Are you down the ancestry, 23 & Me rabbit hole the way I am?  As you may know, I have planned to slow travel in my retirement years. One of the focuses if this travel will be to visit the homeland of my ancestors.

My mother’s side of the family were first generation immigrants from Italy and Ireland.  My father’s side were first generation immigrants from England and Scotland.  So I have a pretty narrow geography to hone in on for my research.

I am also fortunate that my father had undertaken a genealogy deep dive of his own, way back in the 1960’s, which revealed lineage records all the way back past 1300.  And my mother had traced her family back through Ellis Island and into Italy to discover more than a few tidbits on her father’s line.

Given that Italy may offer citizenship by descent to those eligible, I did investigate this option in 2024.  I discovered that, although I may qualify for this, it would be either cost prohibitive to hire out the services needed to acquire documentation and verification, or quite time consuming to undertake this on my own.  A friend of mine just completed his second citizenship by descent in Italy and it took 5 years.

I am not all that concerned with a second passport or citizenship from Italy per se, as I do not currently foresee myself living in the country for more than a few months at a time, which is currently possible on a tourist visa.  However, I am open to changing my mind on that in the future if my plans adjust, provided Italy still offers the option.

I have begun to map my family tree through the popular 23 & Me ancestry platform.  This has already uncovered a plethora of relatives I never knew I had – or only knew of vaguely.  So I highly recommend using one of the many family tree platforms if you are also interested in your lineage.  I did purchase the DNA test from 23 & Me, with not surprising results (given I had already been privy to most of my lineage data from family members’ research).

I have a list of places in the countries I have identified so far to visit that may point to actual family ties, but just visiting the country overall will also be valuable to gain a sense of place for my family line. As I dig deeper into this project in 2025, I’ll let you know if I discover interesting facts or shortcuts.