11. A is for Apostille–What is That?

Just about every document you submit for recognition of your Italian jure sanguinis citizenship must be an official document and must be authenticated in a way acceptable to Italy. So, no, you can’t drag that copy of your mother’s birth certificate out of her sock drawer (what are you doing in there anyway?) and use it. You must have an official, properly certified copy.

The birth certificate for your last Italian-born ancestor is in a class of its own: It’s Italian. It will be in the Italian language and come from Italy bearing a blue stamp indicating it is an official copy. Once you have it, that’s it for that document. Remember, the ultimate destination for all your documents is a comune in Italy and this document will be familiar and understandable there. You are probably going to need the birth certificate for the spouse of that ancestor as well, and that may be in the same category, especially if your ancestors came to the US before 1915, in the great wave of Italian immigration.

The rest of your documents, though, are not likely to be Italian. Since I don’t know about other countries, I am going to talk about American documents only. You will have to obtain certified copies of the long form of the documents I listed in my last post and, once you have them, get them authenticated. That’s what the apostille is for.

You can pronounce apostille as Frenchly as you’d like (It is a French word: ah-poh-STEEL) but however you do it, the T is not silent and it has nothing to do with the bible. It is an internationally accepted form of document authentication designed to standardize and streamline the exchange of documents between countries party to the Hague Convention.

In the US, only States and the Federal Government can issue apostilles and then only for documents in their own jurisdictions. Apostilles vary in look depending on who issues them, but they are almost always a page attached to the top of the document you send in.

Birth, death and marriage records come from different places and have different restrictions depending on the state you are asking. There are services that can help you obtain documents, but it is usually something you can manage yourself. Since so many Italian immigrants ended up in the city of New York, a lot of people have to request records from the city. Almost all of mine came from Brooklyn with a few from Connecticut, one from Florida and one from the Suffolk County in NY state.

In the case of these records, I recommend you start by googling what you want–“how do I find a birth certificate in Brooklyn,” for example. Make sure you look at the results carefully and click on the official site, not a service–unless that’s what you want, of course.

If you are a member of Ancestry.com, you may be ahead of the game. You might have found the record you need, and have a link, or at least the identifying number to order the record by. You will also have a specific date. This is obviously true if you have a copy of the document already at home. Otherwise, you will have to order by date range. And if you are thinking in terms of a date based on family say-so, I would not take that date as set in stone. One of the surprises for me was finding out how many birthdays were celebrated on days other than the actual date of birth. Also, how many marriages were celebrated as happening a year before they actually did. Yes, even our older ancestors were having a good time!

You can order documents online in many cases, or by mail. NYC, for example, has online ordering of birth certificates, but there are two different places you must order from:

one for births before 1910

and one for births after 1910.

For births after 1910, only the named person, or that person’s parent, can order, so you may have to enlist the help of your in-line relatives to make the request. For births before 1910, considered “historical” or “legacy” records, you will simply be asked to give your relationship to the named person. If you order by mail, be sure to check out the kind of information the website form, if it exists, asks for, and supply that information with your requesting letter. You may also find a form you can print from the municipality’s website. Whatever you do, you will have to pay, sometimes by money order or bank check, and I highly recommend keeping gooood records of what you requested, from whom, and when. Also make a note of the website(s) you referred to, because later on, when four months have gone by and no document has arrived, the things you thought you’d never forget will have flown from your mind.

In any event, remember to:

  1. request the long form
  2. request a letter of Exemplification if applicable
  3. state explicitly that the document is going to be apostilled for use in Italy
  4. make your Consulate appointment before you do any ordering, because the wait for appointments is typically quite long–years, in some cases.

Some records come back very quickly, but some take months. It is impossible to predict how long the process will end up taking, but probably not as long as you will wait to get into the Consulate, unless you are in the jurisdiction of one of the rare Consulates with a relatively short wait list, so see item 4 above.

When a document arrives:

  • save the envelope since the Consulate might want to see it
  • copy and/or scan the document immediately and store the copy separately

For documents issued in one of the five boroughs of NYC, you will almost certainly have to send or take those documents through one more step before you can send them off for apostille. That step is to have them authenticated by the County Clerk of the location that issued the record to you. A record for someone born in Brooklyn, for example, might have come to you from an office in the county of New York (Manhattan) and that governs which clerk must authenticate it. You do not need this authentication if your document is already signed by the county clerk. That happened to me and saved me a step on one or two documents. List of County Clerks.

