Well, I have been working on this for nearly a month, and I have nothing to show for it. Not only do I have no documents in hand, but nobody has even confirmed the existence of any of the documents I need. In fact, most evidence points to their nonexistence. Luckily, I’m pretty sure the Italian records are findable, and they are the most important. However, not only will I probably have to substitute some kind of L.D.S. marriage record for Domenico and Harriet’s marriage license, I’ll most likely need to do it for the birth records of Louis and Elva (his wife), who were both born in Cache County before 1900. Sigh.
I also received an email from Utah archives. They have not found any record of naturalization for Domenico. However, because of limited staffing, their search was not comprehensive. The best I might be able to get from them is a certified letter of nonexistence of records. Which is not a bad thing for my purpose anyway. I think I’ll have to go the route of getting these letters of nonexistence of records from everyone: that is Utah Archives, NARA, and CIS. I’d better get on that right away, since CIS can take years.
The one wonderful thing is that even if not quite all our documentation is exactly complete, we can live in Italy while it’s all being processed. Much better than waiting here for things to go through some consulate. Italy, here we come!