Tag Archives: Immigrant

Jus Sanguinis: The Old Certificate

I know.
I fucking did it again. A long time and no posts.

But, I have finally made some time, so here’s what’s going on:

I received my bisnonno’s marriage certificate on either April 29th or 30th, I believe; I didn’t check my mail on the 29th, but retrieved it on the 30th, if I remember correctly.

There are two possible steps left to the collection process:

1. Request my bisnonno’s alien file to find out when he naturalized, and
2. try to obtain a court order for my grandpa’s birth certificate.

I will admit something: I’ve been avoiding step 1 because I’m afraid that it will say I am ineligible. As I mentioned a while ago, I may be able to hire a lawyer in Italy to obtain dual citizenship through my great-grandmother, but…it takes all of the fun out of it, doesn’t it? Long journeys make a person value something so much more, more often than not.

Stay tuned…

Jus Sanguinis: Lots of Certificates

There have been a lot of certificates being mailed recently, and I am proud to say that I have almost all of the papers I have ordered.

I spent Friday night with my mom, and found out that she had received she and my father’s marriage certificate. I’m honestly not sure when she got it, but she got it.

Here’s the strange thing: The next freaking day, all three birth certificates that we ordered from New York came.

This means that I am only waiting on one more marriage certificate.

Wow.

I know that I still need to order the information on my bisnonno’s naturalization, but if I’m honest, I’ve kind of been putting it off. I know it needs to be completed, though.

Stay tuned.

Jus Sanguinis: Aww…

2 Replies

Last night, I noticed that I had left the garbage and recycling bins out by the curb, as it was garbage day yesterday. When I went to retrieve them, I opened the mail box and found a letter from New York…the country clerk, to be specific.

My grandma and grandpa’s marriage certificate is officially here.

I had absolutely no idea that my grandmother packed hosiery in a factory as a job before she got married…isn’t that amazing? (Well, it may not be to you, but it was to me.)

As sweet as it was to finally receive the certificate, I couldn’t help but cringe at all of the spelling inconsistencies in the names of my family members; if I ever get to the consulate, there may be a few boo-boos to cover with that. Italians really do not take kindly to name inconsistencies…

But still…so freaking sweet.

Stay tuned.

Jus Sanguinis: Postal

I received my certified letter from Italy at last.

Apparently, the whole why-will-you-not-deliver-my-certified-letters thing was the fault of a substitute mail woman. My regular mail woman came to my door on Friday and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Oh, hi!
Mail woman: Hi there! Here’s your mail and your letter!
Me: Awesome! Thanks!
Mail woman: Yeah, the woman who was on the route that day was a substitute; I spoke to her, and she said that she came up to the door, and left your mail on the front step.
Me: …No. She didn’t.
Mail woman: Yeah, I figured she was lying about that, but I down-played everything so that she wouldn’t get in trouble.

…And I would not want her to get in trouble, either. I just want my mail.

Anyway, I ran to my dining room and opened the letter and…well, it wasn’t a birth certificate.
As a matter of fact, I didn’t know what the fuck it was. It had my bisnonno’s information on it, along with his parents’ names and date of birth, but it was in no way a certificate.

A bit later that day, I showed the document to my friend, and he noticed that some parts were in French, and he knows French. After giving it a squint, he translated what it was: An abstract of birth.

Why would they send an abstract of birth?

Then, I realized something:
It could be that there is no actual certificate.
Way back when, people typically wrote the birth of children in a church book or something of the sort, so maybe that’s all they have to give me. It is stamped and everything looks very official, so I have decided that I need to email the consulate and ask them if they would accept this document.

Stay tuned.

Jus Sanguinis: Oh Shit

I received my very first response from all of the document requests I sent out in the mail today, and it was from USCIS.

As I struggled to open the big, brownish envelope, I was nearly shaking in trepidation; did I waste all of that money ordering all of the birth and marriage certificates only to find out that I somehow wasn’t qualified for dual citizenship after all?

RecordFound

(Edited for privacy.)

Probably.

So, my bisnonno did, indeed, become a naturalized citizen.

Yes, I was very freaking sad and disappointed to receive the letter, but I decided not to give up on my bisnonno. My Grandpa DeMasi was born in the beginning of 1919, and if my bisnonno naturalized after my grandpa’s birth, I should still qualify. I’ve conducted a bit of light research on the reapplication process, but haven’t found any definite information on New York naturalization procedures. I’ve found sources that may have the information, but not the information, itself.

What I’m hoping is that it takes five years before the prospective citizen can reapply, and that my bisnonno drug his feet by a few months. The original (or denied) petition was dated January 7, 1914, so if it takes five years to reapply (because it typically took five years to initially apply) AND my bisnonno applied in 1919 AFTER my grandpa’s birthday OR any time thereafter, I could still be in the realm of qualification, but that’s a lot of stipulations that (let’s be honest) probably won’t fall in my favor.

