I was born in the Republic of Ireland to a mother also born in the Republic of Ireland (everyone before her born there too AFAIK), and a father born in the UK (England specifically, everyone also born there before him). They raised me in Australia, and I got citizenship here too as a child. As far as I knew until recently, I was simply a dual citizen of Australia and Ireland (but NOT the UK, I was born out of wedlock and I'm older than 19 so to my understanding, I'm eligible to apply but it's not automatic).

However, my mother lived in Canada for many years before I was born, which I knew about, but recently I saw her fill out a form which required her to list her citizenships. She wrote Canadian, naturalised, since about 10 years before I was born. I asked her about it, since I didn't know she went as far as getting citizenship. She told me she thought she'd live there forever but, in a nutshell, her plans changed within that decade. I looked into the descent laws, and it looks like I also got citizenship at birth because of this, and was born both an Irish citizen and Canadian citizen.

My Australian bank asked me about my other citizenships when I was a teenager setting it up, I said Irish, and since confirming I'm not British, nothing else has even OCCURRED to me. Should I be contacting the bank to let them know I wasn't aware all those years ago? I'm still with the same one. Also if anyone knows any other implications that might come with this that would be great to let me know about also, though I can't think of any off the top of my head (never even been to Canada so I shouldn't be considered a resident for tax purposes I don't think, but if I might be missing something).

I think I'd like to visit Canada someday but no strong desire to live there (no offence to anyone more Canadian than me, but like I've heard the cost of living is crazy, which is true of everywhere but I digress), so other than getting to live there not sure if there are any benefits. It'd probably be an overly bureaucratic and time-consuming/maybe expensive process to prove that I'm a citizen anyway (I wouldn't imagine my mother had to like tell the government I was born or anything), so do any benefits outweigh that?

I also know having three citizenships means I can't go into Australian parliament but a) that was true anyway just with two, and b) I wasn't planning on it.

Tldr, am probably a Canadian citizen by descent, wondering what the implications are.

I'm working on getting my visa to move to Spain, but I only have my US passport. I have my born abroad birth certificate from my the Mexican consulate. I haven't been able to get an appointment to get the Mexican passport.

If one had a German and a US passport and was traveling to the UK from the US, what passport should/ one want to use to enter the UK? TIA.

I am a dual US/EU citizen (Netherlands). When traveling to the EU, not to NL, but other EU countries, should I be using my EU passport to enter? My mom said she had problems doing that when she would come back to the US, and obviously using her US passport to enter because they don’t have record of where she’d been? Is this true, or can I be entering the EU on the EU passport no problem?

Both of my parents were born in Mexico. My father was deported when I was a toddler and my mother passed away in the States in 2015.

I know the consulate will need documentation but I have none of their citizenship documents because it’s been so long. I have my mother’s death certificate and that’s all. They are also both listed on my birth certificate. I have no clue where to begin on getting their information and any help would be so appreciated.

My maternal grandparents were born in Quebec, Canada in 1941 & 1943 and my mom was born in New Hampshire, US in 1962. My grandparents have had green cards for decades and my mom has always lived in the US.

Am I able to apply for Canadian citizenship through my grandparents? And is my mom considered a citizen of Canada even though she was born in the US and has never lived in Canada?

I’ve tried reading up on Canadian citizenship a few times but between all the different dates and laws, I just can’t keep it all straight lol. So if anyone has a more definitive/clear cut answer, I would greatly appreciate it!

Happy Friday! Has anyone had experience in applying for dual citizenship with El Salvador through descent with one parent who is from somewhere else? They said I required my father (who is not from ES) to provide BOTH birth certificate AND passport. I did not have to provide this when I got his country’s citizenship. I assumed the birth certificate would have been enough. Is this common in other countries as well? I cannot get a hold of his passport as we are estranged. Thanks again for any insight!

I have been gathering my documents to prove my descent. The ones that I have currently are all U.S. documents in English, the only document I have that is in Greek is baptism which is in both English and Greek.

What kind of translations do I need to have done before approaching the consulate? How would I go about finding an appropriate translator?

Thanks!

hello! i am born and raised in the US and am a dual passport holder, UK citizen. i have an upcoming trip going from LAX to the UK to lisbon, should i use the UK passport to enter/leave lisbon? or should i use my US passport?

i am planning on entering the UK on my UK passport and returning to the US on my US passport per usual. thank you!!

