development equals the weight of the plane itself. - Donald Douglas

From the Italian Consulate:

Documents required for application:

* Your Birth Certificate, with apostille attached and translated into Italian
* Your Parents Marriage Certificate with apostille attached and translated into Italian. Note: If your parents were not married at the time of your birth you do not qualify.
* Your Parents Birth Certificates with apostille attached and translated into Italian (if not from Italy)
* If you are claiming through a grandparent you will need your grandparent's marriage certificates with apostille attached and translated into Italian (if not from Italy) Note: If your grandparents were not married at the time of the birth of your parent you do not qualify.
* Your Grandparents Birth Certificates with apostille attached and translated into Italian (if not from Italy)
* Continue this process back to the ancestor who immigrated from Italy.
* For an Ancestor who immigrated to the US, you will need his/her naturalization records from the USCIS that shows that s/he did not become a US Citizen before their child was born.
* If USCIS responds with "No Records Found" you will have to contact NARA for the information.
* If NARA responds with "No Records Found" you will have to contact United States Census Department and ask for the census that took place before and after your Italian ancestor's child was born with the field report from the street they lived on.
* If the United States Census responds with "No Records Found" it will be assumed your Ancestor never became and US Citizen and retained his/her Italian citizenship and passed it on to their child.
* If there were any divorces in the line between you and your Italian ancestor, you will have to obtain all divorce records with apostille attached and translated into Italian. You will also need a "Certificate of Clerk - No Appeal"
* If any of the people mentioned above are deceased you will need their Death Certificates with apostille attached and translated into Italian (if not from Italy)
* All documents with errors must be corrected before being submitted. For example, if your Italian ancestor immigrated to the US and took on an "Americanized" name (Italian name: Giulia / American Name: Julia) and the Americanized name was used on any previously mentioned certificates the name will have to be corrected to match the name on their Italian Birth Certificate.
* A Photocopy of your current passport and ID
* Your application with sworn affidavit you never renounced your Italian Citizenship.

What have I gotten myself into? What is an apostille? A breath mint?

Wikipedia knows all

From the Wikipedia page Italian Nationality Law:

Special acquisition of citizenship through jus sanguinis

U.S. citizens, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, or others who are descended from an ancestor (parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, etc.) born in Italy may have a claim to Italian citizenship by descent. [1]

One must apply through the Italian consulate that has jurisdiction over their place of residence. Each consulate has slightly different procedures, requirements and wait time. Most importantly the criteria for iure sanguinis citizenship is the same.

* If you were born in the United States or Canada or any other Country where citizenship is acquired by birth (jus soli) and any one of the situations listed below pertain to you, you may be considered an Italian citizen. (For each category all conditions must be met).

* 1) Your father was officially recognized as an Italian citizen at the time of your birth and you never renounced your right to the Italian citizenship.
* 2) Your mother was officially recognized as an Italian citizen at the time of your birth, you were born after January 1st, 1948 and you never renounced your right to the Italian citizenship.
* 3) Your father was born in the United States or a Country other than Italy, your paternal grandfather was officially recognized as an Italian citizen at the time of his birth, neither you nor your father ever renounced your right to the Italian citizenship.
* 4) Your mother was born in the United States or a Country other than Italy, your maternal grandfather was officially recognized as an Italian citizen at the time of her birth, you were born after January 1, 1948 and neither you nor your mother ever renounced your right to the Italian citizenship.
* 5) Your paternal or maternal grandfather was born in the United States, your paternal great grandfather was officially recognized as an Italian citizen at the time of his birth, neither you nor your father nor your grandfather ever renounced your right to Italian citizenship.

I fit condition 5.

great grand papa was a rolling stone

Well, the few remaining family sources are pretty well in agreement: my paternal paternal great-grandfather (father's father's father) almost certainly never became a US citizen. This means that he was an Italian citizen when my grandfather was born, thereby apparently passing the power of jus sanguinis of the Republic of Italy onto my grandfather, who passed it onto my father, who passed it onto me.

I'll have to verify this. Until 1906, local jurisdictions had the power to confer citizenship onto newly arrived immigrants, so if great-grandpa's citizenship records are not in New York, the probably don't exist anywhere.

What does this mean? If I can verify that my great grandpa didn't become a citizen of the US before my grandfather was born, then I should be eligible to receive an Italian (and therefore EU) passport. I don't know if I'll ever use it, but like Jason Bourne, it's nice to have more than one identity.

Technorati Profile

My Quest for an Italian Passport

I am an American citizen. Yet I think it is time to acquire some insurance and get an EU passport. Frankly, I'm frightened of the direction this country is headed in: according to Senator Barbara Boxer the United States is "closer to dictatorship than it has ever been". We've done away with habeas corpus and due process, and I honestly can't help but feel that the people in power did not spend vast amounts of money, effort, and political capital to create a unitary executive only to give it away in 2009.

So the point of an EU passport is to have some sort of escape hatch for when things really start to get bad here. And I'm really, really, really ticked off that I have to feel this way.

Be that as it may, the purpose of this website is to document how a US citizen of Italian American goes about obtaining an Italian passport. I start off with a few handicaps: I suffered a massive fire in my house last year, so things like birth certificates, marriage certificates, and other family papers are gone. Like many immigrants, my ancestors "Americanized" their last name more than 100 years ago, which can make verification of identity a problem. My great grandparents fudged my grandfather's birthdate 102 years ago, for reasons I'll never know, which can make obtaining a birth certificate for him a problem. And it is extremely unlikely that my immigrant ancestors ever became naturalized American citizens. This works in my favor in some respects, and very much against me in others (I'm betting they never show up on a census, for instance).

Anyway, we're going to see how long this process takes, what hoops I'll have to jump through, and what the end result will be. I have a feeling I might be better off simply getting into a quickie marriage with an Irish girl to get an EU passport that way...