Citizenship questiosn for pre-1918 ancestors

Hey everyone. I came across this thread while researching the possibility of acquiring (or, more specially, confirming) Polish, and thus European, citizenship and passport through descent. While the thread has been very helpful, I'm still not entirely sure about my situation, and wanted to check in here for advice.

From what I've found out thus far from my maternal grandfather, his grandparents (my great-great-grandparents) were all born in Poland (well, what is now Poland), with his parents being born in the US and Canada shortly very soon after immigrating. We're not entirely sure on the dates of his grandparents' immigration, but he found: a certification from grandfather saying he was born in 1875 in Poland under Russia, immigrating in 1898; a birth certificate for his maternal grandmother saying she was born in Poland in 1883, and she gained a certificate of nationalization in the US in 1939 stating her former nationality as Polish. Additional he has some other documents like marriage certificates and work permits.

So, to sum up my situation: I have four great-great-grandparents on my maternal grandfather's side who emigrated around 1900, and another set of great- or great-great- grandparents on my maternal grandmother's side who emigrated probably around the same time.

Anyway, from what I understand any possibility of me gaining citizenship through descent is going to be more difficult as my ancestors immigrated several decades before “Poland” as a state existed. I was wondering, of course, if anyone here as advice as to the likelihood of gaining citizenship in my situation. In any event, I'm thinking I'd be far better off contacting Charsky or some other attorney than attempting to go through the consulate.

Edit: Looking on Charsky's website I don't see anything explicitly confirming or denying whether they'd be able to help me in my case. The only vague hint is his statement of having been successful in helping clients with relatives coming in the 20s and 30s, but I would assume that probably doesn't mean anything given that there are obviously applicable candidates whose relatives came in the 40s or 50s.

 

Re: Citizenship questiosn for pre-1918 ancestors

If an attorney will tell you for free, I would say that there's little to lose. But, in my experience, they will charge you something like $100 or $200 to "review" your case. In my honest opinion, the chances are so slim that it wouldn't be worth it to pay them to tell you no. But, this may be so cut and dry they'd tell you right away for free. I'm not saying it's impossible (because I don't know of any experiences with this), but it seems quite unlikely (especially since you wouldn't have any official Polish documents proving citizenship, even if they said you could use them to "apply", and at least one of the people you mention became a citizen of a foreign country before Jan. 1951). Find an attorney who'll tell you for free, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

 

Re: Citizenship questiosn for pre-1918 ancestors

Slim to none.

You have the following working against you:
1) Your last ancestor to leave Poland naturalized in a foreign country BEFORE 1951.

If there is even a "slim" chance, then you should do this through an attorney. They may know some unpublished tricks to get this for you.

 

Re: Citizenship questiosn for pre-1918 ancestors

Do you, or anyone else for that matter, know whether Charsky or other attorneys mentioned in this thread would charge to the review the case, and if so how much? I thought I remember someone posting Charsky would only charge in the event that he is successful, with the exception of half of some fee that would come out to about the $100-$200 you mentioned....

To my knowledge, I don't believe all my Polish great-great-grandparents were naturalized (or at least we don't have the would-be documents for the others).

In any event though, why would it matter if at least the one naturalized in 1939, well after her children/grandson (my grandfather) were born? She still would have passed citizenship/nationality along to her children, right?

Edit: And in any case, I thought one could only officially lose Polish citizenship by making a petition to the Polish government, or something like that?

That's what I would assume. Would you recommend Charsky or would contacting an attorney stationed in Poland be a safer bet?

 

Re: Citizenship questiosn for pre-1918 ancestors

Well, TECHNICALLY, it seems that in many cases, children under a certain age (I'm not sure it it's 12 or 18) were seemingly auto-naturalized if their parents were as well because my grandfather was a citizen, but somehow there's no evidence of it other than his passport/etc. BUT, at least in my case, there was no record of it when I requested it (via USCIS, took a 13 months to get the paper saying so). I don't know if that's just my luck, or what.

Charsky uses lawyers in Poland to do legwork there. Nevertheless, all of the attorneys mentioned would probably charge that rate. Charsky's people will tell you if you're eligible, but they may just say no because it's so "borderline"/hard to do it's not worth the time/money/effort for them. Somewhere back I posted a list of attorneys in Poland. You may want to consider emailing many of them asking your possibilities. If they all say no, then it's clearly not possible in an way, shape or form.

