Paternal Dual Citizenship Questions

Over 25 million Italians have emigrated between 1861 and 1960 with a migration boom between 1871 and 1915 when over 13,5 million emigrants left the country for European and overseas destinations.
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TBellocchi
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Paternal Dual Citizenship Questions

Post by TBellocchi »

My great grandfather was Born in Italy, he came to the USA in 1908. He married in 1917. They then had my grandfather in 1922. The USCIS report states my great grandfather Naturalized in 1938.
Herein lies my question. Reading the SFConsulate list it states;
Category 3: father born in the United States or other Country (except Italy), your grandfather was Italian at the time of his birth and neither you nor your father ever renounced your right to the Italian Citizenship.
Technically my grandfather was born an Italian citizen in the USA, is this correct? He then “lost” Italian citizen ship when his father Naturalized because he was 16/17 at the time?
My father was not born until 1949.


Also on the topic, how does name change affect the paperwork process? Sometime in the 1930’s my grandfather started using another first name (not just a shortened version). Then some time in the 50s/60s he changed his last name. According to my father, he was trying to get acting work and just kept using the last name. I have been unable to find documentation on the name change outside of census records.

Thank you for your input.
Interested in surnames Bellocchi & Ranallett
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mler
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Re: Paternal Dual Citizenship Questions

Post by mler »

Your grandfather was born an Italian citizen because his father was still Italian when he was born. His father’s subsequent naturalization did not affect him because he was born in the US. He passed his Italian citizenship to his son, who then passed it to you. You clearly qualify in a direct male line.

Your problem is with the name change, and you will need to prove to the satisfaction of the consulate that this line is valid. What name appears on your grandfather’s marriage documents and on your father’s birth certificate? Unless you can demonstrate in some way that the names represent actual father-son relationships, you will have some difficulty.
TBellocchi
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Re: Paternal Dual Citizenship Questions

Post by TBellocchi »

mler, thank you for the response!
My father was born in ‘49 under the Bellocchi last name. I’m having a very difficult time nailing down the approx date and location of the last name change my grandfather made. Looking at census data, it looks like he (my grandfather) started his first name change or a nickname some time in his youth. By the time he was a late teen, he had started fully using his nickname as his first name. Then at some point he changed his last name before my father was an adult. Then in my youth, my dad changed our last names back to our original/his family surname. While his father, my grandfather maintained the use of his alternative surname until his passing.

If anyone has any pointers and tips on tracking down name change documentation, I would greatly appreciate it.
Currently I am working with the court in NY to get copies of the birth & death records. Because my grandfather remarried late in the game, I have to track down his wife from time of his passing, for reasons not totally clear to me as of yet.

As far as my original thread topic, the documentation on the process has been a great help for me; http://catlab.psy.vanderbilt.edu/palmer ... sanguinis/
Interested in surnames Bellocchi & Ranallett
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