I’ve printed out the G-639 form (http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/form/g-639.pdf), as I really want to know WHEN he naturalized. Besides…that 1930s census DID have the ‘Na’ crossed out, and that was after my grandpa was born.

Stay tuned.

Jus Sanguinis: The Well-Traveled Letter

Three letters made it to the mailbox yesterday:
1. My parents’ marriage certificate request (signed by my mother with her photo identification, the return address being hers, but the money order signed by me);
2. My grandparents’ marriage certificate request (signed by me with my photo identification, the return address being mine, and the money order signed by me);
3. My bisnonno’s birth certificate request.

I drove to the post office to send the letters because honestly, I was paranoid that something stupid would happen if it sat in the mailbox in front of my house for a full 24 hours, and I was not having that. First, I popped the grandparents’ certificate request, then the parents’ certificate request, and when I came to my bisnonno’s birth certificate request, I gave the envelope a kiss before I sent it on its long journey.

I did learn something, though…something important about stamps.

The commune where my bisnonno was born requested a self addressed, stamped envelope. Not being all that seasoned of an international mailer, I figured I’d just need the equivalent postage cost of American stamps.

I was wrong.

American stamps are worthless outside of the American post. I’d basically done the equivalent of flush three stamps down the toilet.

Deeerp.

Like a champ, I’d researched this after I’d sealed the envelope. So, I carefully opened the envelope, took out the self addressed, stamped envelope, and made a new one without stamps. I happened to find two 10 euro notes in my safe, and chose to send one of those in lieu of useless American stamps. I stuffed both the euro note and the new self addressed envelope into the commune’s envelope and taped it closed.

I have four more missions at this point:

1. Get my mother to notarize the three birth certificate requests and
2. send them. Then,
3. get the court order for my grandfather’s birth certificate and
4. send away to get that one, as well.

I did call my good friend’s lawyer mother; she answered and told me that she was driving and couldn’t talk, but she’d call me when she got home. This was Thursday. I still have not received a call back.

And I still haven’t received anything from USCIS.

Stay tuned.

Jus Sanguinis: You Want Me To Do WHAT?

[This is a continuation from the previous post.]

So, where were we? Ahh, yes.

Court Order for Birth Certificates
This sounds scary. I know. The good news is that you may not need to do this, but if you and your family come from New York City, much like me and my family, you probably will.
Let me make this perfectly plain: New York City will NOT release birth certificates to anybody unless they are the person who is named on the birth certificate OR one of the parents of the person who is named on the birth certificate; the ONLY way around this is by obtaining a court order.
And yes, it is definitely a normal reaction to want to pull your hair upon reading that sentence. Even more frustrating, the main rumor on the internet is that a lot of New York lawyers aren’t familiar with this procedure.
Fortunately, my friend’s mom is a lawyer in New York City, and she has agreed to speak with me about it: Unfortunately, we keep playing phone tag.
…That, and I’m kind of scared shitless of talking to her about it. I mean, I want to, but I’m shy around her…very shy.

The good news is that, in theory, I should be able to obtain the three other certificates I need (Mom/brother/me) by having my mom order them together. And yes, I do intend to fund the purchase. 🙂

Marriage Certificates
For my particular and unique situation, I need the following marriage certificates (in long form…ALL certificates, marriage and birth, need to be in long form):
1. Great-grandfather and great-grandmother
2. Grandma and Grandpa
3. Mom and dad

You can read about it more in-depth at: http://www.cityclerk.nyc.gov/html/marriage/records.shtml but this is the short version. If the marriage took place in New York (which all of them did, in my case):

Less than 50 years ago: You need to be one of the people who got married, have written permission from the person/people who got married, or an attorney who needs the certificate for evidence.
More than 50 years ago, but before 1929: The certificate is considered historic and is available to the public.
Between 1866 and 1929: You must obtain the record from the Manhattan Municipal Archives.

Each certificate I need is under a different category.
Why wouldn’t it be that way?

Anyway, the fee is $35.00 for each record from the City Clerk’s office (duplicates are $30.00). I printed two applications for 2 and 3, (BEFORE my printer decided to be difficult) and I intend to have my mom sign hers and copy her photo identification for me. I have yet to send these out, but plan to do so soon enough.

For 1, though, one must go here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/archives/geneology.shtml
Well…it’s not a must: Feel free to try the research room or send away through the mail.
I ordered through the website, and with my particular search parameters and the letter of exemption (and YES, you need that), it came to $26.00. Ordered March 13th, and the email confirmation stated that it should take four to six weeks to arrive in the mail.