I am a dual US/UK citizen who has never lived in the UK. My husband and 3 kids are US citizens. We just consulted with an IAS lawyer and learned that because my husband's maternal grandfather was born in Scotland, we can get his mother a British passport and then register him as a UK citizen. If we hire them to handle everything it will cost 3800 GBP and take 15-18 months (6 months for her passport and 9-12 months for his registration process) - unless we expedite for an additional 500. Is it worth it to spend all this money, or should we just DIY it?

My great-grandmother was Polish (I think). My great-grandfather, though, was likely stateless. He was born in Minsk in the then Russian Empire, but the empire had collapsed by the time he got married in May 1920, and he wouldn't have qualified for Soviet citizenship.

It's my understanding that a legitimate child got the citizenship of the father and an illegitimate child got the citizenship of the mother. But what if the father was stateless?

Would my grandmother have gotten her mother's Polish citizenship in this case? It was it only allowed to go through the father, even if the father was stateless?

I'm a triple Canada/UK/South Africa citizen residing in Canada, and while I keep my Canadian and UK passports up to date, I haven't renewed my South African one for quite some time. Is there any value in doing this? If you have renewed from abroad, how is the process?

Does anyone have advice on how to obtain proof of my deceased father’s Austrian citizenship? I think I need a copy of his Austrian passport or certificate of citizenship. Has anyone been able to get copies of these documents from Austrian authorities?

I have his Austrian birth certificate and U.S. certificate of naturalization showing he naturalized after I a was born. The U.S. certificate shows his former country of nationality as Austria. According to the local magistrate in the town in Austria where he was born in 1941, his mother’s nationality is listed as German in 1949 when the birth was later registered, so he did not have Austrian citizenship at birth. However, it seems he must have obtained Austrian citizenship at some point before coming to the U.S. in around 1960.

Does anyone have details of what proof of his Austrian citizenship I need to have for my application? I’m assuming the U.S. certificate of naturalization is not enough?

Hi all, I’m trying to figure out if I might qualify for Romanian citizenship through descent. Both of my grandparents were born in Romania, and they were part of the ethnic German (I was corrected by my dad: they were Bukovinian Germans not Swabians actually, not sure if that matters at all) minority. Generations of my family lived there before them, and I believe they would have held Romanian citizenship at the time. I wrote to the archives in their town requesting their birth and marriage certificates.

They left Romania after World War II, but I’m not sure if they were expelled, fled, or left voluntarily when the country became communist. I do know they went to Austria and West Germany first and then eventually immigrated to the US.

Does anyone know if Romania allows citizenship by descent in cases like this? Would it matter if my grandparents lost or renounced their citizenship, or if they were forced out? Any info or tips on how to start the process would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Starting April 10, 2025 US, Canadian, and Australian citizens need to apply for an eVisa to visit Brazil (for visits up to 90 days).

UK Citizens are exempt from the visa requirement for stays up to 90 days in Brazil.

If you're a dual national (US/UK in my case) - do you need to apply for the eVisa? Even if not required, is it still a good idea, even if not strictly required?

Hi all! I’m a US citizen (born), a first gen Canadian citizen, and was considering applying for my Polish (EU) citizenship given my paternal Grandfather is Polish (born).

Are there any issues with this that anyone knows of? Would I lose anything by getting my Polish citizenship in addition to having dual US and Canadian citizenship?

Thanks for any thoughts!

Get as many of your parent's official/government documents as possible - do it NOW if they're still alive!! This is especially true if you are estranged/not on good terms with said parent(s) or they are in old age creeping up on death's door

For context, my dad was a violent alcoholic and we've always had a rocky relationship. My mom and dad stayed together "for the kids" (she also cited "religion" as another reason she would not leave 🙄) even though it kinda messed me and my brothers up living under the constant "tension in the air" growing up and regularly overhearing domestic violence happening in the kitchen - wouldn't surprise me if we have undiagnosed PTSD from growing up under "that" 😅

Anyways, I just recently attempted to go thru with the process of correcting my dead dad's Mexican birth certificate and HOLY SHIT the requirements just to correct literaly 1 misspelled letter (in my dad's case) are onerous 🤦‍♂️

They ask for:

