For the past year I have been doing extensive research into my Grandfather, as I am in the process of applying for dual citizenship in Italy. My Grandfather was born in Santo Stephano, Sicily in 1886, and immigrated to the United States in 1913. In 1921 my grandfather filed a Declaration of Intention to become a United States citizen, but fortunately for me, he never completed the process and actually became a U.S. Citizen. Since he was still an Italian citizen when my father was born in 1925, he passed his citizenship on to him, and my father passed in on to me when I was born in 1967. By Italian law, citizenship is determined by sure sanguinis (By the law of the bloodline) so I just have to prove my relationship to my father and grandfather, and prove my grandfather was not a citizen at the time my father was born to have my Italian citizenship recognized. That means I have had to find a copy of my grandfather's birth certificate in Italy from 1889, his marriage certificate to my Grandmother in Louisiana in 1923, and a copy of his death certificate from 1949. In addition, since he never became a U.S. citizen, I have to PROVE it - so I have a copy of his registration form from the Alien Registration Act of 1940, a certified copy of the 1930 U.S. Census showing his status as a resident alien, and letters from Customs and Immigration and the National Archive saying that they have looked for a Naturalization record for my grandfather but did not find one. In addition, I have to have birth, marriage and death certificates for my father, and my birth and marriage records as well. And since my daughter is under 18, she will automatically gain Italian citizenship when I do - so therefore I have to have a copy of her birth certificate as well. I now have all of these documents in hand, and all of the state documents I have to have an apostille for each item (state certification that the document is genuine) and I have to have them translated into Italian. It has been a long road, but I have my appointment at the Miami Italian Consulate in December of this year, and if everything goes well, I will be well on my way to gaining Italian citizenship.
I have learned much about my grandfather in doing this research, and one of the most interesting things I found is that he started lying about his age about the time he met my grandmother. He dropped five years from his age, telling everyone that he was born in 1891 - even his tombstone has the incorrect 1891 date of birth. I think he did this because of the age difference between himself and my grandmother - at the time they got married, she was 18, and he was 36.
I have included with this post one of my favorite finds concerning my grandfather - his border crossing card allowing him to cross the border into Mexico. At the time he was living in El Paso, Texas, and running a small grocery store - I assume he went to Mexico to buy supplies for his store. I found this card on Ancestry.com.
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