My mother is literally German and most of my family is as well, and I can prove direct lineage. But I can’t get Germany citizenship because the laws are so strict.
You’re right, Great Britain is easier for the children of Europeans, but other countries (possibly Denmark as well) are hard.
My Italian citizenship was pretty much just paying fees and my wife’s German citizenship was… free and a 1 page form. I think they made it more difficult after trump became president and they got slammed with applications.
I didnt mean to imply that it’s easy for everyone, but often times there’s an easier route than most people realize if they’re from European decent.
Oh for sure. Your EU citizenship is infinitely more valuable than my German lineage. The EU is a very sweet deal. I can’t how stupid Britain was to leave.
Could you maybe go over the process for how you got Italian citizenship? Trying to go through the process now with my fiancée and it’s… a lot (neither of us speaks Italian either).
Specifically, how did you go about requesting documents from Italy? How did you know which civil registry to request from? What if I can’t find the civil registry for the state her descendant is from?
I started mine about 12 years ago at this point… I called the nearest consulate that handles citizenship (NYC for me) and made an appointment for applying for citizenship. Back then you had to pay to make the call and the appointments filled up within minutes about 1 year out (so you’re calling to make an appointment for the same day next year pretty much), and this got the clock ticking for getting all the forms done. I had my birth certificate (from the state, not my town), my parent’s birth and marriage certificates (again, state not town) my grandparents naturalization papers, their marriage certificate, and their birth certificates. My grandfather recently passed when I did this so I had a copy of his birth certificate too. I knew where my grandparents were from so I contacted some office there for copies of everything (you can also contact the consulate for assistance, though they were nasty people to work with). I needed to submit original sealed documents, so I needed copies of everything. I then scanned everything that was in English and did the translations on the forms into Italian (you can pay someone to do this, but DIY is fine as long as you don’t screw up, or else youll need to pretty much start over).
You then also have some forms to fill out (all on the consulate website) then submitted everything on the appointment day and pay everything in euro (this whole process was a money grab TBH). I’m pretty sure it could be paid in card, but it might have been in cash. Back then it was just a short interview (why you want it, career, any criminal history, etc…) - I heard recently that there is a test now (language and government?) You then wait about year+ then one day you get an email either saying a form is wrong or missing and you start over (i had mistranslated a form) or that you’re a citizen… then you call to make your passport appointment (I think this was only 3 months out or so).
You can go back as far as a great grandparent as long as you would have had citizenship if everyone was born in and still in italy. So you have to consider the leaneage and time especially if the lineage is through a grandmother (im pretty sure at some points citizenship was only passed to a child if the father was an Italian citizen at the time of the birth).
My mother is literally German and most of my family is as well, and I can prove direct lineage. But I can’t get Germany citizenship because the laws are so strict.
You’re right, Great Britain is easier for the children of Europeans, but other countries (possibly Denmark as well) are hard.
My Italian citizenship was pretty much just paying fees and my wife’s German citizenship was… free and a 1 page form. I think they made it more difficult after trump became president and they got slammed with applications.
I didnt mean to imply that it’s easy for everyone, but often times there’s an easier route than most people realize if they’re from European decent.
Oh for sure. Your EU citizenship is infinitely more valuable than my German lineage. The EU is a very sweet deal. I can’t how stupid Britain was to leave.
Could you maybe go over the process for how you got Italian citizenship? Trying to go through the process now with my fiancée and it’s… a lot (neither of us speaks Italian either).
Specifically, how did you go about requesting documents from Italy? How did you know which civil registry to request from? What if I can’t find the civil registry for the state her descendant is from?
I started mine about 12 years ago at this point… I called the nearest consulate that handles citizenship (NYC for me) and made an appointment for applying for citizenship. Back then you had to pay to make the call and the appointments filled up within minutes about 1 year out (so you’re calling to make an appointment for the same day next year pretty much), and this got the clock ticking for getting all the forms done. I had my birth certificate (from the state, not my town), my parent’s birth and marriage certificates (again, state not town) my grandparents naturalization papers, their marriage certificate, and their birth certificates. My grandfather recently passed when I did this so I had a copy of his birth certificate too. I knew where my grandparents were from so I contacted some office there for copies of everything (you can also contact the consulate for assistance, though they were nasty people to work with). I needed to submit original sealed documents, so I needed copies of everything. I then scanned everything that was in English and did the translations on the forms into Italian (you can pay someone to do this, but DIY is fine as long as you don’t screw up, or else youll need to pretty much start over).
You then also have some forms to fill out (all on the consulate website) then submitted everything on the appointment day and pay everything in euro (this whole process was a money grab TBH). I’m pretty sure it could be paid in card, but it might have been in cash. Back then it was just a short interview (why you want it, career, any criminal history, etc…) - I heard recently that there is a test now (language and government?) You then wait about year+ then one day you get an email either saying a form is wrong or missing and you start over (i had mistranslated a form) or that you’re a citizen… then you call to make your passport appointment (I think this was only 3 months out or so).
You can go back as far as a great grandparent as long as you would have had citizenship if everyone was born in and still in italy. So you have to consider the leaneage and time especially if the lineage is through a grandmother (im pretty sure at some points citizenship was only passed to a child if the father was an Italian citizen at the time of the birth).
Wait. What? German citizenship is ancestry based. You should be eligible. You might need to drop the US citizenship though, but I’m not an expert.