Consulate website

December 19th
So we've been checking the consulate's website every day to see if there are any new updates. For a while it said that appointments were all booked up for the remainder of 2008 and to check the website for updates on 2009 appointment availability or something like that. I changed a few weeks ago to say that appointments are booked for 2008 and they are in the process of creating a new system to schedule appointments by phone starting in February of 2009. And of course....to check the website for updates. So I'm still checking every day. I wonder when our appointment will be?

On another note we also have not received the document yet from the USCIS. Going by Bobby's prediction we should have received mid November. Oh well. No rush obviously.

Census Documents

October 26th - Today I checked the mail and our census documents were in there! The certification looked sort of like an apostille. Yay!

Translation

October 17th - Today I mailed all the stuff to Laura.

October 20th - Laura emailed to say she got everything and it'd be $390 - $30 per document.

Translator

October 13th
Today I emailed a woman named Laura, she called back and left me a lovely VM and then I called her back and we finally talked. She was the nicest lady ever and had such a beautiful accent. I am going to the post office today to send her all of our documents. $35 a document! Ouch. She did say she'd give us a discount.

Census Docs

September 30th
So today we sat down together and ordered the census documents online. It still seems unreal. Like they're going to write back and say they don't have them or they won't give them to us. This all seems unreal and I'm sure we'll feel that way up until we're holding our passports....

Consulate Phone Call

September 19th
So today we were driving to LA for our cruise and the closer it got to 9 the more nervous I got. It was awful! Ugh. Finally it was almost 9 and I realized I hadn't written down the phone number! Jesus. So I called Donny and he looked it up online for me. Then I tried to call but didn't have service so Bobby pulled over at the next town which wasn't far. I called and called and could not get through but I kept trying and finally I did. I talked to a woman named Ragaela who was actually very helpful. The gave me some great answers, but did say the thing about the census. Damn. So then Bobby called because it was his turn. He also got Rafaela and he told her he was my husband and he just had some more questions about the census. She was super helpful and did not make it sound black or white. She said the 1930 census would probably be fine and to go ahead and bring in the 1920 census anyway and to even bring in the boat records. It was a great conversation. We felt like we were on top of the world afterwards and what better way to celebrate than to take a cruise! Now we just have to order the census docs and print out the boat records....

Downtown Archives

So today we went down to an archives building and they didn't end up having anything, but they did have access to ancestry so the lady let us sign on with their subscription. We sat there for hours and I was getting frustrated, but Bobby had a hunch and was looking at the census going by street numbers and stuff and he ended up finding his family, but with a severely mis spelled name. That's what we really needed! Now we can order stuff from the census!

Census

September 8th - So today I've just been thinking about the census. The last week or so I've been trying to figure out how to get it. The woman at the Mormon research center was no help. I called the NARA and the woman on the phone said I didn't need to go through the microfilm page by page she said they could do some sort of search for me. But then she transferred me to someone who needed all this information - information I don't have and need from the census! Ugh. So I called the library and gave them what information I had a the research lady said she'd look into ordering the microfilm and if it was even available and she'd get back to me. She hasn't called me back yet. It sucks because in order to order a certified copy you have to know what page you need. I don't know what I thought. I guess I just thought I'd say I needed a copy of the census and they'd send it to me. I mean obviously that doesn't make a ton of sense because it'd be like thousands of pages long. But I don't know what page the name appears on. So we're going to have to go through the microfilm, find the page number and then we can order our certified copy. Sheesh. We have an appointment to ask more questions on September 19th so I'm going to not mention the census and ask the woman what we need to prove he was never naturalized. And see if she says the census. Maybe that first cunt didn't know what she was talking about. 

More certs

August 25th - Today I got Bobby's moms birth certificate's apostille and my birth certificate and our marriage certificate with apostilles. I called and asked about a marriage certificate and a marriage license. I got transferred a couple of times, but finally got someone that knew what they were talking about. The woman said that Arizona does not do certified copies of marriage licenses - we don't have them, we just have certificates. I asked if that was specific to Arizona and she said yes. She said she's never had a problem with it in terms of citizenship before. I sure hope it's not a problem. The consulate says they need a certified copy of the license and of the certificate. 

