Eligibility for citizenship by descent

I want to get citizenship by descent in either Poland or Hungary. I am more than willing to learn Hungarian or Polish if I could become a Pole or a Hungarian.
My maternal great-great-grandparents were born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 1800s. They came to America in 1900. I have their marriage record, some census records, and the birth record of their daughter that show that they were born in Poland, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. To my knowledge, this qualifies me for Hungarian citizenship and possibly for Polish citizenship. I have a string of documents from Ancestry.com that proves my kinship to two citizens of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is now Poland.

How can I get the citizenship?

My understanding of obtaining Polish citizenship by descent is that each descendant in the link must have maintained their Polish citizenship (not adopted another nationality).  If any have adopted another nationality, then the chain is deemed as having been broken and that route to citizenship is then denied.

I understand the Hungarian route may be simpler, although very expensive.

My information is here-say; probably best to contact the respective embassies in the US and see what they say.

Best of luck in your journey.

Last time I looked, I also concluded that Polish citizenship in a situation such as yours was a non-starter.

If you want the Simplified Naturalization process to go smoothly, then your starting document should be the actual birth record of your ancestor with Hungarian citizenship. For a birth in the 1880s, this will be a church record.

Most importantly, to qualify under Simplified Naturalization your ancestor must have held Hungarian citizenship, which means your ancestor must have been born in the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; the Austro-Hungarian Empire actually consisted of separate Austrian and Hungarian empires. Southern Poland was in Galicia, which was part of the Austrian Empire. Thus if your ancestors were born in Poland, you usually won't qualify for Simplified Naturalization because they weren't born Hungarian citizens.

Nonetheless, small bits of the Hungarian Empire in the border area did become part of Poland, so in rare cases an ancestor from Poland might have held Hungarian citizenship.

Here's a detailed map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with Hungary in blue and Austria in yellow:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ … Ungarn.png

Your ancestor's birthplace should be within the darker blue area.

Many US citizens believe that they can inherit the nationality of their ancestors, which unfortunately, with a few exceptions, is not the case.  I'm joint a joint US/UK citizen, luckily my mother registered my birth in the UK and I got a UK birth certificate; when we moved back to the US, my father got me a US passport; so I've had both all my life.  The same is not the same with my sister, she was born in the US, but due to the circumstances of our return to the UK, my mother did not register her birth with the Brits.  When she got to 18, despite having lived in the UK for 17 years, she was deported back to the US (she went willingly and 10 years later applied for and got her British citizenship; granted because she was a first generation sibling of a British citizen living abroad).

Very interesting to find out that with Polish citizenship it can be broken by a relation getting another citizenship.
My father was born in Poland and the entire family goes back over 300 years to my knowledge to the area which was Galicia.Went to visit them all 2 years ago, amazing trip.
Guess the boat has sailed for me.
Think the best bet in your case  is to try for Hungarian citizenship but going back so many generations may be hard to prove even with documents.
I have family though marriage from Hungary and recently found out I have relations on my own side from Hungary.
Still so hard to prove and in my case not worth the hassle to go further.
I wish you luck.

Did you ever receive information on this? I have a similar situation!

Jordan Santiago wrote:

Did you ever receive information on this? I have a similar situation!


You have posted on a very old inactive thread.
I suggest you open a new thread on the subject.

stumpy wrote:
Jordan Santiago wrote:

Did you ever receive information on this? I have a similar situation!


You have posted on a very old inactive thread.
I suggest you open a new thread on the subject.


Stumpy this has been covered quite a bit and of yesterday, no more opening of threads fella  :cool:

Jordan Santiago wrote:

Did you ever receive information on this? I have a similar situation!


I'm not sure if you are referring to my post about Polish citizenship and having a grandmother born in Austria Hungary or not.
I've since found out that Polish lands and Hungairan lands were ruled by two different systems and they countires were sort of divided in reality although it was called,Austria/Hungary.
I would in my case probably just go for HU citizenship through being married to a HU and by living in Hungary for so long.
No idea if they would excpet me or not but in any case, I'm a perm resident here so that's not to bad.
Your best bet is to lok up old church records from the places your relatins came from if possible.
Those records are the best way to prove births, deaths ect.
Best of luck.
My situation was odd.
I was just messing around looking up the meaning of my maiden name in Plish when I got onto ne of those ancestory sites.
Saw a message that was 5 years old by a US cousin who was looking for relations of my grandfather.
Decided to contact this lady and found out yes, her fave great-aunt was my grandfahter's auntie.
We fianlly all hooked up in Poland for a reunion.
Very strange and meant t be.
I had no idea exactly where my father and grandmother were born before then. The immigration agent in the US messed up the spelling so badly on their documents that it wasn't even spelled close to what it really is.
Fund the place after 59 years!
My father lost all his old papers in the 1980's when his US/HU wife( my step-mom) trhrew them away.
He passed away and I never really knew where he was born exactly until I found that distant cousin online.
If it's meant to be it will happen.
One of our US cousins also came to Poland for our reunion.,He did a chart of the fmaily geneology for everyone.
He is the one who filled in many missing links. Also the cousin I found on that ancestory site, she really was into knowing who was realted to you.
She paid to have letters translated from Polish/Ruysn into English.
Read about 40 some years worth of letters between my grandfather and his aunt.
First it felt odd to read private mail but then again, it was all in the family.
This one cousin travled several times per year to do the family tree. He did private investigations for pay to support his hobby of finding our family roots.
If you're family is from SE Poland and those clse by areas then it is a good change you are actually a Ruysn. If you have a "Slavic" surname and your family was eastern Orthodox you probably are Ruysn, IN Poland they are called, Lemko people. Really just ,"highlanders" a sub group of eastern slavs.
Have many culture customs like in Hungary even their clothing is almost the same but with a sort of Ukrainian/Russian twist.
You maight check out some online sites for Ruysn /Lemko people because they have surnames, listed and towns where many of these different families came from. They stayed pretty much in the same area for generations and even married kissing cousins.
Just an idea if you're at a loss about where to start your research.
I really was taken aback when i found that message online.

If you wish to start some research you can aslo check out the site on U tube called:
lemkowithhistory
Rusyns are considered an ethnic minority here in Hungary and in other countries as well.
They have no "official" country of thier own any longer.
Carpathian Rus/Lemko/Rusyn/Rusin called many different things depending on which country they lived in but the same sub group of people.
There is a good possiblity you're Rusyn if you can claim both Polish and Hungarian roots.
It's confusing at first,I know my father used to just say we're from over there?
One day we were Poles, one day Russian and then Ukrainian.
Actually were none of those.