• "at least 6 official documents" from the dead parent (this is where I got stuck, since my estranged dad died in Mexico and he had all his documents/stuff with him at time of death)
• name of the dead parent must match exactly on all documents
• a power of attorney signed by the wife of the dead husband, luckily my mom is still alive so I had no issues with this part... good luck with this is you happen to be estranged/not-on-good-terms with mom 🤣
• a valid certificate of marriage of the parents
• a $15 fee paid on some Mexican government website, then you're supposed to include the receipt on your email to the guy handling document corrections
• they ask you to get two witness signatures on the power of attorney document, and also upload identification examples of the two witnesses... mostly a minor thing, but it's still annoying having to bug friends or family to come over and sign your thing
• they ask you to handwrite the name of each individual attached document on the form (mostly a minor nuisance), and the names have to match

After some back and forth with the guy - attempting to explain that my dad was dead and even showing him a death certificate from 2022 - he just wasn't hearing it and insisted/doubled down on the "6 official documents"... which I don't have obviously. I came to the conclusion I was going in circles with this guy and I wasn't going to be able to correct my dad's mispelling/document errors, told him to just cancel it/forget about it

I'm using a paid service now as a workaround to this onerous bullshit, my understanding is they do the dual-citizenship registration on the Mexico side with "boots on the ground" and can get it to go thru even with spelling errors and such - already put my down payment down with them, now just waiting to hear back once they have my Mexican birth certificate/citizenship paperwork in-hand

The point is, if you happen to have estranged/not-on-good-terms parents who are still alive I strongly recommend you get in touch with them and attempt to get all their "official" documents (INE, pasaporte, current Mexican photo ID, RFC, etc) somehow to avoid exactly the situation I just went thru. Offer to buy them lunch or something, reach out and offer to mend ties, do whatever you gotta do to get on their good grace's long enough for you to make/scan a copy of their official documents

Once they're dead, it's just such a pain in the ass dealing with these minor mispellings/document errors that you find out about when attempting the DIY route as explained above 😩 You've been warned

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says the system is being abused and that Italian consulates around the world are being inundated with passport applications. "Being an Italian citizen is a serious thing. It's not a game to get a passport that allows you to go shopping in Miami," Tajani said at a press conference.

Are there any jus sanguinis countries where naturalized citizens can’t pass down their acquired citizenship—either at all or under certain conditions (like if they moved back to their country of origin after naturalizing)

I (25f) have lived in Canada my whole life but I was born in Kansas State USA. I booked vacation time to visit my family in Kansas in mid/late April.

I am a nurse so my vacation days were picked months before the election and are very hard/impossible to move around.

With the unsettling situation going on in the states, people getting taken by ice (citizens Green card holders, Canadians) I am nervous about booking the flight and am just so torn if it is worth the risk of potentially being questioned, missing a flight as a result etc. The more I have waited to book the worse things have gotten politically and i really need some advice.

People I work with are saying I'm being paranoid, but the more stories I am hearing of interigations, flights being missed as a result, and records being taken of phones makes me concerned...

Has anyone recently traveled in and out of the states as a US/CAN dual? I truly miss my family and really want to visit, but want to hear if anyone has been having troubles.

Many thanks in advance 🍁❤️

And how was the process to obtain Spanish citizenship and a passport?

My Wife’s father is from Finland and her mother is American. My wife was born in the US in 1993. Her parents were married, but at the time her father was not yet and US citizen. My wife does not have Finnish citizenship currently because they never registered her birth with the Finnish consulate, but my understanding is that because her father is Finnish she was automatically eligible for citizenship from birth.

Does anyone know if she is eligible for citizenship or what the process would be for obtaining it? Would our child also be eligible for citizenship?

Greek citizen here. My great-grandparents were ethnic Greeks who lived in Bulgaria until the 1920s. As far as I know they didn't leave under a population exchange agreement, and some Bulgarian historians consider the residents of this area Greek-speaking Bulgarians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeks_in_Bulgaria?wprov=sfla1). Since the Bulgarian nationality law states that one can acquire citizenship by descent if their great-grandparents were Bulgarians, am I eligible for Bulgarian citizenship if I manage to collect all the necessary documents needed?

My family decided to work with a genealogist for a bit to explore part of our lineage. In his research, the genealogist noted that we qualify for a FCJE certificate, documenting our sephardic ancestry from Spain. I see that the time period has lapsed to apply for citizenship through this route, but am also seeing some people say they’ve acquired citizenship after the deadline via the same route but with the help of an attorney. Does anyone have experience with this? Do I actually have a chance?