While looking around the web site for the Italian consulate in New York, I found a link to a dual citizenship questionnaire created by The National Italian American Foundation. I suppose it gives me some piece of mind to see that when i fill out their questionnaire, it says I qualify for dual citizenship.
All documents from the United States require that an apostille be attached to them. These certify the documents according to international law.
A couple of weeks ago, I got apostilles for my sons' birth certificates in downtown Nashville. Today I sent off an apostille request for our marriage certificate from NY State (http://www.dos.ny.gov/corps/apostille.html). This is a trial run to see how quickly the documents are returned. I'll be sending off apostille requests for a number of birth and death certificates in the coming weeks and months as I receive them.
One of the many requirements for dual citizenship is this : YOUR APPLICATION AND YOUR DECLARATIONS THAT YOU AND YOUR ASCENDANT NEVER RENOUNCED ITALIAN CITIZENSHIP BEFORE ANY ITALIAN AUTHORITY, LISTING ALL THE PLACES OF RESIDENCE
On the Italian Citizenship Message Board I found a note that some consulates require a notarized affidavit from anyone living in the chain that they also never renounced their Italian citizenship.
Today, I sent my dad a document to get notarized that said essentially the following:
I, Joseph A. Palmeri (born — — —- in Buffalo, NY), am the son of Joseph J. Palmeri (born 2 Oct 1911 in Buffalo, NY, died 19 Jul 1967 in Buffalo, NY, husband to Sarina Millonzi, born 14 Oct 1915 in Montemaggiore Belsito, Italy), who was the son of Angelo Palmeri (born 27 Jan 1886 in Serradifalco, Italy, died 29 Sep 1969 in Buffalo, NY, husband to Maria Giambrone, born 12 Apr 1890 in Serradifalco, Italy, died 11 Jul 1972 in Buffalo, NY).
I hereby declare that I have never renounced Italian citizenship before any Italian authority.
I basically created a similar version of that for myself that I'll get notarized this week.
Even though we just received our "official" birth certificates, I just discovered that these could cause problems because they were issued by the City of Buffalo and not New York State. Either at the Apostille stage or at the Italian Consulate stage, these could be rejected because they were not issued by the state.
So, we're starting over. Today I'm sending out applications to the NY State Department of Health for full, certified, long-form birth certificates for me and Amy. That's another $30 each, which brings our grand total to $252 and we're only a fraction of the way to the finish line.
I'm also sending out a request for my mother's birth certificate to NY State. Technically, the only people eligible to receive a birth certificate are the person themselves and their parents. I adapted the form my father got to receive a copy of his grandfather's death certificate to receive a copy of my mom's birth certificate. I'm including copies of my ID, my birth certificate, my mom's birth and death certificates, a notarized letter saying that I am applying for dual citizenship, and a copy of the citizenship requirements from the Detroit consulate. That's another $30. If they say no, we may need to get a court order.
We heard back from the NYS Department of Health. My dad had applied to get a certified copy of his great-grandfather's death certificate for dual citizenship. He received a letter and form that needs to be notarized in order for NYS to release the death certificate.
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A couple weeks ago, we learned that the birth certificates we used our entire life … to get a driver's license, to get a passport, for everything … were not "real" birth certificates. They were simply "Certificates of Birth Registration".
To get dual citizenship, I needed real birth certificates for Amy and I that showed all the detail information, including a signature from the physician.
They arrived today.
This evening, I searched microfilm of birth records (Atti di Nascita) from Serradifalco and found my great-grandparents, Angelo Palmeri and Maria Giambrone.
Not only is this an interesting tidbit, but I needed to make sure that these records could be found in order to apply for dual citizenship. This at least proves that these records existed when the LDS church microfilmed the Serradifalco records.