Well, that’s about it so far.

Stay tuned.

Jus Sanguinis: Anything Can Happen

I officially began my jus sanguinis campaign on March 2nd, and let’s just say…it’s been interesting.

When I begin to research something of this nature (meaning, something highly complicated and bureaucratic), I check sources of ALL kinds: The companies who want you to pay them for things you could do on your own, the forums for people doing the same thing or who have done the same thing, AND official government websites. When sorting through all of these resources, it is very easy to become overwhelmed and stressed out. So, the first thing I did after digging through all of the information was figure out what documents I absolutely needed.

This sounds like a simple enough task, but haha, you’d be surprised at how incredibly difficult is it, especially when the Italian consulate you need to submit your materials to does NOT have a list of what you need in order to apply on their website. This, I learned, is paramount. It does not matter what other consulates require…it only matters what YOUR consulate requires. If I had followed what random people on forums or the websites who you pay to do the research and acquisitions FOR you said, I would’ve paid for at least six more documents (apostilled and translated, not to mention the court order cost) than I needed. I don’t know about you, but even entertaining the notion of a consulate official waving a dismissive hand at documents I didn’t need after going through THAT much to get them makes me want to scream. Save yourself the time, frustration, and money and check with your consulate first.

Something else I learned is that Italian government entities may move slowly. Being completely unable to obtain the official list of required documents from my consulate (I am under the jurisdiction of the Detroit consulate), I decided to email them, despite the fact that I’d read most emails are completely ignored.
My email was sent on March 2nd; I received a reply on March 13th, so not too bad!

If you, too, are under the jurisdiction of the Detroit consulate, I’ll make it easy for you:

Determination of Italian Citizenship (jure sanguinis)

So, basically, they’re only interested in the naturalization records or lack thereof and the birth and marriage certificates of the direct descendants of the Italian citizen, it seems. This is in stark contrast to what I’d read about needing EVERY birth, death, and marriage certificate from EVERY parental person between my great-grandfather and me.

Ok, so since the list has been in my possession, I’ve become confident about knowing what materials I need. I felt that the appropriate next step was to figure out what documents will take the most time to acquire, and go after them first. Here is my best guess, from slowest to fastest:
1. Great-grandfather’s Italian birth certificate
2. Proof of record non-existence from USCIS
3. Court order for birth certificates [Let me explain at a later date!]
4. Great-grandfather and great-grandmother’s marriage certificate
5. Grandma and Grandpa’s marriage certificate/Mom and dad’s marriage certificate
6. Birth certificates for Mom/brother/me

I knew from the get-go that I’d need all of these documents, so on March 2nd, I started on 1 and 2.

Great-Grandfather DeMasi’s Birth Certificate
I’m fortunate enough to know a native Italian person who was willing to help me, so I asked him to contact the teeny-tiny Southern Italian village (or commune) my family is from. To my amazement, the commune responded to my friend quite quickly; he emailed on March 12th and received a reply on March 14th. When he emailed, he included my great-grandfather’s parents’ names and the date of birth from his naturalization petition (do try to include this information, as well, if you are trying to acquire a birth certificate).
The commune stated that they did find a certificate for Bisnonno DeMasi with all information being accurate except his birth date, which was 11 days off from the birth date he had reported on his naturalization petition. [Bisnonno is Italian for great-grandfather, by the way!] Oh, my…he really was absolutely inept at dates, wasn’t he?
The commune said that they’d need my full name (first, middle, last), birth date, place of birth…all of the same information of all of the relatives I have tracing back to my bisnonno, a copy of my photo identification, a statement saying why I want the birth certificate, a stamped envelope to send it to me IF they can find it, AND 20 days for research. And yes, I found it strange that they’d need 20 days when they said that they knew they had it.
I have typed a response letter in English, put it in Google Translate, then sent it to my friend to have it edited; he has edited it and sent it back, but my fucking printer is jammed up, so I can’t print and send it yet. I had to buy a damn claw grabber on Amazon so that I might be able to pull the two tiny pieces of stuck paper out.

Proof of Record Non-existence
This step was MUCH easier.
The concept is that if a person never naturalized, there should be no record of their naturalization. So, if my bisnonno did, in fact, rage quit the process of naturalizing, there should be nothing there, but you need the USCIS to attest to this.
It was relatively easy to send away for proof. Go here: http://www.uscis.gov/uscis-tags/unassigned/faq/how-do-i-get-certification-non-existence-record-or-no-naturalization-record-deceased-immigrant
Then type up a letter using their instructions and send it off to the address.
I sent my letter on the night of March 3rd and have yet to receive a response.

Stay tuned.