Reply to Americans using their ancestry to gain European citizenship

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m eligible for Italy. We started collecting all the paperwork but paused after we hit a snag in getting my ancestor’s Italian birth certificate. Original records were apparently lost in a fire and don’t know if I can still get it without that. [/quote]

Before you hit the snag, how hard was it to do?  I’m realizing I need to start the process myself.  I’m very interested in this and my elderly parents were going to start gathering documents as a hobby but never got around to it.  My great grandparents came here from Italy and never became American citizens.  I need to start researching how to find records.  [/quote]

I am the PP who already submitted my paperwork. It can be very easy or incredibly hard, it's very case by case. Took me a few years to get my hands on everything I needed, but you might have an easier time. Things that were snags for me:

--NYC couldn't find my GGF BC for over a year
-- I didn't know the exact date of death for my GGGparents in order to get their DCs
--it takes over a year to get the USCIS package with the naturalization stuff; NARA was closed for Covid on and off and they too had a huge backlog, however I got the NARA package early on to provide me some details for my search of other docs
--My comune in Sicily suffered various natural disasters and as a result the record books of some of my records were destroyed. I had to hire various italian researchers to help get letters and stuff explaining this. I also combed through microfilm on familysearch.org to find unoffical second copies of the records
--I attempted to correct all name discrepancies before my appointment. Hilarity ensued.

I can't stress enough how helpful the facebook group is if you are attempting to do this. If you've got the cash, there are services that will do this for you, but after having done it myself I am not sure a service would have gone as far as I did to solve all my issues. When I presented my stuff at my appointment I was accepted "without homework," so the years of hard work paid off (finger's crossed).

As long as the final review of my application does not get flagged for anything, in about 2.5 years I will have citizenship as well as my two small children. If my DH wants it he needs to pass a language exam and then apply through marriage after I am fully recognized. We discuss the concept of moving there all the time. When I started my records search I had no children and it was just a fun side hobby to see if I could complete the daunting task (I like research). Now, we both think it is incredibly useful and seriously think about a future where we move there permanently to get our kids out of here. [/quote]
Interesting. 
Did you and kids take a language test (that's required for DH)?

DH has applied for Ireland but I haven't yet seen a hook for the kids (or me - I'm think my ancestors are one too many generations in US).[/quote]

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