A little about my family...I've got a pretty small immediate family, but I have a ton of second and third cousins, most of whom I've never met, well maybe once at a family reunion about 10 year ago! My grandfather, Angelo was one of eleven brothers and sisters and my grandfather was second to last, so he was a baby. My great-grandparents were born in 1896 & 1897 and started having children in 1903, my grandfather was born in 1916.
So after checking out the website above I went to the San Francisco Consulates website to see if the documents needed were the same, and they were. Once I found out exactly what was needed I figured I would start by trying to get the easiest accessible documents first and see where that takes me. I'm applying through my mothers side of the family: ME>MOTHER>GRANDFATHER>GREAT-GRANDFATHER, so I would need to obtain the following documents:
Birth certificates: me, mom, dad, grandfather, grandmother, great-grandfather, great-grandmother.
Marriage certificates: parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
Death certificates: grandfather, great-grandfather, great-grandmother. (My grandmother and parents are still living)
Naturalization: Great-grandfather.
Luckily I was born, raised, and still live in the same county and my grandparents and great-grandparents for most of their lives lived in the same county. So off I went to the San Mateo County office of Vital Statistics to see what documents I could gather up. At our local county office in Redwood City everything is in one building and I basically went from one station to the next to get the documents; I got all the documents I needed within two days. A few of the older documents needed to be pulled from the warehouse so I had to go back the next day to pick them up. I put in requests to the states that my grandmother and grandfather were born in and got those certified documents within a few weeks. Next was the Certification of Naturalization, the most confusing part I think. First I had to put a search request in with the USCIS(U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to see when and if my great-grandfather was ever naturalized. This was key because if my GGF was naturalized before my GF was born I wasn't eligible. I submitted my search request on the USCIS website on 7/16/11 and received a very quick response(visa US Mail) about 7 days later. The search was successful and my GGF was naturalized after my GF was born, so YES I qualify! Once I got the search results from the USCIS it listed the place my GGF was naturalized which was San Mateo County, so I went back there and looked through this awesome book(see photo below) and obtained that certificate(certified). During this time I had a few questions so I emailed someone from the consulate offices and clarified anything that needed to be. I inquired about the naturalization certificate I got from the county and hoped that this would suffice for the USCIS certificate, but I was told that I need the USCIS document, so I put a formal request in online on 8/9/11 for the certified naturalization certificate and I received the documents on 10/22/11.
Next step was the hardest part; find out where my great-grandparents were born, and married and get the documents sent to me from Italy and from the late 1800's! I figured I would start with the town I knew they lived in right before they came to America, San Zenone degli Ezzelini. I had gone to Italy in 2007 and met a handful of great people and I have kept in contact with her and she now lives in Italy and speaks Italian so I asked her if she would translate a letter to the comune for me. She took care of it right away, and I emailed them the next day. I didn't hear anything back for a couple weeks so I figured I could just send another email to make sure they got it and just to be sure they really got it I also mailed the same letter through the postal office. Well, about a week later I got an email(all in Italian, which I can't read or speak...yet) I saw the word successivo and I knew that meant successive. I have a family member who speaks Italian well so I had them help translate the email and the documents. Turns out my GGF and GGM were born AND married in the same town they lived in before coming to America! That was too easy. About 2 weeks later I received the original certificates in the US Mail, signed and stamped. I had ALL the documents I needed and it only took me 3 months to collect everything. I checked with the SF Consulate to see exactly which documents needed to be translated and get the proper apostille, so once I got those taken care of I made my appointment with the Consulate.
In the next posts to come I will include websites that helped me with my research, history on my ancestors, preparing for my appointment with the consulate and what I hope comes out of trying to obtain dual citizenship.