You should check with the entity that is going to issue the Apostille about what kind of precertification they may require. NYC documents are not the only ones requiring an intermediate step. In my experience, you can’t count on someone lower in the chain knowing the requirement. Notaries, for example, might not know if their signature has to be pre-authenticated before being presented to the state for apostille. You will have to check the notary seal for which municipality grants the notary authority and call them. The cost of the Apostille also varies widely. I think I paid as little as $3 and as much as $40.

The process of document request can be ridiculously easy or ridiculously difficult. Next time, things that can go wrong and what went wrong for me.

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8 thoughts

  1. Hi Lydia, thank you for all your great advice. I hope your still answering questions as here is mine 🙂

    My paternal grandmother was born in the Brooklyn NY, I have a baptismal certificate, she returned to Italy as a baby and then met my grandfather, who was born in Sicily (he was adopted-I have a birth certificate). They married and had my father in 1937. My father came to the US in 1952 at he age of 15 with an American passport. My grandparents and his siblings then came to the US in 1957 (I found the ships log on Ancestry!) So my father was a dual citizen already because of his mother, he did not have to naturalize and to my knowledge he did not naturalize. My grandfather, until the day he passed was still an Italian citizen ( I have color copies of his last Italian passport as well as color copies of my grandmothers last US passport). I am sure that I qualify, but I think I have to get proof from the naturalization agency (which one I do not know) to prove that there are no records of his naturalizing. My father has since passed, I have a birth certificate and death certificate as well as my parents marriage license. My mother is also from Italian decent, but born in Brooklyn. The documents I have are old, have no staples or envelope from which they came. My fathers and grandfathers birth certificates are from Italy of course written in Italian Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated!
    Thank you,
    Theresa Costanzo
    ps. I was married and now divorced. I have my marriage license and divorce decree. I have two adult children that would also like to become dual citizens. 🙂

    1. Hi, Theresa!

      This question may be well above my pay grade. I really don’t know about the ins and outs of what happens when someone goes back to Italy. Is the assumption that your GM became an Italian citozen by marriage to your Sicilian-born GF? Let’s say that’s true and that we know yout father was officially a dual citizen. I think you would have to find all the places your GF lived and check that he did not renouce his Italian citizenship at the appropriate consulate(s). If you are lucky, he always lived in the jurisdiction of one Consulate. You will, of course, need official copies of all required documents you say you have with the appropriate Apostilles.

      Are you familiar with the Facebook Group. There is someone there with a similar name. The people in that group can answer pretty much any question or point you to someone who can. Best of luck!

  2. Hi Lydia, Thanks for the detailed and easy-to-follow info. I’m (hopefully!) nearing the end of my years of gathering/translating/apostille process for my 1948 case. I have birth & marriage certificates from PA (where my family’s docs are from) and their corresponding apostilles & translations done. My question is for things like naturalization documents that come from the state court of common pleas, but are on forms from the US Dept of Labor, from whom do I get the apostille? I also have documents from USCIS. I don’t know where to go to get those apostilles. I was on this website: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/internl-judicial-asst/authentications-and-apostilles.html, but either I’m stupid, or I just don’t see how to go about actually ordering/applying for apostilles! Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much. — joanna

    1. Hi, Joanna! You are welcome and I’m happy that the info was of some use. For the USCIS doc (or any federal apostille) this might help: http://bit.ly/2LCcSgn

      As far as that kind of crazy mixture of state court docs on federal forms, I don’t know for sure. My sense of all of it is that it all depends upon whose signature is on the recently-dated document–a state official or a federal official. That determines who apostilles. I ended up calling the number on the state.gov page and asking about a document I had just to be sure they were the right authority to authenticate it. The person I got was very helpful, and when I said “Are you sure because it seems complicated,” he went and got confirmation for me while I waited on the line.

      Good luck with your 1948 case. Dod you have a court date yet?
      Lydia

    1. You are welcome! I’m glad it is useful. Be sure to keep checking along the way, though. Requirements seem to be moving targets and given the time this process typically takes, things can change!

  3. I enjoyed this. Apostille, plus lots of time and patience are need to get a dual citizenship. Best wishes.

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