# Citizenship by Descent US to Italy



## Montana2Spain (May 20, 2016)

I apologize if my question is redundant of another post in this forum. 

I have a question on citizenship by descent. I'm reading conflicting things and I only had this thought tonight so I have 6 months of research to do but thought this is always a good place to start. What exactly are the requirements for citizenship through descent. I live in the US. My mother is of Italian descent but born here. Both of my grandparents (her parents) are Italian but also born here. It isn't until my great grandparents that I find the link of emigration. So my situation is Great Grandfather/mother born in Italy moved to the US (I don't know if there was any renouncing of Italian citizenship as of yet but lets just assume at the moment that there wasn't (or did they have to back then?) And the questions start rolling! HA!). Grandfather/grandmother born in US, Mother born in US. 

I had always assumed you couldn't go back any further than the grandparents but I just read a few things that contradicted that and now I'm confused. 

Thanks for any help in this most basic questions.


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## accbgb (Sep 23, 2009)

The short version:

If your great-grandparents emigrated to the US and your great-grandfather was still an Italian citizen at the birth of his son / daughter, then that child - your grandfather (or, grandmother?) was born with the right to Italian citizenship.

Now, here is where it gets a bit more complex: If we are talking about your grandfather, then no problem - all of his children, including your mother, would have been born with the right to Italian citizenship and thus you as well. 

However, if we are talking about your grandmother it is a little more complex. Prior to the implementation of the current post-war Italian constitution (specifically, January 1, 1948), Italian women could not pass citizenship to their children. So, assuming that your mother (or even yourself) was born prior to 1/1/1948, then, officially, you are out of luck.

However (again), that law has been successfully challenged in the Italian courts at least a few hundred times. Indeed, Italian attorney Luigi Paiano has made somewhat of a cottage industry out of such challenges (Google his name).

I hope this info helps.


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## accbgb (Sep 23, 2009)

PS: Unlike some other countries that offer citizenship by descent (Ireland, for example), Italy has no generational limit. However, your ascendant must have held Italian citizenship, so keep in mind that the country we know as Italy was only formed in 1861 - if your ascendant left Italy prior to that year his Italian citizenship may be in question (it's complex...)

The other issue with multi-generation descent is that the difficulty in obtaining the required documentation may increase exponentially with each added generation. I suspect that most of us, myself included, only needed to go back to our grandparents; having an extra generation to deal with will make your work a bit more difficult but probably not insurmountable.


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## Montana2Spain (May 20, 2016)

Thanks! Yes this is a great help in clarifying!


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## Montana2Spain (May 20, 2016)

Thanks ACCBGB. I've contaced the Luigi Paiano firm and hope to hear from them soon.


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## aMilano (Nov 12, 2016)

To add a small caveat, I obtained my Italian citizenship in the same lineage: Great grandfather - grandfather - mother - me. My mother was born in 1944, 4 years before full citizenship rights were conferred on Italian women. This caused me some great concern but when I met with the consulate, they said it was not an issue and granted my citizenship.


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## accbgb (Sep 23, 2009)

aMilano said:


> To add a small caveat, I obtained my Italian citizenship in the same lineage: Great grandfather - grandfather - mother - me. My mother was born in 1944, 4 years before full citizenship rights were conferred on Italian women. This caused me some great concern but when I met with the consulate, they said it was not an issue and granted my citizenship.


A point of clarification:

It matters not when your mother (that is, "the female ascendant") was born; what matters is when her child (you, in this case) was born.

Prior to January 1, 1948, Italian women _could not pass citizenship_ onto their children - citizenship was passed only by the male line. Your mother was born with full citizenship rights, but she would have been unable to pass those rights to a child born to her before January 1, 1948 (which, in and of itself, would have been quite miraculous given that she would have been less than 4 years old herself).


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## Italia-Mx (Jan 14, 2009)

Exactly. Both of my parents were born in the USA (before 1948) to Italian immigrants and each inherited Italian citizenship from their fathers (before their fathers naturalized). My mother, however, could not pass Italian citizenship to me because I was also born prior to 1948. But my father could and did pass Italian citizenship to me because there is no date restriction for the Italian male in passing citizenship to his descendants.


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## Montana2Spain (May 20, 2016)

Mine goes back one more generation though. Both my mother's parents were born in the US to Italian immigrants. My grandfather's father came to the States 10 years before he brought the family. Got his job going, built a house, became naturalized then moved the wife over and then had my mother's father. So that didn't work. But my mother's grandfather on her mom's side did move to the US as a single man. Married another Italian immigrant had my grandmother and then was naturalized. So that is the side I need to go with but because my mom was born before 1948 I'm having to retain a lawyer to represent me in court because it is through the maternal side. 

It's been rough over here in the US as of late. I just hope I can get through this without much delay. On a more story telling note I did find out that when my great grandfather moved here from Palermo he was a fruit huckster and they burned his stable and cart down just because he was Italian. Not much has changed.


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