useful tips, apps, order, discrepancies, parents, notarizing

[melissalee]

just completed 9 months of document gathering and had an appointment with anna-maria stone in san fran. firstly she's still saying 3 years of waiting. she's stuck on the end of 2005 if i remember right. i said they should clone her to catch up.

some boo-boos to be avoided

if you are applying with any family members you need to schedule seperate or overlapping appointments for them. i didn't know this, and so my cousin sat dejectedly beside me while we thought he would have to wait another 9 to 12 months for another appointment. Luckily, we had everything in perfect order with no major discrepancies, and so we had time left before her lunch break to add on my cousins application, phew. and since we were polite and respectful, she made an exception. when requesting appointments please tell them how many people are applying with you and what relation they are, so as to avoid not getting everyones application processed. if you already have an appointment and are applying with a parent or grandparent or adult child, I would plead innocent and they will probably process both of your applications as you share all of the same ancestors, cousins have more paperwork and so there may be less time to process the additional certs, but I would still hope for the best. but don't bring in your whole clan and expect to all be processed in one appointment time.

the application (for fellow dyslexics out there) needs to be in EUROPEAN date format, so take all your american dates and reverse the order of them to be DAY/MONTH/year, not the usual month/year/day. I strongly suggested they change the form so that we write out the name of the month to avoid confusion, which anna-maria agreed with as she often has to fix dates, but she says the form is too long to be able to hold the space that would entail. oh well. check carefully.

FORM 2A AND 2B previous residences- put the actual years as a time span that you lived in each city, not just the number of years, i.e.- New York City, NY 1991-2001, not NYC 11 years. If you're still living somewhere put 1991 - present, as your file is going to sit for a few years at least, and this years date will become old. I assume this is if they wanted to check up on you, they would need to know the years to check records in each city, maybe this replaces the old arrest record thing? who knows...

NOTARIZATIONS are not necessary for the forms if you are bringing them in to the consulate. you will just sign them when you turn over all your forms and certs. if you are mailing them, I think a general notarization is fine, but I am not certain on that point, there are different types of notarizations, and the forms don't specify which type to get. to avoid confusion i wrote out the month for the date next to my signature, as it didn't specify DD/MM/YYYY, and if you're having it notarized in america, they would expect it to be MM/DD/YYYY.

COPIES- the san fran folks didn't take any copies, and since I felt like I'd slaughtered a whole tree by making the suggested two copies of everything, I wish I would have known this, and I would only have made one copy each of the most vital things, like the actual certs, and not any copies of the apostilles or translations. save the paper.

PARENTS- parents and grandparents no longer get automatic citizenship when their kids apply. they each have to apply themselves, that means the application, forms 2A and 2B and a copy of their drivers license, and a comune declaration. since this came as news to me, I was asked to have my mom send in these things (notarized) with a letter saying to have them added to my application (noting that we share the same ancestry), and stating which comune to register at.

NATURALIZATION- note that on the first page is the date your ancestor actually applied or petitioned, and on the second page the date it was actually processed, next to their signature, which is often years after they applied. I got that wrong, but had it gracefully corrected by Anna Maria.

EX - SPOUSES BIRTH CERTIFICATE is not needed if the marriage license shows their birth date and birth city/state/country, which some states put in, and other lacksadasical states don't bother with. the embassy people seemed rather annoyed at certain states lack of details in allowing people to get married, and if you don't have this info, you'll probably need their birth cert.

USE MIDDLE NAMES- on the application, I avoided them as they seemed to vary a lot on certain documents, but anna-maria didn't mind and added them in on my application for me. it's last name discrepancies that cause the most hiccups, not first names, I got the feeling she rather expected the first names to change. one a unusual note, my grandpa's name on his b.c. was something none of us could figure out, something like jiovanmaria, but we were told it was probably a bad attempt at writing gianmaria, which got americanized to john M.

TRANSLATIONS- you do not need translations for death certificates, even though some sites try and convince you that you do. You don't. Look below in my discrepancy list to see which documents I had translated and which I had apostilled. You really don't need to translate everything you have apostilled.

USE FORMS 2A and 2B, even though they look simpler and older than the forms 2, 3 and 4 that you can find online. use this link for 2A

http://www.conssanfrancisco.esteri.it/N ... ficato.pdf


for 2B

http://www.conssanfrancisco.esteri.it/N ... ttuale.pdf

for the application I used this as the official one doesn't print well at all...
and this has the same info and was accepted also

http://www.myitaliancitizenship.com/dow ... forCit.PDF


ORDER- don't put your birth certificate first as some sites tell you, she'll ask for the application, comune declaration and forms first, then everyones certs starting with the oldest going down to yours. paperclip the translations on top of their certs. my translator sent a certification form, but she didn't take that.

