1948 Case vs the long road through GGF

[tsmith19983]

Here is my situation:

Wife's family is originally from Genoa. Her GGF came to US in 1890, had a son in 1913 and naturalized in 1919. This would normally be our path, however we are running into a lot of problems with the documentation. He sometimes used his given name Carlo, sometimes translated it into Charles. we are having trouble finding all the documents, and proving Carlo & Charles are the same person may be a gap we are never able to overcome.

Our other path is through wife GM. She was Italian citizen when she emigrate to US in 1938 and wasn't naturalized until well after Father was born (father born 1939, she was naturalized in 1943). Case would appear to be a pretty straight forward 1948 case.

So my question is, should I just go with the 1948 case as the most straight forward path, or could I be forced to go the GGF route? I'm realize that either path is a serious time & $$ commitment. I just don't want to spend a few years and a few thousand to find out I should have gone down the other path.

Thanks in advance for all of your help. Reading this forum has already answered many many questions I had!

[mler]

I may be incorrect, but I don't think they are willing to take 1948 cases unless there is no other viable path. You will need to check with one of the attorneys.

There should be no problem with the Carlo/Charles issue, since the names are simple translations. Finding documents is often time consuming, but generally they turn up. With naturalization records that date after the child's birth, the ggf route is straightforward as well.