5 Great Reasons to Apply for Italian Dual Citizenship

There are thousands of Italian-Americans in the United State that qualify for Italian dual citizenship. All you need to qualify is an parent, grandparent or great-grandparent that was born in Italy and never became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Once you've got that covered, it's simply a matter of collecting documents, certifying them and making your application.

The path to dual citizenship isn't easy for everyone and often requires a lot of family research. As such, some people wonder if Italian dual citizenship is worth all of the work. I'm here to tell you that it is! Italian dual citizenship is a fantastic way to preserve your family's heritage and reap the benefits of dual citizenship to another country.

Here are the top five reasons to apply:

• STAY FOR A WHILE: Forget short visits and three-month travel visas because as an Italian citizen you can stay in the country as long as you want!


• THE E.U. IS YOUR OYSTER: Because Italy is a member of the European Union, citizens have the legal right to live and work nearly anywhere on the continent.


• REACH FOR A HIGHER EDUCATION: Listen up high school students (and parents!): college at certain Italian universities is free for citizens and tuition is lowered at many universities across the European Union.


• BEING HEALTHY IS FREE: If you decide to relocate to Italy at any point, you'll be eligible as a citizen for the national healthcare system - giving you darn near free healthcare as long as you live in country.


• CULTURAL CLOUT IS YOURS: From art to architecture to literature to fashion, Italians have been wowing the world since antiquity. Become a citizen and bask in the brilliance of counting yourself a member of this divine culture.

Still not convinced? Remember, even if citizenship is right for you now, it doesn't mean that it won't be in the future. Who knows, maybe in 20 years when you retire you'll want to move to a small Tuscan town and live the easy life there! Having dual citizenship would make that a cinch to accomplish.

Finally, even if Italian dual citizenship doesn't seem right for you, that doesn't mean that your children or grandchildren wouldn't benefit from having it passed down to them. As such, if you qualify to apply, it's worth strongly considering going through the application process. Down the road, your family will appreciate all of the hard work you've done.

This article is written by Kate Hash and originally appeared on EZine Articles. View it here: http://EzineArticles.com/6179359



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italian dual citizenship: top 5 resources

While thousands of people have received Italian dual citizenship, the resources and information available for you online are still fairly limited. Most people spend hours searching message boards for answers to common questions and concerns.

To help with your Italian dual citizenship quest, we've compiled a list of the top resource websites for finding information about requesting records, establishing your eligibility, translating documents and applying for Italian dual citizenship.

• Italian Consulates: while the Italian Embassy in Washington, DC provides some information about the citizenship process, many of the regional consulates provide the best information. We recommend reading the San Francisco, Philadelphia and Miami consulates' websites for more information. Pay close attention to the consulate that services your state, as it's their rules that you'll need to abide by.
• Italiandualcitizenship.com: in addition to serving as the home of a consulting company that provides research services, this website also provides a wealth of information about qualifying for citizenship and how to begin the process.
• National Italian American Foundation: as you might expect, the largest Italian-American organization in the country provides useful resources for obtaining your Italian dual citizenship.
• ICGS's Message Board: full of useful stories from those that have done it before or who are in the process, this message board is a great resource for solving tough questions and addressing challenging situations.
• ItalyLink Message board: another great message forum full of real life experiences.
• Expats in Italy: our favorite resource by far, this site is full of not only citizenship advice, but also information about moving to and living in Italy.

If you have questions that can't be answered by one of these resources, try searching "Italian Dual Citizenship" followed by your question. It may take a bit of sifting through the results, but you can almost always find someone that has been in your exact situation and how exactly they solved the problem.

I originally wrote this article for EZineArticles.com and it appears here: http://ezinearticles.com/?Italian-Dual-Citizenship---Top-Five-Information-Resources&id=5632005

Italian Dual Citizenship: Apostilles

Time for a quick update on the Italian dual citizenship process. Tomorow we are off to Harrisburg to get the majority of our documents apostilled. We already have apostilles for the few documents we have from other states and did all of those by mail.

So why are we driving two hours to have them apostilled while we wait when we could just do everything by mail? Dealing with Pennsylvania has been nothing sort of a catastrophy. In fact, if you are reading this post because you are looking for info on the dual citizenship process and have the great misfortune of having to deal with Pennsylvania...well, we feel for you.

