If genealogy is a study in patience, dual citizenship is a graduate-level course in patience, frustration, and occasional disbelief.
Back in April, I reached out to a court-approved translator recommended by the consulate to translate and certify the records I had painstakingly collected. I waited. Nothing. I wrote again. Still nothing. Hoping for another recommendation, I contacted the consulate only to learn they no longer provide them.
Well then.
Fortunately, a former client came to the rescue and recommended a translator named Paula. We connected quickly, and I emailed the documents needing translation and certification. Somehow, and I checked twice, my own birth record performed a disappearing act and failed to attach.
Of course it did.
Paula mailed the completed records via DHL on 18 May, with an anticipated arrival date of 21 May. Someday, likely in October, I will share the strange saga involving an email with the wrong address and entirely wrong city. Suffice it to say, the moment I spotted the problem, I contacted both Paula and DHL. The error was not on Paula’s end.
My adventure with DHL, however, was just beginning.
When Thursday came and went with no delivery, I remained optimistic. The package had reached Cincinnati. Surely it would arrive Friday. How long could it take to travel from Cincinnati to northern Indiana?
As it turns out: considerably longer than one might expect.
The package cleared Cincinnati at 6:57 AM Friday and headed to Fort Wayne, a short distance from my home and, in my increasingly hopeful imagination, the final stop. Instead of delivering it, DHL sent it to Dayton.
Dayton politely emailed me requesting that I verify my address again. I complied and selected Tuesday as my delivery date because, apparently, choice is an illusion and Tuesday was the only option available.
Then things became truly creative.
On Saturday, Dayton sent the package to Erlanger, Kentucky.
Why?
An excellent question. Customer Service did not know either.
Erlanger held the package hostage for two days before returning it to Fort Wayne on Monday, now a full week after it had left Croatia.
Fort Wayne then declared it had arrived at the wrong destination.
No, Fort Wayne. I live near you. We were so close to success. Had someone simply called me, I would have cheerfully driven over and rescued the wandering documents myself.
Instead, Fort Wayne sent the package back to Dayton.
Dayton placed it on hold Tuesday.
By Wednesday it had returned to Fort Wayne, which once again announced it would be delivered.
Hope springs eternal.
Unfortunately, experience had by then replaced hope with strategy. Before Fort Wayne could develop another urge to send the package sightseeing, I called Customer Service.
The shipment was finally received Wednesday at 6:54 PM.
Customer Service had promised delivery by 7:00 PM, and to their credit, they met that deadline by a remarkable six minutes, albeit nearly seven days late.
As genealogists, we love timelines. Postal timelines? Not so much.
At this point, I am fairly certain the Pony Express could have delivered the records faster and with fewer state lines involved.
The package was torn open but thankfully, the documents were intact.
And now for the painful epilogue.
This postal adventure cost over 150 euros for the original shipment. Thanks to my own missing attachment mishap, I must now spend another 150 euros to have the overlooked birth record translated and shipped.
Which means I will soon be playing the DHL Waiting Game once again.
Stay tuned.
