I can certainly tell you that this process is hard, long and sometimes frustrating. You'll most likely have to deal with numerous government agencies and all the bureaucracy that comes with it. I started this process near the end of summer in 2019. I'm writing this int he middle of summer in 2022 and I'm still waiting for the consulate's responses. However! I loved doing it myself. I learned so much about my family here and my family in Italy. I believe I got a much deeper feeling of belonging to a wonderful culture and a sense of who my family really was. I would do it all again too.
I learned that I came from a long line of peasants, which isn't all that bad. Technically, all of the paperwork I found read "contadino/a" which could translate to farmer... So maybe a long line of farmers.
At one point in my life, I considered being a police officer and detective. That path never panned out for me, but this certainly fulfilled that part of me that wanted to do investigations. This is one of the reasons I am putting this together. I would love if other people got the opportunity to enjoy doing this research and process like I did.
When it comes to hiring someone to find your documents, there is a guy on Facebook named Francesco Curione that will give you a quote to get your Italian documents. I did not use his services, but I've read many great things about him.
The most important things that I've learned about hiring a full-service company is that they cannot make the process move any faster.
There are a lot of websites online that say at first that they can do all of the work for you and get you your dual citizenship. I looked into this briefly when I realized how much work it's going to really be. I found prices from $5,000 and up to get started with no guarantee that they will be successful. I just heard (2022) that someone was quoted $12,000 for these services! I have also read online that there are websites that say they will do your dual citizenship both in the US and Italy, and they will take your money and not do anything else. With that much risk and not knowing if it would work anyhow, I decided to keep my expenses as low as possible. The DIY way took a lot of time, but only about $1,500 over the course of 4 years.
I put together the costs that I spent on this page.