engineer80

Hi all, I usually post over in the Canada forum as my husband and I are in the process of trying to emigrate there. I was wondering if one of you guys might be able to help us with a small problem though please

Hubby is half Italian, half British and was born in Rome, Italy but has lived here in the UK since he was 11. We were also married in Rome in 2006.

We are in the process of filling out our immigration forms for Canada and they require copies of our marriage and birth certificates. Not a problem for our son and I as we are both UK citizens and can request copies from the relevant registry offices here. However, does anyone have a phone number or e-mail address for the right department in Rome that would be able to send out a certified copy of our marriage certificate and OH's birth certificate please? Would we have to contact the anagrafe? We do have originals of both but don't want to give them up as they are the only copies we have

Many thanks in advance for your replies

Lorna at Vicenza

Hello Engineer,

I had a look at the Rome comune website for you. While it has lots of info on certificates that you can get from the anagrafe office - there is no info that Ii could find about how to get them when you are not living in Italy.........

so I rang up my own town hall anagrafe office and aked them what an Italian citizen, living abroad has to do.

The lady there said that it is sufficient to send a letter of request with all details of your hubby - full name, date of birth, date of marriage etc. and that they will post them.

I asked about costs and if one needs the famous Italian marca da bollo (Italian tax stamp thing) and she said that there is no cost for copies of "estratto di nascita" and "certificato di matrimonio". They will have the town hall stamp and official signature squiggle on them but I don't know if this mean they will be certified enough for the immigration people.

I haven't found an email address for the anagrafe in Rome but this is the fax number:
Fax 06 696 12 442 (0039 first for Italy)

I hope that helps. Just ask if you have any more questions or need help drafting a letter in Italian.

engineer80

Hi Lorna, wow, thanks very much for doing this I think the copies should be sufficient for the needs of the Canadian immigration officers. Even if we keep the copies and send them the originals, at least then, we'll have copies for future use. Thanks again, much appreciated!

Lorna at Vicenza

You're welcome. For Italy it sounds like it's going to be a simple and easy process, which is good news for you and your husband. So many other things here are so much more complicated.

engineer80

Yes, I must admit, I got a knot in my stomach when I realised we needed to contact Rome for copies of our certificates. It was a nightmare trying to get our wedding organised. We went all the way to Rome to set a date to be told we needed to consult the Italian Consulate in Edinburgh to get our paperwork done first. When we contacted the consulate, they told us they couldn't start the paperwork until we'd set a date with the town hall in Rome We went round in circles like this for a good few weeks until we finally got a wedding planner in Rome to sort everything out for us! I was expecting this process to be just as complicated

Lorna at Vicenza

Yep - that sounds like Italy

Good luck with the move to Canada.

engineer80

Thank you!