Jure Sanguinis Minutiae, 1906 SF Earthquake edition

May 27, 2019 1:49 PM

So it looks like I should be able to use my great-grandmother's Sicilian birth certficate to get Italian citizenship. If I'm willing to do a pile of paperwork. Which would be really neat! Except! Her US-born second husband's (my great-grandfather's) birth certificate was lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Am I REALLY going to need that?

If not, what do I do instead?

posted by aniola to Law & Government (4 answers total)

When my mother and I did this, we needed everyone's birth, marriage, divorce, and death certificates. We also had to get a note attesting that my father was my father because my parents were unmarried — even though he was irrelevant to the whole process.

It looks like California can issue a certificate saying the document is not available. I might ask the Italian consulate if that is sufficient. For instance, had my father been dead, we would not have needed to get a note from him because that would be ridiculous.

I have had incredibly helpful interactions with the Italian government through the whole process, both in Los Angeles and New York. If you go in with everything and they want something else, they will just hold onto your paperwork while you get that. They went through the whole folder with us standing there, so you can definitely get everything else together and try.

Good luck!
posted by dame at 2:28 PM on May 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

Hi! I'm currently gathering all my documentation for my Italian dual citizenship application. I'm applying through the Philly consulate, an every consulate has slightly different requirements. First, I have a FB group I'm part of for dual citizenship applications and it's been invaluable - it's the cumulative knowledge of years of applicants throughout the country (and some international). They have a ton of resources as well as knowledgeable people who have been through the process. Check your memail for a link.

Since you're a 1948 case, you'll need to apply through a lawyer via Rome, and the requirements are different. I'm spitballing that I think you'll be fine - you may need to do some legwork like get a certified letter from California stating that such records were lost, try to back it up with a baptismal certificate, get a family member to attest that the ancestor stated that date and place of birth, or some such. But as you'll need to go through a lawyer for your 1948 case, the best thing to do here is to consult a lawyer about the case and get their recommendation. [Non-line birth/death certificates are not even required for Philly, so you may or may not even need this particular record.]
posted by DoubleLune at 2:50 PM on May 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

When did he die? If he got his social security card that should be good enough. Apply for his ss-5. He will list his parents names and place of birth. It may work.
posted by beccaj at 4:03 PM on May 27, 2019

Response by poster: Thanks, y'all! This looks helpful and is reassuring.
posted by aniola at 7:56 PM on May 27, 2019