Do I have citizen by descent?

[hawk39]

My thought/hope was that the limit only applied to people born after 2009, to prevent people (and their children) continuing to live outside Canada from claiming citizenship; in effect saying, hey we'll give you a pass for the 20th century, but if you want to continue calling your multiple generations Canadian, you have to come back to Canada. And I guess they still did give you a pass while living multiple generations outside Canada if you had made the simple filings back then, which isn't a ton to have asked.

It's possible to have second/third/fourth generation siblings born on both sides of the 2009 cutoff, but only those born after 2009 are ineligible for citizenship by descent. This might seem cruel and unfair, but all of these generations were born and living outside of Canada. The only way to guarantee citizenship is if their parents gave birth in Canada; so if their citizen-by-descent parents wanted Canadian citizenship for their children after 2009, then they should have planned to give birth in Canada. Some countries have stricter by-descent laws, some are more generous; I think Canada's law is in the middle, maybe leaning slightly generous.

I don't have actual proof that my GGM naturalized at the same time as my GGF, or at all. I also have records of entry into the US for my GGF, but not my GGM. I know it's a pretty unusual case, but could that change the scenario at all, or would one parent naturalizing cause loss of British Subject status?

Under the British law, a woman did not lose their status automatically unless she was naturalized automatically through marriage. It would change the pathway, but it would still not have allowed you or your mother to be able to claim citizenship from him today.

The earliest your grandfather could have claimed citizenship through your great-grandmother would be with special grant under 5(2)(b) of the 1977 Act; it basically says that if the person was ineligible for citizenship by descent under the 1947 Act because of the parental restrictions, then he/she can now apply for a grant effective to date of application (not date of birth like by descent). Even if he did this, it would be after your mother was born, so she would not have gotten citizenship under it. Those that applied for and gotten the grant were converted to 3(1)(h) citizens under the 2009 Act; unfortunately, parents under (h) are among the list of first-generationers that can not pass on citizenship to their children. So even if your grandfather gotten citizenship that way and retroactively dated to his date of birth under (h), you and your mother would not be able to benefit from it.

 

[pclem1]

OK thanks again. You're very knowledgeable on this and I appreciate you sharing that. I agree Canada is probably mid-range difficulty and not all that strict, only relative to Ireland and Italy who are a good bit more generous with eligibility (the main difference with Canada being the British Subject monkey wrench, and the fact that naturalization generally doesn't take away minors' citizenship as far as I understand, only needs to have happened after birth of child to qualify), though there are quite a few landmines that can disqualify one there also based on dates of a couple laws, gender of parent, etc.

Had my GGF and GGM never naturalized or done so after my GF was an adult, would that have changed anything for me and/or my mom/uncles, or not necessarily due to my GF (in all likelihood) still not having crossed the bridge from British Subject to Canadian citizen post-1947 (and pre-1952, before my mom was born)?

 

[hawk39]

Had my GGF and GGM never naturalized or done so after my GF was an adult, would that have changed anything for me and/or my mom/uncles, or not necessarily due to my GF (in all likelihood) still not having crossed the bridge from British Subject to Canadian citizen post-1947 (and pre-1952, before my mom was born)?

Keep in mind that by being born in the US, your grandfather was also a birthright citizen of the US. The subject of involuntary dual citizenship for children was never really addressed in these laws, and if it was, usually children were allowed to hold both until they turned 21 years old when they had to decide. According to the 1947 Act under 4(b):

​

4. A person, born before the commencement of this Act, is a natural-born Canadian citizen:—​

(b) If he was born outside of Canada elsewhere than on a Canadian ship and his father, or in the ease of a person born out of wedlock, his mother (i) was born in Canada or on a Canadian ship and had not become an alien at the time of that person's birth, or (ii) was, at the time of that person’s birth, a British subject who had Canadian domicile, if, at the commencement of this Act, that person has not become an alien, and has either been lawfully admitted to Canada for permanent residence or Is a minor.​

​

Under this section, there are two criteria that must be met for your adult grandfather to get citizenship by descent if his father was still a British subject; at this time, your grandfather could not claim under his mother because they were already married. Whether your grandfather could regarded as an "alien" (or someone that holds status of another country) because of his involuntary US citizenship could be debated, however the second part (lawfully admitted for permanent residence) might be the deciding negative factor for your grandfather; as it is written, he needed to have moved to Canada by the day the Act commenced in order to have gotten citizenship.

​

 

[pclem]

Thanks - there are some unknowns, as far as immigration policy ca. 1908, as well as whether and at what point legal immigration status was given, etc. My GGF at least crossed the border legally, but that's all I know (he had family there who he could have said he was visiting, or he could have said he was permanently immigrating). The manifest card from the border station really has no information other than his name, age, height etc.

Based on general principle I'd guess novelty/grey area would be an advantage in this process, allowing the officer to make a liberal interpretation, unless the onus is on the applicant to remove all doubt around the facts.

Since I'm interested in genealogy as it is, I'll probably just gather the remaining documents and submit the packet at some point down the road. I spoke to a Canadian lawyer who does a lot of these cases for a free consult and he basically advised to do that, though did caution that the odds seem pretty remote. Worst case is I'll be out $150-200 and maybe pick up some interesting family history info.

Did you need to get apostilles for your US vital records documents, or did you just send them in as-is?