1) What is the difference between Certificates and Records ?
The main difference lies in their purpose:
- Records are primarily used for genealogical or family history research.
- Certificates are official documents required for processes such as dual citizenship applications.
Here you can read more about records and certificates
2) What information do I need to obtain Certificates for Italian Citizenship?
To begin your search, you can fill out our online form or email us with the details you have.
The most important information includes:
Exact full name of your ancestor.
Exact birth town (or marriage town for marriage certificates).
Exact birth date (or marriage date for marriage certificates).
While it’s ideal to provide all three details, we understand this might not always be possible.
Our experts can guide you through alternative approaches.
3) What if I don’t know my ancestor’s exact birth date?
As maybe you already know, the officers in Municipalities are not required by law to search documents without an exact date.
Usually, if the town is not big and there are not cases of homonyms, even only the exact year could be good to find the record and then issue the certificate.
Anyway a great useful info could be the names of the parents (or even one parent) of your ancestor.
If the birthdate is wrong, it’s very likely that your request would be “negative” (the town hall will reply that there is NO evidence of the birth in that town and it’s not possible to prepare the certificate).
To avoid this, in case you are not sure of the exact birth date, we suggest to ask to our local researcher to conduct a preliminary research in the local archives to find your ancestors’ record.
In this way our expert will search the record in a big range of years so you will avoid to miss the possibility to get your certificate for a wrong birthdate!
4) What if I don’t know the exact birth town of my ancestor?
In Italy every single town or village has its own registers.
This means that to get the certificate you must address your request to the correct town where your ancestor was born otherwise you would get a negative reply from the town hall.
If you are not sure of the birth town our experts could make a preliminary research to find the exact town where to request the certificate.
This is a quite common situation and our genealogists were able to solve many “puzzling cases” to request started with an approximate “area of origin” or only with an Italian region.
With some luck and lot of experience we were able to find the exact village even starting without any clue about the birthtown (with requests only with “Italy” as birthplace!)
5) What if civil records are unavailable in the town where my ancestor was born?
Where there are no civil records, for example if your ancestor was born before the establishment of the civil status, that, for historical reasons, differs between the several areas of the Italian territory, or because for some reason the civil records were lost (e.g. for flooding or fire or bombing during WWII) , you must address your request to the specific Parish in which he got the baptism or the marriage, since each municipal territory can have more than one Parish.
If you don’t know the exact parish, our local expert could make a preliminary research to find the exact religious archive where the record is stored.
6) How much will it cost?
As explained before, the researches could be very different so the costs could be very different too.
That’s why, to give a cost estimate, our researchers ask for the starting info (name, place, date)
For example with an exact date, the research will be easier so it will be cheaper.
At the same time, to search in a small village could be easier that to search in a big town!
Then the local researcher knows exactly the situation of the specific archive so he knows how easy or difficult is to get documents there.
Our suggestion is to stay away from people who try to sell at the same price services that could be very, very different (unless you feel comfortable with “empty” results!)
The cost of our services doesn’t include any potential administrative fee requested by the Municipalities .
In case of administrative fees, ItalianSide will ask you to pay the requested amount.
After the payment we will provide you with receipts for the necessary payments (if any) made to the Municipality.
Please remember that to pay the fees is mandatory if requested, otherwise the certificate will be not issued.
7) How much time it will take?
Before to start, our local expert will give you an estimate of the needed time to complete the activities.
As you can imagine everythings depends on the availability of the documents and the good will of the officers involved! Dealing with Public Administration could be very unpredictable but usually our researcher are able to respect the time schedule. Please note that, following the italian law (art. 14 del D.L. 4 ottobre 2018 n. 113), the archives may take until 180 days to issue the documentation. Of course delays could happen but please remember it can’t be our researcher’s fault. Please remember that you will pay the balance at the end of the research so the researchers have no reason to delay the activities!
Our researcher will work using the starting info you give us.
In case they are wrong, the officers of the town hall will not be able to find the record (for example because the date was wrong or the town you indicated was wrong) so they will not issue the certificate, but they will give a reply of a “negative” (empty) research.
In these cases you will be requested to pay in full the research as the negative reply can’t be considered our researcher’s fault.
8. What happens if the research yields no results?
Our researchers rely on the information you provide. If the details are incorrect (e.g., wrong date or town), the municipal officers may issue a “negative” result, indicating no records were found.
In such cases:
- The research fee remains payable as the negative result is not due to an error by our researchers.
- We recommend providing as much accurate information as possible to minimize this risk.
9) How do I pay?
The payment process is simple:
- Deposit: To begin, we require a deposit (usually 50% of the total fee). Payments can be made via Sumup, PayPal, credit card, or wire transfer.
- Balance: Upon completion, we’ll request the remaining balance.
After full payment:
- A digital copy of the certificate (or negative result) will be emailed to you.
- The paper certificate will be sent via registered mail to your specified address.
Please note: You are not purchasing certificates (as they are issued by Public Administration) but hiring professional researchers to manage the entire process on your behalf.