Requesting info from Stato Civile

[mackie13624]

If anyone has written the Stato Civile in Italy reguarding family info couldyou tell me how long it took to get a response.....or if you even got one.

[JamesBianco]

That is difficult to say, probably depends on the town actually. I've written perhaps 50 letters over the years to different Comune's and the response time has been as little as 3 weeks and as long as 3 months.
The Italian postal system is pretty irregular, letters I sent home on my recent trip are a prime example of this. I was there in December of 2003, some arrived within a month, while three didn't make it here until March.
Be patient, in all of my experience I have never had a town not respond.

Best of luck

Jim Bianco

[ptimber]

The normal procedure s to send a follow up to the office in question after 6 weeks and ask them to expedite the request. Include a self addressed envelope with a dollar or two inside (nothing to lose) to pay for the extra effort. peter

[gizi]

YES It works!
it took 10 days for 2 stato civile(one in piemont one in pisa) to give births certificates but... I live in France.
I did not send money but an envelope for the answer.
thank you for the tranlation I found on your site.
merci

[nicedream]

Just wondering....does the size of the town usually make a difference in any way? I would figure smaller towns might not have as many requests, so they might reply faster. Then again, they probably don't have as many staff to work on it so maybe I'm wrong...

[wldspirit]

I think, as in any case here in the US, it depends on the willingness of staff.
Some are more accomadating than others. My ancestral town, population 1000, made no response at all to any of my request, after seven or more months of waiting. It took personal phone calls by Suanj to get the ball rolling, otherwise, I'd still be waiting!!!!
wldspirit

[nicedream]

I am just going to bump this topic up to report that I received my great-grandfather's birth extract yesterday. It was one day short of one month since I sent the request! (Sent January 28, Received Feb 27).

I did send the request via USPS Priority, which cost me $25, but the reply seems to have been sent back via standard rate. The town I wrote to was Isca Sullo Ionio, in Calabria.

I have to say that the reply came much faster than I expected!

[ricbru]

There is an Italian law, about timeline to write back to any request of the Public Administration.
And it is about 30-60 days.
But sometimes the Public Administration in Italy don't respect this timeline, because people don't know this law, or because there is a big amount of documents to let go in that office, or because sometimes (for genealogy researcher) the office of Public Administration has not the money to make photocopies, stamp, envelope for a personal research.
So in this case, the researcher has to advance the cost of the Comune or Archivio.
I hope it helps, bye Riccardo