USCIS Request

August 20th - I made another email request to the USCIS and I got a response in the mail today. We are now number 1659 out of 6346. That gives me a way better idea. We're movin down the list! Bobby did some sort of caculation and said they should get to our request by November! Woo hoo! I can't wait. 

Apostille's

July 27th - Today I got all of the Mass certificates back with all of there apostille's. 

Katie's birth certificate

 June 27th - Today I got mine in the mail!

Bobby's moms certificate

June 13th - Today we got Bobby's moms birth certificate in the mail from Buffalo. 

Declaration

June 10th - Today we got Bobby's dads declaration, and copies of his ID and passport. Yay!

Bobby's birth certificate

June 6th - Got Bobby's birth certificate in the mail today from Rhode Island!

US Certificates

So on May 30th, June 2nd and June 3rd I got three envelopes from Mass containing all the certificates I ordered! 9 total. I'm excited! Now I'm shipping them back out for apostilles.

USCIS Request #....

May 30th - So I got something in the mail today in response to my email request. It says we are # 3369 out of 5088. I don't really know what that means since I'm not sure what request number they're on. Hmmm....

Ordered the US certificates

May 28th - this past week I've ordered most of the US certificates. I also emailed the USCIS to see what the status was on our request. I can't wait to start getting stuff in the mail!

Got the Italian certificates!

May 5th - We got back from vacation yesterday and I checked the mail this morning. There was a big envelope from Italy and inside were the certificates! They don't look likes ours in the US. It's basically a form with lots of questions and blank spaces. The blanks are filled in with the appropriate information and then there is a signature and seal at the bottom. I hope this will be sufficient for citizenship. It looks pretty official. I called Bobby to tell him and I was translating all of the stuff - Data Di Nasciate...Date of Birth....Prenome Del Padre....First name of the father...it was fun. Bobby got home later and looked at it and said it's in Italian first, but if you read afterwards it's in several different languages, including English. I hadn't even noticed. We didn't English anyway!

Got another letter!

April 21st - From the USCIS. At a glance I was worried because it didn't say anything about no records, so I figured it was saying we had to go about the request in a different way or send more information or something. But it didn't. It was a letter saying they received our request and were working on it! This is all just going so well. We'd heard it can take months to hear from them too. And they said our request is on the simple track. That seems good. Yay!

Heard back from Bisceglie!

April 16th - Bobby called this morning to say he had received an email back saying that our documents were prepared and ready to be sent. We couldn't believe it! We had heard it would take months if they even responded at all! It seems to good to be true. We emailed Roseanna and she confirmed what the email said. I can't wait to get them in the mail.

Got another letter!

April 15th - I got a letter from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archices and Records saying there were no records. Again, another official letter. It was exactly what we needed.

Got a letter!

April 1st - so about a week I emailed the NARA and the guy wrote back saying there were no records. So today I got the letter in the mail from him. Isn't that nice? It was official and everything.

Talked to the consulant

March 31st - They're not very nice over there! The lady I talked to was a real C U next Tuesday, if you know what I mean. I asked her what they needed to show he wasn't naturalized and she said this that and the other thing from all these different agencies. So I asked her how to get that stuff and she so perturbed. Like I've ever had to get the US Census from 1930? She acted like I should just know. Anyway...I got my answers. Basically we need something from the NARA in Waltham saying no, something from the Supreme Court saying no and something from the USCIS saying no. Ha! So I sent out a letter to each.

Got an appointment to talk to someone!

March 28th - after my fourth phone call I finally got through and was able to get an appointment for 15 minutes to ask questions on Monday morning. Hoo rah!

Los Angeles Consulate

March 26th - these people are pretty hard core. I called to ask questions and the man said you couldn't just do that. You have to make an appointment to ask questions. Ok...in order to do that I needed to call after 2. So I called after 2 and was told to call after 9 the next day. Maybe I'm having bad luck, or maybe they're taking me for a ride. It's funny though because if you call when they're closed or try an extension and the person isn't there you get this recording that says "Do not leave a message. We will not return your call."

