Embarking on the journey to Italian dual citizenship is exciting and leads to a lifetime of benefits that can be passed down to future generations. Once you have determined that you are eligible, the next question is commonly, which documents are required for a successful application?

More specifically, which documents do I need from Italy and how do I retrieve those records? In fact, records like the birth and marriage certificate of your Italian-born ancestor will be crucial in verifying your Italian lineage. We will outline how to locate your ancestor’s Italian vital records and acquire the necessary copies of them, including the correct format they should be in.

Whether you are applying for Italian citizenship by descent at your local Italian consulate, via a 1948 court case, or in a municipality in Italy, vital records pertaining to all the individuals in your Italian lineage will be required to make a complete application. These include birth, marriage, divorce and death (if applicable) certificates, in addition to your ancestor’s naturalization records or proof they never naturalized. In addition, some consulates also require the records for the out-of-line spouses of the individuals in your lineage, so it’s best to check with your local consulate on their specific requirements. All vital records need to be certified copies in “long-form” format. Originals or photocopies will not be accepted.

In regards to US vital records, these documents can usually be retrieved from the US Department of Health in the state where the event occurred. In some cases, the records are held at the town or county level, especially for earlier years as well as marriage and divorce records. These certified copies will also need to be legalized by means of an apostille and translated into Italian.

Italian Vital Records

Italian vital record registries are held in the municipality where the event took place, not at the provincial or regional level. Therefore, it’s important to know the exact town (comune) where your ancestor was born or was married.

However, many descendants with Italian lineage may only know the region or province where their Italian-born ancestor was born. It’s important to remember that Italy is currently divided into 20 regions, all of which are divided into provinces, which contain many municipalities or comuni. For example, you may know that your ancestor was born in Naples. However, they may have been born in the city of Naples or the province of Naples which is currently comprised of 92 comuni or smaller towns. Furthermore, throughout history, these regional and town borders may have changed and comuni names may have also changed. 

Conducting geneological research can help locate other records that may indicate your ancestor’s exact place of birth. For example, the ship manifest for their arrival to the US generally will specify the town where your ancestor last resided or was born. If you are unsure of your ancestor’s marriage, there are a few tips to remember. If your ancestors married in Italy, it’s most likely they did so in the comune where the wife was born, as this was common practice for catholic couples at the time. Additionally, if they were both born in Italy, in many cases both ancestors came from the same town or province. 

Requesting the Records from Italy

Once you have all the details about your Italian-born ancestors, you can proceed with retrieving the necessary vital records from Italy. They can be requested from the ufficio di stato civile (registry office) in the town hall of the municipality where the event took place. If the record is from a very old year or is not available in the municipality, it's advised to check with the archivio di stato (state archive), of which there is one located in each province. Lastly, there are some cases where records may be held by the Italian courts. Additionally, you may be able to locate baptismal records for your Italian-born ancestor by consulting local church authorities. However, according to Italian law, a certificate of baptism may be used for a citizenship application only if birth registries did not exist when the birth occurred.

The format you will need for the Italian birth certificate is called estratto per riassunto dell’atto di nascita (certified extract of the birth record) which will include the parents’ names and is sometimes issued in a bilingual format. The clerk will transcribe the details found in the book copy of the registry into a standardized format, including the individual’s date and place of birth, parent’s names, and the number of the volume and page of the registry from where it was extracted. The marriage record is called the estratto per riassunto dell’atto di matrimonio (a certified extract of the marriage record).

The process to request the records starts with contacting the vital records office in the town, either by phone or email, and submitting a request for the records you need. In many cases, this will be in the form of a detailed written letter sent by certified or registered mail, but some municipalities accept requests also by phone or email. The request must be written in Italian and outline the nature of your request, what format the documents should be in, and a copy of your identification document. Some municipalities charge an administrative fee to release the documents and also require that you include a self-addressed postage-paid envelope for the clerk to mail you the records. The processing time for requesting Italian vital records can vary on the municipality, their size and current workload, but by law, they have a maximum of six months to issue you the certificate.

Discrepancies

There are instances where you may notice discrepancies between your ancestor’s name on their birth certificate and their name listed on other records you have located. It was common for Italian immigrants to change their name or anglicize it when arriving and naturalizing in the US. However, it’s imperative to have a cohesive application, with names and dates consistent, to demonstrate that Italian citizenship was passed correctly down from one generation to the next. It’s possible to request a specific certificate from the Italian municipality to address this discrepancy called a certificato di esatte generalità, or alternatively might be called a positivo-negativo in some municipalities. This document will certify that the individual named on the records is one and the same and that your ancestor was the only individual born with that name and on that specific day.

Conclusion

Retrieving vital records for your citizenship application is a crucial step along the path to Italian citizenship. Especially the records of your Italian-born ancestors will be a critical piece of proving your Italian lineage. This article has detailed the process of locating and requesting those records from Italy. If you have questions or would like more information on the citizenship application process, don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected].