Atto di Espatrio

[michaelw]

Folks,
I have in an Emergency Passport Application filed with the U.S. Embassy in Palermo in 1919, mention of an 'Atto di Espatrio.' I have never requested one. I was hoping somebody could fill me on two basic details: 1) where would you go to request a copy of that record? (Can you even request it?) 2) What information is likely to be on it?

The story is that a little girl was born in the United State to two Italian citizens who decided that the U.S. was not for them. The parents took the little girl back to Palermo with them in 1915 but then probably died in 1919. She was requesting an Emergency Passport to go live with relatives in the United States. I am hoping that the Atto di Espatrio contains the dates and locations of her parents deaths so I can request a death certificate. So...can I get a copy? What will be on it?
THANKS!
-Cory

[michaelw]

From what I have found out, the document was used when someone who was not one of the parents wanted to take a child out of the country. So in this case, her uncle wanted to take her to the United States and so he needed an Atto di Espatrio so that he could both leave with her and disembark in the U.S. with her. This is probably an unusual record. Any experience with it?

[erudita74]

the following thread is a discussion specifically about Italian passports from that time period, but may contain info useful in your search-
Erudita

http://www.italiangenealogy.com/forum/e ... 0s#p219590

[michaelw]

Thanks for the link, when I searched earlier under Atto di Espatrio, very little came up. This seems like the most relevant material from that thread:
John Philip Colletta answered my query in his book: Finding Italian Roots: The Complete Guide for Americans. I quote pages 77-78:
Prior to 1869 permits to emigrate were issued by regional heads of state, such as the King of the Two Sicilies in Naples or the Duke of Tuscany, through a governmental agency. Since the unification of Italy, passport applications have been made at the local questura (police station). Registri dell'Emigrazione e Passporti (Registers of Emigration and Passports) from about 1800 through World War I, are preserved in archivi di stato, with those dated 1869 and later being among the records of the Polizia (Police) or Prefettura (Prefect). Passport records since World War I, however, are still in the custody of the questura where the application was made. Emigration and passport records usually state the name of each emigrant, comune of birth, age or birth date, date when applying to emigrate or date when emigration will be permitted, and the port of departure and destination. Unfortunately, however, in many places, emigration and passport records have not been preserved, either in the archivio di stato or at the questura.
A seperate set of records dealing with emigration matters has been kept since 1869 by the Ministero dell'Interno (Minsitry of the Interior) in Rome, where they are maintained today--closed to public inspection. However, requests for genealogical information from these records may be granted if the requestor makes clear his or her relationship to the emigrant and gives a reason for the information that the ministry considers satisfactory.

My follow up question is this: are the "archivi di stato" the federal archives in Rome, communal archives, or the provincal archives? It sounds like the passport applications that you can get from pre-WWI aren't worth much but maybe the emigration documents are...

[suanj]

Folks,
I have in an Emergency Passport Application filed with the U.S. Embassy in Palermo in 1919, mention of an 'Atto di Espatrio.' I have never requested one. I was hoping somebody could fill me on two basic details: 1) where would you go to request a copy of that record? (Can you even request it?) 2) What information is likely to be on it?

The story is that a little girl was born in the United State to two Italian citizens who decided that the U.S. was not for them. The parents took the little girl back to Palermo with them in 1915 but then probably died in 1919. She was requesting an Emergency Passport to go live with relatives in the United States. I am hoping that the Atto di Espatrio contains the dates and locations of her parents deaths so I can request a death certificate. So...can I get a copy? What will be on it?
THANKS!
-Cory

Cory,
when the little girl went in Italy, on 1915, her US Birth record was transcribed also in the town of her parents, so in the civil records>births>second part of birth's register;
you can find the her transcription Birth act, from USA into italian Language, and on it is specified who asked the transcription (the father, normally) and so to know more abt this girl's parents, in meantime knowing the names you can find the their Death acts in same civil records around 1918/1919...
so the first step is to search the transcription ( around 1915), and then the Death record of her parents... abt Atto di espatrio, or passports, from what I know, in Italy it has preserved very little, and just some provincial archive have something, but with many limitations, and ditto in some municipal archive...
suanj