 

Polskiarg:

Because this issue involves Israel, I spoke to Charsky's office and, while your conclusions with regard to the the Polish government's interpretation of the retroactive implications of the 1952 Law of Nationality are correct, they (Charsky's office) indicated that because my grandfather was of an age which made him eligible for the Polish Army (18-50), he did not lose his citizenship under the 1920-1951 Polish Law. Although Charsky is still arguing (via appeal) on behalf of some of their clients that citizenship did not actually occur until 1952, they pointed to some prior court rulings to support their conclusion in my case.That's all I know, but they seemed very confident that so long as my grandfather did not serve in the Israeli military prior to January 1951 (which my grandmother confirms never happened since they only arrived in Israel a few months before), I should be OK. Let's hope they are right. I will keep everyone informed. BTW, Alyehoud DID say to speak to someone!!!

Don

 

It's correct: if your grandfather was under 50 and eligible for the Polish Army, then under Polish Law he can ONLY be considered a foreign Citizen IF he asked for permition to the Polish Governent (Ministery of Defence) to aquire a foreign nationality, otherwise (if he never asked for that pemition), then under the 1920 Act, he would only be recognized as a Polish Citizen.

If that is your case, then you certainly ARE a Polish Citizen and you should prove it with all the documentation you have available.

 

This situation is only applicable to male citizens but no to females. Women lost their citizenship automaticaly since they were not compelled to serve in the Polish Army. Ask Charsky what happens if your mother got automaticaly Citizenship of Israel in 1950...

 

Polskiarg:

They said that because my grandfather didn't lose his citizenship, and my mother was a minor at the time, she didn't lose hers. BTW, my mother didn't hit majority until the 60's.

Don

 

That's great! Good luck with your application.

My apologies as I missed the part when Alyehoud recomended you Charsky. I just found it now browsing back in the thread.

 

Law Changes

In many of the documents you find on the Internet, be it embassies, consulates, forums, they all say if a grand parent or parent is Polish. There seems to be very little gender distinction in the texts. It seems that European Convention on Nationality of 1997 may overrule this discrimination stating men and women are equal and marriage does not affect citizenship. However I have no legal skills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_C ... ationality
More complete version:
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Tr ... ml/166.htm

Other than in the Citizenship Act dated 1920 there is very little documentation about the loss of citizenship through marriage. One would thing that if women and women are treated differently the embassies and consulates would post, as a basic loss of citizenship rule, women who married foreigners prior to 1951 lost citizenship. Assuming that maybe 50% of the people are women this must be a popular question.

 

Re: Law Changes

You are right;
There are very complicated issues which arise from the coexistence of different legislations and interpretations of the law. For instance for the Italian law prior to 1948 ( Republican Constitution), an Italian woman who marries a foreign national loses automatically her Italian citizenship ONLY IF by virtue of that marriage acquires automatically her husband’s citizenship. However the new legislation provided for the recovery of the Italian citizenship by making a simple declaration at a consular office stating the will to do so.

In the case of Polish Citizenship, the situation is similar, but the consulates DO NOT explain it properly.

Another obstacle is that there are two main ways of interpreting the application and consequences of a new legislation. One of them is the abrogation and the other is the nullification. The first one means that from the date that a new law enters into force any event which occurs after that date will be covered by the new law and all events that occurred prior to that date will be covered under the provisions of the previous law.
In the case of the nullification, from the date that a new law enters into force ALL events are covered by the new law EVEN events which took place BEFORE that date.

Obviously for the Polish Government it will be far more “convenient” to interpret the law in the first way and so that they have far less applicants eligible for Citizenship.

 

Just for my own knowledge, is there a direct ENGLISH translation of Poland's 1920 citizenship act available online? If so, could someone post a link. Thanks in advance.

 

Here is the link:

http://www.polishcitizenship.pl/index.p ... nformation

 

Polskiarg:

Thank you!

Don

 

That's a great link!

 

It was NOT easy to find...I've been searching for more than 5 years, and I just managed to find it last week!

 

I saw it a while back (forgot about it). It's a work in progress I guess, because when I was there about 3 or 4 months ago it only written in Polish, Hebrew and English I think. Since then it seems almost all of the languages have been finished.

 

Re: Law Changes

Is your Italian example similar to Poland, did a Polish woman from 1920-1950 retain their citizenship if the country they were living in did not recognize them as a citizen?

 

Re: Law Changes

Yours is an excellent question...for the Argentine law a foreign woman (for example Polish) who marries an argentinean man does NOT acquire automatically the argentinean citizenship by virtue of marriage. That will mean that, if for the polish law, the woman lost her polish citizenship, then she would become stateless! which is against the art 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (everyone has the right to hold a citizenship. and can not be streaped of it against his will).

You should ask this question to a Polish Consulate or a lawyer and see what they would say.