citizenship

Well, Harriet and Domenico were married in Provo, but Utah County doesn’t have birth certificates before 1870, when the county was organized. The person I spoke with (who handles marriage certificates) doesn’t know where marriage certificates before then are kept. She thinks if I call L.D.S. Church headquarters in Salt Lake, maybe. I guess I could call the genealogy library, or Archives. Archives is already working on one thing for me. Maybe I’ll ask them when they call me back.

This is why I am starting with the really old documents. I knew they would be the most difficult to find.… Read more

Despite my limited Italian, I finished writing letters to the parish of St. Germain Chisone (for Harriet’s baptism certificate) and the parish of Lagnasco (for Domenico’s baptism certificate). Since they were both born a good thirty years before Italy was unified, apparently no civil birth records exist. However, church baptismal records are accepted by the comunes in lieu of a birth certificate. I found this out from a story by a Uruguayan who claimed his Italian citizenship some five years ago through his great-grandfather. He had a terrible time getting his comune to accept the baptismal certificate as valid (as well as a host of other problems).… Read more

From Expat Talk, here it is in detail. I’ll make sure I know where each step is supposed to take place, since it’s a little vague, but these are the essentials:

1) Go to Questura
a. Within 8 days of arrival
b. Bring passport
c. Receive Dichiarazione di Presenza (Declaration of Presence)
2) Go to Comune (or is the Anagrafe?)
a. Bring Dichiarazione di Presenza from step 1
b. Bring copy of Circolare 32 – just in case
c. This starts the procedure to establish residency
3) Wait for visit from Vigili (aka police) at your local residence
a. This takes about 2 weeks
b.… Read more

Tony pointed out that if I’m believing Dominico, I really ought to get right to work at collecting all these documents. Since we’re going back so many generations, there’s quite a lot of work to do. Since we plan to apply in Italy, but I don’t have a list of documents required by Cuneo, I’m using my current consulate’s list as a starting point (Los Angeles), and have included it below. The only difference is that I’m going back one more generation. So actually, I’ll modify the list to reflect what we’re dealing with.

. IF CATEGORY #5 APPLIES TO YOU, YOU MUST OBTAIN THE FOLLOWING:
(for instructions on the proper documents, follow information under Paragraph n.… Read more

Well, I feel a little chastised. I completely ignored Domenico’s own testimony, as evidenced on the census records, for when he was naturalized. My reason was that on the other side of the family, the census records were completely off. However, I had a change of heart yesterday. I felt as if Domenico were looking down on me, incredulous that I didn’t believe him. It was unfair and judgmental of me to disregard what he himself said on the census. He came from a long line of Christians who were willing to die for their faith (and did on numerous occasions).… Read more

I called the Utah State Archives today to request that they search for Domenico’s naturalization record, if such a record exists. Unfortunately, since at this point I don’t even know whether he naturalized or not, I may need to contact several different agencies. The Utah State Archives website said, for example, “If an individual had completed either part or all of this process in Utah, there are many courts to check prior to statehood (1896). Each county had a County Probate Court until 1896. There are also District Courts which served multiple counties. Furthermore, district court boundaries changed over time (see historical jurisdictions chart), so you may need to check the records of several district courts.… Read more