Correct me if I am wrong. If the husband became a citizen..this automatically made the wife a citizen? Is that right? (1924)

Now, if the above is correct....what if a man came here, became a citizen..and went back and got married there. Would the wife already be considered a citizen? Would her passenger record say...american citizen? (1912)

I believe that the Cable Act of 1922 changed this a bit. After that date, women did not automatically obtain the citizenship of their husbands, but if they were married to alien eligible to naturalize, they could obtain U.S. citizenship independently. Thus, in the case you describe, the wife would emigrate to the U.S. as an Italian but would be eligible to naturalize.

(I just reread your post. Are you referring to 1924 or 1912?)

The 1924 is what I was referring to as when my grandfather was naturalized. I thought my grandmother, then was naturalized along with him.

The 1912 is what I really was questioning. My grandmothers sisters ship record states she is an american. I wondered if this trip had been her second trip here..not her first, because of that.

Or..if they just got married there..and because of that marriage, she was listed automatically as a citizen, even tho she had never been to this country. Would she have had to be in this country in order to be considered a citizen...or is it possible, that this WAS her first trip, she was married there..so citizenship was automatic..when they married there?

That's difficult to know for sure. My own grandfather naturalized in 1929 and my grandmother naturalized several months after he did. What is interesting, though, is that my grandmother was born in NYC, and was therefore an American citizen by birth. She lost that citizenship when she married my granddad in 1916. I don't know how it works the other way around.

Hmmm...I didnt know it was illegal to marry an immigrant..at any time, in our history. Interesting.

Eleven wrote:

Hmmm...I didnt know it was illegal to marry an immigrant..at any time, in our history. Interesting.

Did I miss something? Illegal? My grandmother was also a Natural born American citizen and lost that right when she married an Italian in Italy. She had to re apply..

But, and I don't know how this works, she was able to transfer her citizenship to her youngest daughter who was 14 in the late fifties, when she left Italy for New York, a married woman.

I guess illegal..wasnt the right word to use.

I never heard of that before.

What I have heard..and even know people who have done it, was marry a foreigner so the foreigner could stay here. Now, wouldnt that apply? Shouldnt they have lost their citizenship? Of course, this was done..in the 60s..and as recently as in the 90s. I know two people who have done this.

Also, how many times do you hear of men coming here to live..then going back there to take a wife?

All of this has me really confused now..lol

It is confusing, and the laws have changed so many times that it becomes hard to keep up. I do know that before 1922, women in the U.S. derived citizenship from their husbands (remember that women had not yet even earned the right to vote). This changed with the Cable Act that I mentioned earlier.

In Italy, too, women were considered to be second-class citizens; they were not even permitted to pass on citizenship to their children before 1948 causing much frustration to those trying to obtain jure sanguinis citizenship through the maternal line.

mler wrote:

In Italy, too, women were considered to be second-class citizens; they were not even permitted to pass on citizenship to their children before 1948 causing much frustration to those trying to obtain jure sanguinis citizenship through the maternal line.

This may have something to do with what happened with my aunt then...and if I remember correctly what my mother said, they were only offering this right for a short while and my aunt had to make the decision immediately to take it or leave it. My Mom, unfortunately, being 24 (10 years older than my Aunt) did not qualify so she had to stay in Italy until she married my Dad and he "called" her over in 1961.

Imagine, being called over by a husband she had never even met (she married by proxy)...What I wanna know is:

WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE THINKING?

Ok, having said that..she married by choice because she fell in love with him by his pictures and letters and my parents are still happily married today. They will be celebrating their Church 48th Wedding Anniversary July 1. They married here in the Church. She married my Dad's brother in the Comune of Malito on Dec 11, 1960.