Determining your Eligibility for Italian Citizenship through Maternal Lineage: A Step-by-Step Guide

Navigating the path to Italian citizenship through maternal lineage can be confusing, largely due to prevalent misinformation. Here’s a simplified step-by-step guide to help you determine whether you have a valid ‘1948 case’ and can claim your birthright.

Step #1:

Trace your direct lineage from your Italian ancestor, excluding spouses or partners at each generation. Do you find a woman in this lineage? Your Italian-born ancestor might be a woman, or a direct descendant may.

Step #2:

If there is a woman in the line, did she give birth to her descendant before January 1, 1948? The woman’s birthdate is irrelevant here; focus only on her child’s birthdate.

Step #3:

If the answer is ‘Yes’, you can apply for Italian citizenship by lineage (jure sanguinis). Submit your application to the Court in Italy.

Step #4:

If the answer is ‘No’, you can still acquire Italian citizenship by submitting your application.

Follow these steps for each woman you identify in your direct lineage. They may appear early in your family tree (i.e., your Italian-born ancestor was a woman) or later in your lineage.

The Bottom Line:

Regardless of whether you obtained your citizenship through the Court in Italy or a Consulate, or whether you’re a descendant in a male or female line, you are an Italian citizen since your birth, just like any Italian born to Italian parents.

Your successful application:

It is important to note that your citizenship application’s success hinges on several conditions. You’ll need official documents confirming the birth of your Italian ancestor and each person in the direct lineage, irrespective of the number of generations.

Furthermore, your ancestor should not have given up their Italian citizenship when they acquired citizenship in their immigrant country.

Getting citizenship isn’t just about checking these boxes.

There are other crucial criteria to meet. That’s why you should have your case and official records reviewed by a specialist in Italian citizenship law.

At Smart Dual Citizenship, we’ve been helping people claim citizenship through lineage since 1999. We started as civil servants in municipalities and government immigration offices, and since 2007, we’ve been serving as legal practitioners.

We only take on cases with a high likelihood of success after careful review and possibly a few adjustments. By doing so, we have to refuse some cases and that may translate sometimes into lower profits for us in the short term. Many lawyers prefer to say yes to every new client even when their case is weak and their chances to succeed in court are very low. But our experience shows that our policy always pays in the long term. Our clients believe in our success and Courts do too. We have a 100% success rate to date!

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