Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lentini
Once you have determined the commune in which your ancestor was born, it is now time to compose a letter to the Office of Civil Statistics (Ufficio dello Stato Civile) in the respective comune. The letter must be written in Italian, so below is a sample letter which may be used as a template.
Egregio Signore/a,
Richiesta il Certiciato di Nascita per mio/a (if ancestor is male, use mio; if ancestor is female, use mia) (Insert relative: nonno/nonna is grandfather/grandmother, bisnonno/bisnonna is great-grandfather/great-grandmother, and trisnonno/trisnonna is great-great-grandfather/great-great-grandmother.).
Nata nel (date, see below) in (name of comune). Il suo/a genitori erano (Name of Father) e (Name of Mother).
Saluti Cordiale,
[Name]
Dates
Dates in most of the world are formatted day/month/year. This is the format that will need to be used when writing to Italy (ex: 1 gennaio 2014).
Months in Italian (names of months are not capitalized in Italian)
| English | Italian |
| January | gennaio |
| February | febbraio |
| March | marzo |
| April | aprile |
| May | maggio |
| June | giugno |
| July | iuglio |
| August | agosto |
| September | settembre |
| October | ottobre |
| November | novembre |
| December | dicembre |
After writing this letter send it to the appropriate address for the Ufficio dello Stato Civile in the respective town. A guide to the address format to be used when sending a letter to Italy can be found here.
If you send a physical letter, your wait should not be longer than about 6 to 8 weeks. As mentioned before on this blog, don’t even think of sending an e-mail to a small commune and expecting a timely reply. If you send an e-mail to a small comune it may be an entire year before you receive a response. If the commune is larger, than an e-mail may be viable, and possibly faster, but don’t hold me to that. I would always suggest a physical letter.
Saluti.
Giosuè Genealogy 