Should I even attempt this ordeal?

[mler]

Jennebet, read the law. A law is in effect until it is rescinded. The law applied to ALL immigrants, not to a specific nationality and was designed to establish one nationality for both husband and wife.

Why you think you know more about nationality law than the National Archives is beyond my comprehension, but you are doing a disservice to someone who may well be eligible for Italian citizenship by continuing to ignore historical law and insisting on your own version of history.

Take note, jennebet, that the National Archives quote refers to "aliens". That means Italian aliens too.

[jennabet]

Your drivel about the Cable Act does not apply to the majority of our Italian grand-mothers and great-grandmothers.

[mler]

That's right. It doesn't. It only applies to those Italian women whose husbands were naturalized before 1922 and those American women who married aliens before 1922.

[Kathy]

Thank you BOTH for giving me something to chew on here. There are so many uncertainties with my situation. I cannot find paperwork for either one of them and I remember when I was very small like three or four years old sitting on my grandpa's lap and him holding me very tightly and him not speaking a word of English. I remember my aunt speaking Italian to him and he never spoke English. Maybe he had a rudimentary knowledge of it because I believe he worked for the department of sanitation therefore he would've had to take a test or something, I don't know how they did it back in the early 1900s I'm sure it was a lot less formal than it is now. I'm pretty sure my grandmother spoke no English and could not write or read. Even when I see him and my grandma on the census forms it is always checked off that they do not speak English, under language spoken it says Italian in every census I've seen when they were both alive. This is weird to me because I would assume that they did speak english if they naturalized. My grandma died in 1944 while my father was in the army overseas. He never got to come home for her funeral which makes me very sad. But she was gone by 1948. My grandpa died in 1975 and my father died in 1970. I have been very unlucky in my life as far as losing people which is probably part of what is driving me to find out more about my family. It has been a very lonely life in many ways for me not getting to know these people very well. I would really like to see what is out there for me. I'm not sure where this whole thing will lead me but at this point I'm willing to explore a little bit and see what the possibilities may be. I hope i do have a chance at this. I would like to plan a trip to the area where they were from anyway so I can see what it's like and maybe understand a little bit more about them.

I honestly don't even know what my next step here should be, I guess I should try to get letters of no records or something. My grandmother does not come up in any searches it's like she doesn't even exist. Maybe I should try to write to the town to ask for their birth certificates? I have not found anything online. I'm not even sure what documents I should be trying to get. I certainly don't have thousands of dollars at the moment for a court case however I guess I could start compiling some documents to determine whether It would even be viable or not. I am a bit overwhelmed right now. For some reason though this is really driving me lately and I feel like it's something I need to follow through with. Did you ever have a feeling like this? Driving you in a certain direction very strongly? That's how I feel about this right now.

[mler]

Hang in there, Kathy. It is a sometimes-frustrating journey but well worth the effort.

Remember, too, that on-line sources may not always yield results. If you are able to do so, visit the NARA office in NY. They are very helpful.

[jennabet]

Kathy, if you remember your grand-father never speaking to you in English (with an Italian accent), it could be that he didn't learn English because perhaps he arrived when he was older. My grand-father arrived at age 16 and he always spoke to me in English (with Italian accent) and my grand-father did become naturalized. Many immigrants did not naturalize because they were not proficient enough in English to pass the test required for naturalization. So this would be a plus for you if he did not naturalize. The passenger manifest for the ship he arrived on would give you his age at arrival and would list other info such as who he was going to visit, whether he was traveling with his wife, etc. You have to start somewhere and this is a good place to start. I think the manifests are available on the Ellis Island website.

[jennabet]

Also you could go to the Italian Geneaology section here in this form and ask the researchers there if they can provide you with some info on your grand-parents. The researchers are very good and come up with some amazing info.

[Kathy]

Thank you for the suggestion, I am going to post on genealogy right now hoping someone can help me there too! I have so many questions and I'm just not sure what to do next research wise but I have really just begun. I ended up finding my grandpas naturalization petition on the ancestry website, name was spelled incorrectly of course just like it was on the ship manifest. He did naturalize before 1922. I found his petition and on that it's stated that the declaration was in 1916 and the petition was 1918 by the 1920 census he was listed as NA. My father was born in 1922 so this may be good for me I guess as far as the grandma situation. This has been such a maze of information. I'm just going to try to enjoy the process and not get to twisted up about it. Whatever comes from this it's fine, I am enjoying learning about these people I never got to meet.