National Archives

March 25 - today, after some digging and several phone calls, I got in touch with someone in at the Waltham Archives, which is the division of the NARA that serves where GG used to live. I sent an email with all of GGs info in it and they are supposed to respond within 10 days saying they either have the record of naturalization or they don't...

Birth, death and marriage certificates

This information is surprisingly easy to get. It's just time consuming and you have to be super nice. I have found out a lot of information about where to get the other certificates and apostilles. Now we just need to hear back from Bisceglie about the birth certificates and find out about naturalization stuff. Getting all the US certificates is a piece of cake.

Email to Bisceglie

March 19th - today we sent an email to Bisceglie, which is the small as town that GG is from. It's really hard to translate stuff to Italian because we speak SO MUCH slang and don't even realize it. Finally Bobby got it done and sent it. We aren't even sure if we went it to the right place. But hopefully we'll hear something...

Found out the date he died!

March 18th - today I continue my quest to find out everything I can about Bobby's GG. No one will tell me anything. People keep snapping at me saying "We don't do genealogy over the phone". I keep calling different numbers. I know there is someone out there who can do a simple search and help me. I make yet another phone call and am met with the same "We don't do genealogy". I said "I'm not doing genealogy! I just need a death certificate." I'm put on hold for a long time, but then a different lady picks up and promptly looks up the information and just gives me the date! I couldn't believe it. Mary Jane. What a great lady.

Ancestry.com

March 17th - we've been trying to find out everything we can about Bobby's GG. No one is his family knows anything much. We find ancestry.com and wonder if it's bull, but we sign up for a free trial. We find a 1930 US Census with his GG on it, which provides us with his age and lists him as an alien, which is good for us. We still don't know when he died or his birth date.

Rosetta Stone

March 15th, 2008 - we are researching ordering the Rosetta Stone Italian program so that we can learn as much as we can. It's way expensive but I run into a post that says to see if your public library has an online subscription. Ours does! So we started doing the lessons right away.

Meet with AZ Italian Consulate

March 14th, 2008 - today we met with Tony - he's a volunteer for the Italian Consulate in Arizona. He was encouraging, but couldn't really help us all that much. The consulate that we actually do all of this through is in Los Angeles. Afterwards we decided that all of our energy should go into getting the GGs birth certificate because if we can't get that then none of the other stuff matters.

So far...

Bobby recently found out that he is eligible for dual citizenship. Technically he actually is a dual citizen, but he just has to prove it. Even if no one ever reads this I thought it would be interesting just for myself to sort of document the process since "proving it" can be a pretty long road. I hope to look back on all these posts one day holding my US and Italian Passport. Here's what's happened so far:

May 2007 - we return from our honeymoon in Italy and start fantasizing about living there...nothing really concrete ever comes of it until:

February 2008 - we put our condo up For Sale By Owner with the thought of moving to Boise.

Then one day over dinner we're "talking about our feelings" and one of our mutual dreams is to live in Italy. For some reason, for the first time, we start seriously talking about it - about doing it and not just talking about it.

So we start looking at ways to get visas. Bobby comes across dual citizenship - we didn't even know this existed. It doesn't seem real or feasibly at first. But then we realize Bobby really does meet all of the criteria. Bobby created this really cool google document where we are putting all the information we find on dual citizenship. Now we're on a quest.

Friday, September 12th
So I found a research center down town. On the phone the lady seemed to know exactly what I was talking about so I felt good about going down there. Then Bobby and I get there and they totally do not have what we need. It was kind of irritating. But it ended up being OK because they did have a subscription to Ancestry, which they let us use. I don't know, but Bobby got on some kind of roll with the street numbers or something and he ended up finding his grandfather's address and misspelled name on the 1920 census. And found the perfect document for the 1930 census. So now we have our page numbers. That's what we needed to order the census stuff so Yay!