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Angelo Palmeri, born 27 Jan 1886 in Serradifalco, Sicily
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Maria Giambrone, born 12 Apr 1890 in Serradifalco, Sicily
I originally emailed the Italian Consulate in Detroit a couple of weeks ago. Today I got a response. They sent me two information packets:
To be of Not to Be An Italian Citizen? That is the Question
Determination of Italian Citizenship (Jure sanguinis)
The one new piece of information is that all of my documentation, if issued in other States, must be presented to this office, duly certified by the Consulate in the jurisdiction where the certificates were issued. It notes: Vital statistics certificates (birth, marriage, death, etc.) that occurred in the United States of America in relation to Italian citizens must be registered at the City Halls in Italy. The registration will be processed by the Consular Offices. In order to do so the certificates must be submitted to the Consular Office that has jurisdiction over the State in which the events occurred, in certified copies issued by the competent County Clerk Office and legalized with the “Apostille”. Simple photocopies or certified copies issued by the local registrar are not valid for registration in Italy.
I thought we were all set with probably the simplest part of our application for dual citizenship: birth certificates for my wife and myself.
Well, my wife informed me that we only have short form certificates.
She learned this when she went down to the local social security office to get an error corrected on her records. It turns out they wouldn't accept her birth certificate. While it was an official copy with a raised seal, it was only a short form, not a long form, so they would not accept it. Apparently, what we both have seems to be the same kind of short-form birth certificate that President Obama originally released that the "birthers" had a cow over until he released his long-form birth certificate.
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my short-form birth certificate (redacted, of course)
We're mailing out requests to the City of Buffalo Clerk's Office to get official, certified, long-form birth certificates today at $10 a piece.
That makes the running total cost so far $186, and we've completed just a handful of steps. And that doesn't include the money I've spent over the past few years filling in the basic genealogical information with ancestry.com subscriptions.
This may be the easiest step in our journey to dual citizenship.
Birth certificates are required for all children under the age of eighteen. Well, that part was simple. I opened our safe, and grabbed the original birth certificates for my two sons.
They each also need something called an Apostille from the Secretary of State of the state in which they were issued. According to Wikipedia, "The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, the Apostille convention or the Apostille treaty is an international treaty drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It specifies the modalities through which a document issued in one of the signatory countries can be certified for legal purposes in all the other signatory states. Such a certification is called an apostille (French: certification). It is an international certification comparable to a notarisation in domestic law."
Our children were born in Nashville, so that means the Tennessee Secretary of State. Since Nashville is the state capitol, that just meant going downtown to the Department of State in the Snodgrass Tower and going to the 6th Floor.
This may be the cheapest step in our journey as well. It only cost $2 each to get an apostille affixed to each of their birth certificates.
Later, we will need to get the certificates translated as well, but we'll wait to do that when we have all of the documents in hand.
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apostille affixed to a birth certificate
Until now,this is what I know:
Based on the Social Security Death Index, found by searching on ancestry.com, I know that my great-grandfather, Angelo Palmeri, was born 27 Jan 1886 and died in Sep 1969. Based on census records, I know that my great-grandmother, Maria (Giambrone) Palmeri, was born abt 1891. I know from talking with with my dad that she probably died somewhere between 1970 and 1975.
I try calling Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Buffalo, where I know my grandfather is buried. Maybe his parents, my great-grandparents, are buried there as well. No, they're not. But the cemetery suggests calling Mount Calvary, which is right across the street.
I call Mount Calvary. Sure enough, they're buried there. Awesome!
They can tell me that my great-grandfather died 29 Sep 1969 at the age of 83 and that my great-grandmother died 11 Jul 1972 age the age of 82.
Unfortunately, they have no record in the office about their birth date. But they give me the location of the grave site.
My sister takes on my mission to find their grave. With some calls back and forth, including some searches of google maps by me while on the phone with her, she locates the grave marker and sends me a picture:
gravemarker for my great-grandparents, Maria and Angelo Palmeri
Maria (Giambrone) Palmeri was born in 1890. I don't know the day or month, but this narrows things down a lot from where I was only yesterday.
