Petitioner asks hearing officer to amend birth certificate to match mother’s Italian records

Madelyn Vanacore asked a Department of Public Health hearing officer on March 4, 2026, to amend her 1946 birth certificate to replace the name recorded for her mother—listed on the certificate as “Renee Griion”—with the name shown on her mother’s Italian birth extract and later naturalization papers, which Vanacore and her counsel say is Veneranda Grigioni.

Attorney Sandra Smith, representing Vanacore, told the hearing that Vanacore’s mother was born in Italy in 1913 and that the Italian birth extract (petitioner’s exhibit B) and the mother’s 1959 naturalization petition (petitioner’s exhibit A) show her legal name as Veneranda (not the nickname “Renee”). "DPH's decision denying the correction is based on the sole position that Meline's mother provided the name Renee Griion at the time of her birth, but there's no evidence that she intended to change her name to legally make it Renee Griion at that time," Smith said in her opening.

Smith said Vanacore needs the amendment as part of a family pathway to Italian citizenship that would assist her son in pursuing work and residency options in Europe. Vanacore testified that she and her family maintained Italian language and cultural ties, that her mother used "Renee" as a nickname, and that she has long understood her mother's legal name to be Veneranda. "I have a right and uh to be to acquire my Italian citizenship through my mother's birth," Vanacore testified.

The department's witness, Yvet Gauthier, the state registrar of vital records, described the administrative standard for amending a vital record: a local registrars' review of an affidavit and supporting documentation, and, if necessary, a state-registrar review. Gauthier said the department obtained the New Haven file and reviewed Vanacore's supporting documents, including the petitioner’s own birth certificate, the Italian birth extract for the mother, and the mother’s naturalization petition. Gauthier testified that those documents "did not support the change because they did not include any evidence of the facts at the time of the event," explaining that the documents in the record were created years after the birth and did not show that the mother's legal name at the time of the birth was not the form recorded on the original certificate.

Gauthier told the hearing that permissible reasons for amendment include clerical error, omission, or a replacement certificate following a legal name change or adoption; she said the department denied the request because the submitted materials did not demonstrate an error or omission at the time of the birth. She also noted that in other cases applicants may pursue a court order that reconciles name variations across records as an alternative remedy.

Counsel for Vanacore cross-examined Gauthier about whether use of a nickname necessarily signifies a legal name change and highlighted that the petitioner’s mother did not sign the original birth certificate and that the naturalization petition shows the mother’s sworn full name as Veneranda. Gauthier acknowledged the absence of the mother's signature on the birth record and said there was no evidence in the administrative file that the mother had reviewed the birth certificate at the time of the event.

The hearing officer took administrative notice of cited Connecticut authorities raised at the hearing, including Connecticut General Statute section 19A-42, regulation 19A-41-7, Connecticut General Statute section 7-36(10), and a 1955 Supreme Court of Errors citation provided in the record (142 Conn. 309). The petitioner asked the hearing officer to amend the birth certificate; the department relied on its administrative standard and the evidence in the New Haven file. The hearing record was closed with no ruling announced; the matter remains pending for further action or decision by the hearing officer.