POST-ITS- I put small post it's on the front of all my certs saying who's they were, like MGGM death, for my maternal great grandmother's birth certificate, or MY bc, for my birth certificate, it saves endless time trying to keep it all straight as the relevant info gets covered up with apostilles and translations often, and it makes handing them the right form quick and easy. And even if you just have one page with your non-italian ancestors info, it saves having to read it and translate their given name into how they're related to you, which is how she'll ask for things. and if you have kids, she likes their birth certificates oldest to youngest in that order, so the post-its can read, oldest child's BC, 2nd child, youngest, etc.

CHECK-IN- be on time, you waited long enough for your appointment, don't make them wait at all. tell the guard that you have an appointment for a citizenship application, so he can tell them inside and they know you have shown up.


DISCREPANCY LIST- i would've liked an example, so I'll attach what I did, I added the T/A things for my own benefit, so I would know which certs had translations and apostilles, but anna-maria seemed slightly confused by it, so i would leave it off.

List of Documents in Chronological Order with Noted Discrepancies in Bold Italics (which don't show up here, generally the thing after the colon and before the next parentheses)
A = Apostille attached T = Italian translation attached

Applicants:
Melissa Lee xxxx
Carole Lee xxxxx (Mother)

Maternal Great Grandfather's Birth Certificate
1st name: Francesco Michele (see Naturalization Certificate)
Father's 1st name: Giammaria (Americanized to John on his death certificate)

Maternal Great Grandmother's Birth Certificate
Father's name: Salvatore (Salvadore on her death certificate)

Maternal Great Grandparents' Marriage Certificate (T/A)
GGF's 1st name: Michael (see Naturalization Certificate)
GGM's 1st name: Marie G. (Birth Certificate uses Maria G.)

Maternal Great Grandfather's Certificate of Naturalization
1st name: Mike (ne Francesco Michele)

Maternal Grandfather's Birth Certificate (T/A)
1st name: Jiovanmaria (Johanas) (later Americanized to John)
Father's name: Michel (elsewhere Michele)

Maternal Grandmother's Birth Certificate
Father's 1st name: Loren (spelled as Lorin later)

Maternal Grandparent's Marriage Certificate (T/A)
MGGM's 1st name: Mary (elsewhere Marie/Maria)
MGM date of marriage (1940) minus age (22) = year of birth1918
MGF date of marriage (1940) minus age (26) = year of birth 1914

(note I put these calculations in, as their marriage cert. didn't list their birthdays, but since everything else matched up, it didn't seem to be an issue and could have been left out)

Father's Birth Certificate (A)

Mother's Birth Certificate (T/A)

Parent's Marriage Certificate T/A)

My Birth Certificate (T/A)

My Marriage Certificate (T/A)

My Divorce Judgement/Statement of No Appeal (T/A)

Maternal Great Grandfather's Death Certificate (A)

Maternal Great Grandmother's Death Certificate (A)

[penguindump]

Congratulations on successfully applying in San Francisco. Unfortunate about the 3 year wait.. She still has a year and a half worth of applications before she gets to mine

[magendim]

Congrats on your application! I did mine just a week before you. I also forgot to tell Anna Maria that my sister was applying with me, but she was actually very nice about it and took her application no problem after she did all my paperwork. (My sister was a little late because I made a dyslexic mistake on the building number)

[ALP70]

Thanks for posting this, this is very helpful!

But one question; I called the appointment line at the NYC consulate to make an appointment for citizenship for myself and my sibling. The person on the other end of the line gave us the same time and told us we could show up for the same appointment together.

Is this correct? I'm worried because I'm not really confident the person at the call center actually knew if that was correct or not, (he asked me to hold on to check). I guess for cousins the same appointment wouldn't be allowed, but what about for siblings with the same parents?

[Em]

It's not uncommon for relatives to apply together, and often this simplifies the process. My son and I both submitted applications in NY without difficulty. Best of luck. When is your appointment?

[ALP70]

Thanks Em! I realized this was for the San Fran consulate just now too, maybe it's a bit different as well. My appointment is for May of 2009, and by then every member of my family including myself will most likely be living in a different country so I am just trying to make sure this goes off without a hitch. I will try to call them come Monday and just double check, anyway.

[melissalee]

e' cittadino italiano per discedenza! Just received my papers this week! Hooray. That was what, a little over a year and a half. Hope that helps in the wait. a year and a half sooner than expected....

[softouch115]

Thank you so much for all of this advice! You have simplified things and your discrepancy list is really well done. It will benefit me greatly.
Is San Fransico so backed up because of the vast number of italians that settled there? I ask because I recently heard from a Miami applicant that they recieved their letter of recognition in 4 months.