Emails to the Italian embassy in Washington and consulates in Detroit and Chicago went unanswered for nearly two weeks. I finally called the consulate in Detroit, which is the consulate for Tennessee. I had to call during the one hour during the day that they accept citizenship calls. In order to get questions answered about dual citizenship, they tell me I have to call a telephone number that charges per minute: http://www.consdetroit.esteri.it/Consolato_Detroit/Menu/I_Servizi/Per_i_cittadini/Cittadinanza/
I call. The timer starts immediately after I enter my credit card. I figure about 10 minutes on hold. Someone picks up. I wanted to know if Detroit had its own dual citizenship checklist list other consulates do. They don't. I wanted to know if they have a list of approved translators. They don't. I want to know what the procedure is for getting an appointment at the consulate. You just call the same phone number. I want to confirm that my children can get citizenship at the same time I do. They can.
I get my questions answered in about 4-5 minutes. Plus the 10 minutes on hold.
I figure about $30 in phone charges.
Update (12 Oct 2011)
After paying to get my questions only partially answered, I discovered the Italian Citizenship Message Board: http://italiancitizenship.freeforums.org/
Just about any question you might have about Italian dual citizenship is probably answered here.
One lesson I've learned over the past couple of years is to regularly check ancestry.com and familysearch.org. New databases are added all the time.
I'm particularly interested in any records related to the date of my great-grandfather's naturalization. I'm 99% certain that he became naturalized after my grandfather was born. My great-grandfather came to the US around 1908. My grandfather was born in 1911. I'm pretty sure there was a waiting period before people could become naturalized. Also, the 1920 census listed him as "pa", which means that his first papers were filed (declaration of intent), but he was not yet a citizen. Only on the 1930 census is he listed as "na", which means naturalized.
But now I need to find proof. So any documentation will help.
My new search on ancestry.com brought up a pretty spartan record from something called the "U.S. Naturalization Record Index".
Not much to go by here. But I try contacting the National Archives in Chicago (because they were the only ones I could find easily oneline) to see if they can help find an original record to go with this index filing.
They tell me that this appears to be the naturalization of Angelo Palmeri while serving in the military during WWI. According to them, the copy of the index card, along with associated information, indicated that he was naturalized in the U. S. District Court, Western District of New York in 1918. But I needed to contact the NY office of the National Archives. I email them (twice) and am still waiting for a response.
I'm not sure if this is my great-grandfather, given that he was listed as "pa" in the 1920 census, but maybe this indexes when papers were filed not when naturalization was finalized. I also don't know whether he actually served in WWI. We'll see if they turn up anything. Leave no stone unturned.
Update (19 Oct 2011)
I received a reply. It turns out this belonged to someone who is definitely not my great-grandfather:
Military Petition Number S2-302 from the Western District Court of New York
Name – Angelo Palmeri
Address – Stationed at Fort Niagara, NY
DOB – January 14, 1887 at Perugia, Prov. Prorricia, Italy
Date of Naturalization – June 1918
Too bad. But now that I have a contact in the National Archives, I'm asking if they can search their records given the information I have. This is in parallel with a search request I submitted to Homeland Security. Still waiting.
While I'm aiming to gain dual citizenship through my grandfather and his father, I need copies of my grandmother's and great-grandmother's birth certificates as well. Unlike the paternal birth certificates, these apparently don't need to be official long-form birth certificates, so I'm trying to obtain them on my own rather than pay $50 a piece to go through a place like myitalianfamily.com. We'll see how this goes.
The first step was to figure out where to ask for them. I found several places online that suggested sending requests to the Ufficio dello Stato Civile in the town that the ancestros were born. I was able to find the mailing address in Montemaggiore Belsito for my grandmother and in Serradifalco for my great-grandmother.
The next step was to figure out how to make the request in Italian. Io capisco un po l'italiano. So I needed help. I tried google translate (http://translate.google.com/). To check the quality of the translation, after I translated a sentence from English to Italian, I back-translated the result from Italian to English.
This is what I produced. It says that I need a birth certificate for Rosaria (Sarina) Millonzi, who was born in Montemaggiore Belsito. It gives her birth date and names her parents, Rosario Millonzi and Carmela Parisi. It does ask for them in long form, "formato internazionale" or "estratto per riassunto", just to be safe. It says I will be willing to pay for the processing and shipping. I included a 5 Euro note because we had some Euros in the house from my last trip to Europe. Maybe that'll pay for the shipping. Or it will be a tip for the clerk. If it works and I get the birth certificates, it will be money well spent.
