Naturalization

The first thing I had to do was get some more specific information on my great grandfather. I needed to find out when exactly he came over to the US and then when he naturalized, if he naturalized. I knew that my grandfather was born in the US in 1925, so my great grandfather must have come before that. Given that my family settled in the New Jersey area, on a hunch I decided to check the records at Ellis Island. The website for Ellis Island is a great resource. A quick search showed that Galliano Severini, my great grandfather arrived at Ellis Island on Jan 6, 1921 at the age of 24. He was from Manoppello which is in the province of Pescara and he left on a ship out of Naples. I finally had my first piece of concrete information.

My grandfather passed away in 1998, but his sister, my great Aunt is still alive. I figured she would be the best source of information on her father Galliano. I contacted her and explained to her my plans of Italian citizenship. She was more than willing to help and she was able to provide me critical information regarding dates of birth, marriage, etc. She was pretty sure that he naturalized, but not until the 1940s. This was great news because given that my grandfather was born in 1925, that meant that Italian citizenship was infact passed down to him. Unfortunately my Aunt didn't have the papers but she thought he naturalized in Newark NJ. So for me to know for sure I needed to get proof of when he naturalized and that meant contacting the Northeast regional division of the National Archives....