Need Advice on Missing Marriage Document

[mtedaldi@charter.net]

Hi! Trying to obtain Citizenship through my husband's GGF.
Have an appointment in NYC on July 19, 2009 for my
husband and two sons.

Thanks to all of you, I have been very successful in obtaining
every single document, including Certification of Non-existence
from USCIS EXCEPT for one - Marriage of GGF and GGM.
I am at a loss. No one knows where they were married and
so I have petitioned every comune in Piacenza. Will do the
same for every comune in Parma. GGF was born in Bardi,
Parma; although birth certificate was acquired there, no record
of marriage exists. Don't know where GGM was born, only
that she grew up in a convent in France, but her alien registration,
death certificate, 1920 Census show her place of birth to be
near PARMA. It is possible that they married in France.

The only lead I have is that their Passport of 1891 was taken
from Firenzuola d'Arda and gives maiden name of GGM and her
age and names her as being married to GGF. I believe they had
to show their marriage certificate in order to get this passport. So I know that one exists. Even though this is an official
Italian Document. the NYC consulate said that they
wouldn't accept it in place of Marriage Certificate.

Any ideas? If I can't find Marriage Certificate from all the comuni, is there anything else I can do? Please advise - to be so close and yet so far is
killing me.....

Molte grazie in advance!

[tonyric]

Do not give up hope, I had to search and search for my GGM, I had her in the states, married to my GGF, everything but no record of her entering the US and didn't know where she was born, etc. Do not give up, you will get the information you need to find the marriage certificate.

[Esatto]

Do you have a census record that shows them as man and wife?
Also, birth certificates/baptismal certificates of their children would show them as married as well as death certificates - these are good for supporting evidence if you have everything else. I would not give up and keep looking for clues.
I looked forever too for GGF and GGM marriage and it turned-up when I searched the Italian LDS Records on microfilm. My researcher in Italy had given-up! One thought - how did your greatgrandparents get a passport if they were not citizens?

[belmoro19]

esatto,
i am in same position.i have all documents needed accept grandparents marriage certificate.i cannot find it anywhere.i have several NO RECORD letters from the searches i have done that i plan to have notarized.I also have my mother's birth-baptism-death and marriage certificates that all have both parents listed on all of them.i am going to have her baptismal certificate notarized.I also have both grandparents death certificates listing them as MARRIED.Do you think that this is enough supporting evidence for the consulate to see that he is her father and hopefully grant me the citizenship.i will be applying in philadelphia.I am applying through great grandfather-grandfather-mother-myself.Also on my grandfather's birth certificate his mother's name is mispelled grossly,but I have his baptismal certificate that has everything spelled corectly.should I correct his birth cert. or will the baptism and birth certificate be enoughfor the consulate.thank you in advance for any suggestions or advice.I feel the poster of this threads pain,to be so close yet so far.It can be very fustrating.I wish you luck on your search

[mtedaldi@charter.net]

Just want to thank all of you who encouraged me not to give up finding Marriage Certificate of my GGPs! I searched for over 2 years and one day last week, just by chance, I hit the jackpot! Because I did not have this document (it was the only one that was missing) last year when I went for my appointment at the NY Consulate, I was told that my request for citizenship could not be processed without it. On that day, I brought with me an original 1891 passport (issued by the Italian Government!) which showed them as married, but they would not accept it in lieu of missing marriage certificate.

The only information that I had about my ancestors was that they were possibly married in the Champagne Region of France. I wrote and e-mailed, more than I would like to admit, to hundreds of towns in France - all negative responses or responses asking me the name of town where they were married in (which of course, I didn't know!!) Anyway, two years ago I had signed up to the free website called Geneanet which would automatically send me an alert when any new information about the last name of the person I was looking for came up. I would always check and the information there never came close to giving me a clue about where to look...EXCEPT last week, a new alert came, I clicked on it and it led me to Haute Marne Department Archives. I guess they have recently scanned documents for the towns that make up this department and Voila'! There it was! A document from 1885 - so beautiful...I could actually see it on-line. Yes!

I am waiting for a response from the Italian Consulate after writing them (gleefully) that I found it! We'll see how long it takes and what other objections they might come up with...but at this point, I don't care! I have all the necessary documents required to satisfy the Italian law and I know eventually we will get it. Why am I writing all of this? Just to truly thank everyone for the encouragement and to pass along their kind words to others who might find themselves in the position that I was in - and those words are: Never, ever, give up. You will find what you need - just never give up!

[Aussie34]

Congrats! Must have been an awesome feeling!