Has anyone gone through the simplified naturalization precedure?

Study your CV.  Family. Job. Hobbies. Where you live.  No one really knows what will be asked...

My grandmother was a Hungarian citizen but she naturalized well after my father and me were born (outside of Hungary). Anyone know if this counts for the regular citizenship procedure? I'm guessing the answer is no, but I figured I'd ask just in case.

It doesn't matter if nagymamam was naturalized.   What is important is she was born in the boundaries of modern day Hungary. 
If outside borders of present day, simplified naturalization.

Ok, thanks. She was born in the US and naturalized by marriage (not to my grandfather), so I guess I'll look into the simplified process.

If I understand your situation correctly, then I think it presents a serious question under the Simplified Naturalization procedure, one on which you need to get some serious advice, either from the authorities in Budapest or perhaps a lawyer.

The requirement is that you have an antecedent who was or is a Hungarian citizen. In one interpretation you might seem to qualify, but in another you would not because when the antecedent relationship was established -- that is, when you were born -- your antecedent was not a Hungarian citizen. A good argument can be made either way, I suppose, but what counts is what the people in Budapest think. I do think it's fair to say it's not the sort of case for which the Simplified Naturalization procedure was designed.

If you have at least one ancestor born in pre-1920 Greater Hungary, that would certainly be a far better approach.

In any event, I'd caution relying too heavily on a what an embassy or consulate might say about your situation (unless they check with Budapest first), since it does raise a fine question and the consular officials aren't really prepared to deal with fine questions of law.

Zif is correct.   The idea of simplified nat is having a grandparent for example born pre-Trianon in Austro HU empire. That is how I am Hungarian blood.  My grandparents lost their HU citizenship due to Trianon. So I qualified as blood from nagysuliem.

Your grandmother was naturalized by marriage?  So your grandpapa was HU citz?

Thanks for the advice. I should clarify that my great great grandparents were born in 19th century Hungary (and within the present day borders) so if I can establish a paper trail I'd be applying under them, with maybe my grandmother as additional support? They were citizens but not ethnically Magyar so I'm not going to be shocked if they deny me, but from what I can tell from the cursory research I've done so far it sounds like I have a shot, despite it being intended for ethnic Magyars (and the earlier discussion in this thread about this issue seems to agree). I'm in the very early stages of this so I'm just trying to figure out if it's practical/possible.

My grandmother divorced my grandfather and remarried a Hungarian citizen.

It's the paper trail which is critical. You need an official document showing birth of an ancestor in pre-1920 Greater Hungary, then an unbroken series of marriage and birth certificates showing your descent from that ancestor. (Church documents wll do for events prior to about 1895, when the government itself started registering vital events.)

If you've got those documents, then don't muddy the waters by introducing your Grandmother's naturalization, except perhaps for a brief mention in your CV.

I'd say the first issue is to see whether the documents you need are available. Remember, you only need one ancestor.

OK, cool. I'm gonna look into that, thanks.

Anyone know if Hungary's strict about an unbroken chain of birth and marriage certificates? I don't think my great grandfather (the first one born in the US) has a birth certificate, I'm going to pay for a manual search of the county archives just in case but I'm not holding my breath. I can get copies of census and social security information that show his date and place of birth, parents, and everything else a birth certificate would have, would that be enough?

Baptism from closest church.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's impossible, but without the normal chain your application will be be processed through a bureaucratic quagmire.

Myself, I wouldn't put too much weight on census records or church records (other than pre-1895 Hungarian church records). Instead, I'd look to the sort of official vital records they seem to appreciate: marriage and death certificates, which may have the information to substitute for a birth certificate. They also like old Hungarian passports, though I doubt there's one for your great-grandfather.

I also suspect that the further back your Hungarian-citizen ancestor, the stricter they may be: in your case, it seems to be a great-great-grandfather.

Hm, I should be able to get marriage and death certificates. I checked and it looks like the latter should give place of birth and his parents' names, hopefully they'll take that but I guess it really depends on how the bureaucracy is feeling.

Thinking along these lines, I just got my Grandmother's death certificate to clarify a small spelling discrepancy in her maiden name, but found that her maiden name and the names of her parents were listed as "unknown" on the death certificate. So don't get your hopes up till you see the actual certificate.