Hopefully this will all work.
Ufficio dello Stato Civile
Comunie di Montemaggiore Belsito
Piazza Roma
PA 90020 Montemaggiore Belsito
ITALY
Egregi Signori,
Mi chiamo Thomas Palmeri, ed abito negli Stati Uniti all'indirizzo sopradetto. Cerco informazioni sulla mia nonna, Rosarina (Sarina) Millonzi. Nata nel comune di Montemaggiore Belsito. Cerco questi dati per conoscere meglio la mia famiglia, e per trovare i miei parenti rimasti in Italia.
Vi sarei molto grato se poteste spedirmi l'estratto dell'atto di nascita di Rosarina (Sarina) Millonzi. Nata nel 14 Ottobre, 1915. I suoi genitori erano Rosario Millonzi e Carmela Parisi.
Ho allegato copia del certificato di nascita di mio padre e mio certificato di nascita. Si prega di inviare come "formato internazionale" o "estratto per riassunto" con il nome della madre e del padre.
Vi ringrazio in anticipo per la vostra gentilezza e premura, e vi prego di addebitarmi tutte le spese postali e dei certificati.
Ho incluso 5 euro per alcuni dei costi.
Distinti saluti,
Thomas Palmeri
One particularly critical piece of documentation I need for dual Italian citizenship is my great-grandfather Angelo Palmeri's naturalization record.
In order to qualify for Italian citizenship, my grandfather must have been born before my great-grandfather became naturalized.
I need a statement from homeland security showing his full name, place of birth and date of birth, date of the naturalization, certificate number (or, if a legal alien, his permanent resident card number). Before ordering this record, I had found my great-grandfather's birthdate when I found his Social Security Death Index record on ancestry.com.
My first filed attempt was a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. Apparently, since 2008, naturalization records are no longer access via FOIA. So my request by email and fax was rejected.
Instead, I submitted an online request through the Genealogy Program website at http://www.uscis.gov/genealogy. Requests can also be mailed to USCIS Genealogy Program, PO Box 805925, Chicago, IL 60680-4120.
It took a few clicks to find the right place on the web site. First, I clicked on "Make a Genealogy Request" along the left hand side. "Order Online Now" appeared on the right hand side. Apparently, this is a two step process. First, for $20, you need to do an Index Search Request. If that returns a match, for $35 you need to do a Record Request.
We'll see how long it takes to get a result of the index search.
After I learned that my great-grandfather, Angelo Palmeri, had a brother, Charles, and that Charles and Angelo had married sisters, Maria and Barbara, I set about trying to find more information.
Palmeri is not a very common name outside of Buffalo, NY. I think my wife and I are the only Palmeris in Nashville. I figure that at least some of the Palmeris living in Buffalo are related. So I send out about a dozen letters to various Palmeris listed in the phone book. A few weeks later, I get a call from someone who turns out to be my dad's second cousin. He knows my dad, not just as family, but because they both worked for the Buffalo Board of Education. His son, who is probably about my age, received one of my random letters and gave it to him.
Chuck was a treasure of information about the Palmeri family. I learned that Angelo and Charles had two brothers, Samuel and Peter, who also came to Buffalo, and that they may have left a sister, Maria, in Serradifalco. I also learn that Maria and Barbara Giambrone – I finally know their last name for sure – had three sisters and a brother who came to Buffalo and a sister who stayed in Sicily. I also learn that my great-great-grandparents, Giuseppe and Giuseppa Giambrone, parents to the Giambrone clan, also came to Buffalo. I recently learned that they are buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Buffalo.
They shared information about the Palmeri family. They knew by grandfather and grandmother well. They shared information about Serradifalco, including a video that showed the homes my great-grandparents had been born in and that showed a street named after the family in Serradifalco, Via Palmeri.
But maybe the coolest thing they shared was a story of my great-great-aunt and uncle, Charles and Barbara (Giambrone) Palmeri.
You can click here for the full story: Story of Charles and Barbara (Giambrone) Palmeri
There is a lot of really interesting information in their about life as a young immigrant family.
