Il Canto degli Italiani (Inno di Mameli) - citizenship part 5

After the initial elation of leaving the consulate with nothing but a simple request to make a change to my birth certificate, the reality of what I was being asked to do dawned with some preliminary research when contacting Leeds Registry Office.

At the time covid was still in town and like many other services the registration of births, marriages and deaths was affected, and for me that meant delay - significant delay. I agreed with the consulate at my appointment in August 2021 that I would conclude the paperwork by December that year - but faced with a delay even in making initial contact I was a little worried.

After not hearing a response to my initial email for a month I called the office a number of times through September and October, each time being told my query had been passed to a registrar (this is the official in England who is legally permitted to formally register entries and conduct marriages in civil ceremonies etc.). I would be called back when they got round to it (and, I inferred, not before!).

You won’t be surprised to know that no such calls were received and, given they were prioritising urgent business of registering excess covid deaths and the like, I was understandably going to be at the back of the queue.

By the time November came around however my sanguinity was severely tested. I was increasingly desperate to speak to someone, and after another call to chase things up and my best helpless phone voice, a kind customer services representative from the Registry Office took pity and put me through to one of the relevant team on the phone.

Sightly startled to finally talk to a person with the ability to advise directly I was even more downhearted that the news wasn’t good. The registrar informed me that the only way a certificate can be changed is through a formal correction (no explanatory notes or clarification-type addenda permitted). To make a correction in my case I would need to provide contemporaneous evidence from the time of my birth as to the change needed to be made. In practice this meant I would have to find a formal document (passport or similar) from 1984 for my father that showed he was using that additional middle name at that time.

Unfortunately that would prove to be impossible - mainly because 38 years is a long time in which to misplace old documents, or for them to be stolen in our case.

So what was I to do?

The only recourse I had was to seek to explain the situation as best I could, provide some further documentation  and hope that would suffice. I had, in the best tradition of modern nonsense political strategy, a three-point plan.

    •    Evidence that my father’s name now included the additional ‘David’ - I arranged an official copy of his current passport, which listed it
    •    A signed statement from my father explaining that he took the additional name on confirmation, and
    •    Confirmation records from the local catholic church that my father was indeed confirmed and perhaps a formal explanation of catholic tradition in the UK regarding confirmation names.

The first two items were easy to obtain, being within my father’s gift. The latter item more tricky of course.

It was then that I struck up correspondence with Danny, a very kind gentleman providing administrative support to the relevant parish in Leeds who was very pleased to help me with my email enquiry. After a short exchange I was furnished with my a certificate of my father’s sacramental records, including the date of his confirmation and, decisively and amazingly, the name he took on confirmation - and all sealed with the parish stamp. Knowing how much bureaucrats love a stamped document I was delighted.

With all those assembled they were duly sent off to be officially translated and then apostilled, then a formal cover letter prepared explaining the situation. So it was with fingers crossed that I posted my package in mid- Jan.

And I didn’t have to wait long - with an email dropping into my inbox about two weeks later - with a short covering note and an Attestazione - sent with congratulazione, no less. informing me I was approved as a cittadino Italiano per discendenza.

 

Woohoo!

So off I went to brush up on my renditions of the Italian national anthem, known to most Italians as the Inno di Mameli.