Really church records are usually very good resources.
They keep really good records of births, deaths, marriages.
I know my 2nd cousin was able to make up my family tree in SE Poland going back so far to 1775 with using church records. He lives in the US, speaks and reads Polish and made many trips to the local churches near Gorlice, where the family is from.
My FIL was called into the communist run police station right after WW11. They wanted to change the spelling of our last name, was too"Upper class" in spelling for the new system.
As the family had lost everything he was not about to lose his name too. He traveled all over HU going through church records over the centuries, he proved they had been given the  spelling by the crown and that they didn't buy the name. We got to keep the spelling.
Without the church records we wouldn't of been able to do this.

OK, last question, I swear. Did all of you who went through/are going through the process track down the original vital records of your intermediate ancestors (i.e., the ones who weren't born in Hungary), or did you order certified copies? Illinois doesn't offer certified copies of birth or marriage certificates if you're not named on the record, only non-certified "for genealogical purposes only" ones (this is a genealogical purpose, really, but I'm not sure Budapest will see it that way). I can hopefully get a certified death certificate, at least, though it'd probably require a letter from the consulate explaining the purpose.

Here's an old forum post that suggests that as lineal descendant you may be able to get "dispensation" from Illinois and get a certified copy for naturalization purposes.

http://www.italiangenealogy.com/forum/emigration/11890

(Forums discussing Italian naturalization are good sources of information on dealing with state vital records.)

While I haven't submitted anything yet -- the Hungarian language is not really holding my interest very deeply -- I was able to get certified copies of everything I need.

Note of course that everything in English will need to be translated into Hungarian; it's possible a consul may do this, for a fee of course, but to avoid delay you'll need to check on this.

Nice find, thanks.

I have a question...

So my great great grandfather brought my great grandfather over on a boat to Ellis Island with his siblings and other family members in 1910. I have a copy of the ships manifest and some photographs, plus the birth certs of my grandma who was born here from him, my mom and me.

On the ships manifest it shows that the last place of residence was Pancsova, Hungary. At that time in 1910 It was still in the Austro-Hungary empire. Shortly after it became and now is a part of Serbia.

I want to know if I should qualify for the simplified naturalization if I am unable to obtain my great grandfathers birth certificate, but I have the documents showing they came from and lived in Hungary..

Has anyone had a situation like this before?

I haven't gone through the process so others can probably answer your question better, but my impression is that they really want some kind of official government document from Austria-Hungary for the ancestor you're applying under. The law seems vague enough that it might be possible, though. I do know that in lieu of a birth certificate Austro-Hungarian military records can be used, though I'm not sure if that would help in your situation. Have you requested the certificate from Serbia already?

I have not. I am going to do that next week I think. I just have to pray it wasn't lost or burned or something during world war 1. If that is the case than I will be boned. I should probably contact my family and see if anyone has the original certificate or something first before I do.

I just have never really talked to the people who could possibly have anything like that so it would be really awkward.

Thanks though for the tip

Great great grandparents could be problematic. 
1.  It will state their citizenship on shipping records.
I was told now they only go as far as grandparents.
You need a documents to prove your Great great --- were Hungarians.

Well on the shipping record it says their nationality as German, but my great great grandfather's name is Gáspár and his son, my great grandfather is Pál. Not to mention the place of residency before coming to USA is listed as Pancsova, Hungary.

At that time in 1910, Pancsova was in the Austro-Hungary empire and actually of the people living in that area it was something like 7k serbs, 4k germans, 3k hungarians for the city.

However, they all were technically Hungarian Citizens regardless. Just as there are pure-blooded Chinese that have been in America for 5 generations, there blood is Chinese but they are American.

My family was in Hungary for generations, but just so happened to be of German blood.

My entire family that came over on the shipping manifest ALL have Hungarian first names.

Do you think the Hungarian consulate would let this happen?

My honest experience is:
1.  Goes as far as grandparents.
2.  Grandparents for simp nat would have to be born in pre-Trianon Aus-HU area.  That would make them Hungarian citizens until they would have lost their Hungarian citz post-Trianon.
3.  Don't look at your great great grandparents - but look at your grandparents.
4.  Also, for a grandparent born before Trianon - it goes paternal - so you must look at your grandfather and then it would be passed to your mother/father and to you.  BUT both you and your mother would have to do simp nat based on ONE of your mother/father's father - so your grandfather.
I say this as I have been doing this for 5 years and I have concrete email from different embassies to support this.
Good luck!