Every summer, the Palmeris and Giambrones would go to the Eden Valley to pick peas and beans. All of the adults and children would work and they would sleep in a barn. They were paid 1 cent a per pound for peas and 2 cents per pound for beans. As the boys got older, they would graduate from picking to hoeing and running machinery.
Apparently, my grandfather, Joseph Palmeri, used to go down every summer until he got married. My father remembers going down there occasionally as a child. But according to my dad, his mother had no interest in being anywhere near farm work.
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Barbara and Maria (Giambrone) Palmeri
My grandfather, Joseph Palmeri, married my grandmother, Sarina Millonzi.
I knew my grandmother’s birth date. I was fairly sure that she was born in Sicily and came to the US as a little girl. I did not know my great-grandfather’s first name. He died when I was 5 years old. I remember my great-grandmother very well. She died when I was 19. I knew she went by the name of “Mela” and I thought that her maiden name was Parisi. The Millonzis came from a town in Sicily called “Montemaggiore”. But I knew little else.
With my monthly membership to ancestry.com in hand, I do a search for the Millonzi family.
Millonzi is not a common name, but a bunch of possibilities come up. After rejecting many, I find a New York Passenger List with my great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandmother, and my uncle.
I see that my great-grandfather’s name is Rosario. It was incorrectly transcribed as Rosaria, a female name. So I submit a correction. It lists his age as 34, born abt 1886.
My great-grandmother’s full name was Carmela. Born in 1892.
My grandmother’s birth name was Rosaria. The diminutive for a small girl would be Rosarina. So that’s where Sarina came from. It says she was born abt 1916. But I know she was born in 1915.
Now I learn that my great-uncle Iggy (Ignatius) was also born in Sicily. He was only 1 month old. With a crossing to the US by ship taking a couple of weeks, either my great-grandparents immigrated with a newborn or he was born on the ship coming over.
It’s humbling to imagine my own family coming through Ellis Island. My great-grandparents, speaking no English at all, with my 4 year old grandmother and my infant uncle. They’re heading to Buffalo to join my great-grandfather’s brothers who came to the US years before.
Carmela (Parisi) Millonzi, Ida (Millonzi) Russo (infant), Iggy Millonzi, and Sarina (Millonzi) Palmeri, abt 1923.
My father thought that his grandfather died when I was little, so I figured that was probably the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. But I had nothing else to go on. I knew his name, I thought I knew where he was from, but I didn’t know his birth date, death date, or the name of my great-grandmother.
Having heard about ancestry.com, I thought I might give that a try. After creating a free membership, I did a search for “Angelo Palmeri” and “Buffalo” and some matches came up. With a free membership, ancestry lets you see the 1930 census but not much else. You need to pay to see more.
There he was. It’s cliché, I know, but I got chills seeing my grandfather and great-grandparents listed right there on a census record taken 80 years ago. Anyone who does genealogy knows that feeling. If for you these are just old lists of dead people, then you don’t do genealogy. For me, I had a new hobby.
It had his age (44). Given that it was the 1930 census, I figure he was born around 1885-1886. Cool. I also see that he was a naturalized US citizen. That would turn out to be important later.
Listed next to him was my 18 year old grandfather, Joseph Palmeri. I knew from my dad that he was an only child. Now I had a rough idea of my grandfather’s birth year. He was 18 years old in 1930, so that would mean he was born around 1911-1912. I also see that my grandfather was born in the United States.
And there was my great-grandmother. Mary. Now I had a first name. No last name. But that was something at least.
And oddly, right above them was a whole bunch of other Palmeris. Charles and Barbara and bunch of kids. Not only were they neighbors, but they were living in the same house. I knew there were a lot of other Palmeris in Buffalo and that we were somehow related to them, but I never knew how. So I call my dad. He says “Oh yeah, that’s uncle Chuck and Aunt Barbara. My grandparents lived in the same house with them. Don’t you remember going to their house when you were little? They had a big staircase with a really cool banister. You used to love it when I made you slide down it.” I had a vague memory of some house with a staircase and an old man giving me jelly beans, but nothing else. When my dad said that was probably when I was 2 or 3 years old, it made sense that my memory was so sparse. And I never heard of an uncle Chuck and Aunt Barbara until now.
