Finger prints taken and sent off to the states and the FBI

 Palmeri  No Responses »
Sep 242012
 

A jure matrimoni application requires "police clearance or certificate of criminal records issued by the central authority of each state of which the applicant has been a resident since the age of 14, accompanied by a translation into Italian."

Today, my wife obtained her finger prints from the Nashville Police Department ($12).

We need to pay for background checks: NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services ($60.75), Tennessee Bureau of Investigation ($29.00), Indiana Digital Finger Prints ($12), Indiana State Police Background Check ($10), and FBI ($18.00).

Obtaining a certified Tennessee background check

 Palmeri  No Responses »
Mar 222012
 

To obtain a Tennessee background check, we need to download the application from here : http://www.tbi.state.tn.us/background_checks/backgrd_checks.shtml

This is the form: http://www.tbi.state.tn.us/background_checks/TORIS-master-memo.pdf

We need to write on it that it needs to be notarized.

We can go to the TBI and get it done in person while we wait:

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
Headquarters
901 R.S. Gass Boulevard
Nashville, TN 37216
(615) 744-4000

Then we can take it downtown to the Secretary of State to get it apostilled.

Division of Business Services
312 Rosa L. Parks Avenue, Snodgrass Tower, 6th Floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Apostilles for my sons

 Palmeri  No Responses »
Oct 142011
 

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.

apostille affixed to a birth certificate

Getting questions answered about dual citizenship

 Palmeri  No Responses »
Oct 072011
 

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.