I wish you luck, this does sound like a huge headache though.
You will need actual birth records in Hungarian no doubt.
My grandmother was born in Galicia and my father in Poland in 1921.
The area they lived in was part of Hungary at one time, free at one time and now in SE Poland.Some parts are even part of Ukraine.
My father also came through Ellis Island with his mom and baby sister around 1928.
At that time the US was not excepting many people from eastern Europe any longer. They got in because my grandfather who was also a Rusin had been born in the US, his parents were immigrants.
It gets very complicated when we go back so many generations,
I can say from personal experience with HU immigration services that they will not help you in any way, shape or form, you must have your own paperwork in order and make it easy for them to figure things out. They would rather go out for a smoke then actually use their brains to help anyone.
Good luck.

I have to say I was not aware of any limitation to grandparents. So far as I know, the law simply requires that you have one antecedent who was a Hungarian citizen.

As to documentation, I agree that at a minimum you'll need a contemporaneous document from the old Hungarian territories, with a birth record the best, though perhaps a military record or an old passport would also work.

Remember that births before a certain date, around 1895, were registered only by the church, and that these church records are in fact the legal birth records as well. As I recall, old birth records in "Hungarian" Serbia are often available, but tracking them down can be very difficult, since many of the records were returned to the churches in recent years by the state archives. Thus you need reliable information on the birthplace to find the birth record;  just because Pancsova is shown as the last residence before immigration doesn't necessarily mean that was the birthplace.

"My grandmother was born in Galicia and my father in Poland in 1921."

Marilyn and Ziff are correct.
I have a document (sorry but can't share online due to privacy of Embassy staff) stating that they are only looking at my GRANDFATHER - my mother's father who was born before 1900s. 
At that time (this is what they look at) the paternal MY grandfather > my mother > me is how simp nat works.

YOU need to get a copy of KERESZTELTEK ANYAKÖNYE / MATRICULA BAPTISATORUM
OR BIRTH CERT as attached.
You need as evidence that your grandpa was a Hungarian citizen.

This was my main proof - a lot of work but Ziff is right - only churches have these.

I'll also add that the old church records, at least in Serbia and Croatia, are usually not in Hungarian, but Latin for the Roman Catholic Church and Church Slavonic for the Orthodox Church. Finding an expert who can read and translate the old handwriting can be another challenge you may face.

Yes, I'm not quite sure of Blonder's situation, but if you come in with a family tree and documentation showing several possible antecedents, they are no doubt only going to look at one, presumably the one with the shortest and cleanest line to you.

So just an update. I spoke the consulate of Hungary here in the USA and was given information along these lines;

I would be able to use my great grandfather as my ancestor from Hungary to use in the simple naturalization process, so long as I could provide the birth certificate or other document showing he was born / lived there.

So unfortunately he was born in a city which then became part of Serbia again. Now I must contact Serbian consulate and have them to attempt to find his information in Pančevo.

Wish me luck

I would be pretty surprised if the Serbian consulate could do anything more than give you the most general information. I think you're going to need to hire someone to do the legwork in Serbia. You might look at the earlier thread here with a link to a forum (in Serbian) discussing Hungarian Simplified Naturalization; since it offers an EU passport, it's fairly popular in northern Serbia, where most people have antecedents who were Hungarian citizens.

Good luck.  As Marilyn and I know too well - you never know what will happen until you get the FINAL decision that you are ready to do your ësku!

This is a long thread and maybe I missed something, but are congratulations yet in order for you?

Thank you Zif.  I have my certificate and have passed the second test.  Ready for the ceremony!

Well, then, congratulations! It was a long struggle.

But I thought the point of the ceremony was to take the oath and  receive the certificate, that they wouldn't hand it over until you took the oath.

Also, can you tell us something about the second interview: how well can you speak Hungarian now? Did you go to the same consulate which handled your earlier interview?

Since I was leaving the country and time restraints and holidays staff.  Things changed and conversation was exchanged. My second interview knowledge was a 100x better but I quit work and studied 3 months full on for 6 hours min a day with teachers. Questions were same as everyone. No trick questions like how to say elbow or obscure terms. Prepared as I wanted to learn the language.
Different staff  second time around.
So much time had passed so normal I guess.

Thank you.

So the message seems to be -- based on your experience at least -- that if your Hungarian is just middling, not really good enough to fully satisfy the consulate, you can nonetheless start the ball rolling on your application by filing and then continuing your studies while your papers are wending their way through the Budapest bureaucracy. That takes about six months minimum, and I gather that's probably enough with intensive study to move from just middling to more-or-less OK.

Please keep posting about the mechanics as you move from naturalization certificate to passport to ID card to tax returns and such.