My dad told me that these Palmeris were more than just cousins. Charles (Calogero in Italian) and Angelo, two brothers, married two sisters (Barbara and Maria). My dad tried, but he couldn’t really remember their maiden name. Maybe it was something like “Gembrone”, but that was the best he could do. Maybe someday I could find a relative of Charles and Barbara and find more information about the “Gembrone” family.
Following tradition, my father was named after his grandfather, Angelo Palmeri. When he was a child, my father changed his named from Angelo Joseph Palmeri to Joseph Angelo Palmeri.
So I knew my great-grandfather’s name, but little else.
All that my father knew was that the Palmeri family came from a small town in Sicily where most of the men were sulfur miners. He thought the name was something like “saltadifarco”. Needless to say, a Google search on that name brought up nothing. But with a little more searching on Google maps and Wikipedia, I reasoned out that they probably came from Serradifalco, a small town in the providence of Caltanissetta in Sicily, where sulfur mining and farming were the most prevalent occupations. I wasn’t certain. But it seemed a good bet.
Several years ago, I inherited a shoebox full of papers when my wife's grandmother, Jessie Dibble Hill Brown, went into an assisted-living facility. In it were 60+ years of genealogical work she had amassed on my wife's family. For the sake of my two young boys, my niece and nephew, and to memorialize her lifetime of work, I set about putting all of her written records on their family tree into the computer.
Jessie did not just have a simple family tree going back a few generations. With the help of cousins and a couple of serious family genealogists, Jessie had traced back her family tree to the founding of the United States and beyond. She had also accumulated many dozens of obituaries over the years. Her genealogical records included very distant cousins alive today who all shared ancestors from the 1700s.
One of her ancestors, Daniel Pomeroy, fought in the Revolutionary War. During the Battle of Long Island, he was a Private in Captain Enoch Hart's & Oliver Hanchetts' companies and is said to have saved the life of George Washington. After the battle, George Washington gave his cane to Daniel Pomeroy, which has been handed down to the oldest son in each generation. That ancestor earned Jessie Dibble membership in the DAR, something she cherished throughout her long life.
Another line of ancestors were the Denisons. Jessie's great-grandmother was Candace Denison, who married Ichabod Crippen Dibble. They Denisons were one of the early settlers of Connecticut. The Denison homestead still stands and is open to the public (http://denisonhomestead.org/).
Denison homestead near Mystic, Connecticut
After I entered in the thousands of names from Jessie's records, I started getting on ancestry.com to see if I could find original records and possibly go back even farther.
One of my discoveries, which only took a little bit of searching through existing family trees and published genealogies, was that her part of Denison family included the Starr family, another old New England family, which included within it the Brewster family. William Brewster, one of the leaders of the Pilgrims, is my boys' 11th great-grandfather. Several other Pilgrims also figure into their family tree.
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a likeness of William Brewster
When I was done, I had a family tree for my wife and two boys that went back to the 1500s along several lines, with some tentative branches – twigs really – that could go back to royal families more than 1000 years ago.
Then I looked at my family tree.
I knew the names of my grandparents and half of my great-grandparents. I knew that my dad's family was from Sicily and that my mom's family was half French and half Irish on both of her sides. But little else.
So I set about to fill in my family tree. What started with a little poking around has turned into a serious hobby.
Full disclosure: These opening blog entries are fakes. By that I mean that I've added dates to them after the fact to try to trace out and preserve the timeline of when I made the discoveries I did. The stories are real. But these aren't really blog posting. Only things posted after around October 1, 2011 are true blog postings. I'm preserving these so that my children can perhaps someday see the work I did and how I discovered the things I've discovered about my side of the family.
I also created a blog because only recently, as I started to seriously research my Italian heritage, did I discover that I may be eligible for Italian citizenship jus sanguinis (by blood). I'll talk about this more in later posts. So part of my interest in putting together this blog was to share my efforts to establish my Italian citizenship with others. Maybe this will all come for naught. We'll see how things turn out.