First Consulate meeting..

Although I used vitalchek for most of my document collection, some of them I was not able to collect myself because of the State I was trying to get them from or because the document I was trying to get was for someone that was still living. For example, my mother was born in NY and the vital stats office there is quite strict. She had to apply herself. However, my parent's marriage certificate was in NC and I was able to get a copy of it without any trouble. It seems like there would be a standard rule for all document collection. All I can say is thank God for the Internet.

So, when it was all said and done, it was the end of March, beginning of April 2004 that I had finally obtained copies of all the certificates I needed. The next thing I had to do was call the Italian Consulate that served my area and make an appointment for someone to review my documents. Since I lived in Boston, there was a Consulate right downtown. When I called, I was transferred to the gentleman that was in charge of citizenship. He asked me some preliminary questions and I explained that I had copies of all the documents. They didn't take specific appointments, but told me to come in the morning because of how busy they get. At this time, I was pretty excited and felt confident with the documents I collected.

It turned out that the building I work in was only a few minutes walk to the consulate. A few days later on my way to work I stopped by the Italian Consulate for my first meeting...