The good news is that once we have apostilles, the only thing left to take care of are a few final translations!

italian dual citizenship: correcting and amending records

In a perfect world, every record you receive will be perfect and 100% accurate. If you are only going back one or two generations, this might actually happen.

Unfortunately, I have yet to read of a single story in the many message boards that I follow of a person going back to a GGF (dual citizenship lingo for great-grandfather) and not having any problems with their records.

What are some common problems?

• Misspelling of names
• Random changes in how names are spelled
• Shortening of names
• The use of nicknames

I experienced all of these things. Thankfully, only one record is giving us any cause for concern: my grandfather's birth certificate. The nickname he went by all of his life (and what we always assumed was his actual first name) isn't even on his birth certificate.

This could have been a total catastrophe. The saving grace? Every other single record in his life (census records, military records, marriage and death certificates) all match the nickname. Having this much support behind a nickname is -- knock on wood -- making it fairly easy to request an amendment to his birth certificate. We are currently in the process of working with a lawyer to file all of the necessary papers to get the court order (yes, a court-freakin-order) to approve the change.

A lot of work? Absolutely. But, also completely necessary. If there is one thing you will read over and over again in the message boards it's this: Italians, whether at consulates or in Italy itself, are picky as you-know-what when it comes to names matching. I can't blame them...bestowing citizenship on people is a big deal.

Lessons Learned

1. Factor "fixing mistakes" time into your plan. I didn't and was totally bummed that we had to postpone our move a few months to get this fixed.
2. Carefully review all records for mistakes.
3. If you have the extra money, spring for certified census records, military records and other supporting documents. You may not need them, but if you do, you'll already have the process moving (or have the documents in hand) to get the vital records amended.
4. Similar to #3, abide by the age-old adage: hope for the best, plan for the worst.



italian dual citizenship: what i requested

In my previous post, I talked about what jure sanguinis is and what it takes to qualify for dual citizenship. I qualify under the third scenario:

...your great-grandfather was an Italian citizen at the time of your grandfather’s birth. Neither you, your parents or grandparents ever renounced Italian citizenship.

The instructions provided by the consulate in Philadelphia (which I reference often because the site is quite informative) clearly outline exactly what I need. But, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I requested A LOT more than what is required. What's more, despite the fact that only a few documents technically need translation, I am getting every single document translated into Italian.

Why? It only took a few visits to Italy dual citizenship message boards (ICGS's is my favorite) to realize that every single experience is different. Every consulate is different. Every person that works at the consulate is different. Sometimes people have bad days.

My point is this: don't trust what you read. Don't assume what you read on a consulate site is 100% accurate. Don't assume because a person in California didn't need something translated that you won't be required to have it done. Don't assume anything during this process. I can't stress that enough.

I'm applying for my dual citizenship once I get to Italy, which will hopefully alleviate some of the wait time. But, it also means that I won't have easy access to vital records in any state and it will be tougher to solve problems. So, this is the laundry list of what I've requested in chronological order (most of which I already have on hand).

• Great-grandfather's birth record from Sicily
• Great-grandfather's first marriage record from Sicily
• Great-grandfather's daughter's birth certificate (from first marriage) from Sicily
• Great-grandfather's first wife's death record from Sicily (even though she died in Philly)
• Certificate of No Records from INS for great-grandfather
• Letter of No Records from National Archives for great-grandfather
• Great-grandparents' marriage certificate
• Grandfather's birth certificate (more on this crisis in a later post)
• Grandmother's birth certificate
• Great-grandfather's death certificate
• Grandparents' marriage certificate
• Dad's birth certificate
• Mom's birth certificate
• Parents' marriage certificate
• My birth certificate
• My husband's birth certificate
• Grandmother's death certificate
• Grandfather's death certificate
• My marriage certificate

Why so many records from Sicily? I'll talk about this in a later post, but there are two main reasons. First, I believe that these records corroborate the early timeline that is a little fuzzy with just the U.S. records. Second, the commune my family is from in Sicily recorded everything and I was able to gain new information from these documents.

What about apostilles? I'm splurging to have every birth, death and marriage record receive the apostille. I'm all about the CYA, man!  Learn more about the apostille here.

Is all of this record requesting, translating and apostilling overkill? I sure hope so. I will be happy if I get to Italy and they don't need most of it. BUT, I'm not taking any chances!