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Hungarian citizenship by descent, but a bit far back.

Last activity 17 October 2017 by zif

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Ottawa9658

Hello everyone, I have a bit of dilemma.
Now, I know my grounds with Hungarian citizenship a bit, but, I plan on moving to Hungary and I’m descending of two great great grandparents who were both born in Hungary (Tolna and Baranya counties) but they immigrated to America in 1907. My great grandfather was the first born in America, and of course had US citizenship.
The thing is, my great great grandparents never became US citizens and technically were Hungarian citizens at the time. Does anyone know if I could get Hungarian citizenship in any way? I barely speak Hungarian but plan on rigorously practicing it, and I think the law of simplified naturalization would apply to me, but am not completely sure. If anyone could help me reassure this, that would be great. Thank you. (By the way, I do have some documents, like church records of family...still need a lot more.)

zif

Under old Hungarian law, emigrants lost their Hungarian citizenship after 10 years' absence from Hungary, unless certain exceptions applied. After the lapse of 100 years, it would be pretty difficult to prove that any of these exceptions applied to your GGGPs.

Yes, I know what you're thinking, but under the old law, minor children also lost their Hungarian citizenship when their father lost his Hungarian citizenship. My best guess is that you'd be wasting your time trying to demonstrate that you were at birth a Hungarian citizen by descent from ancestors who left Hungary 110 years ago.

So let's just assume your ancestors somehow lost their Hungarian citizenship, and that you'll be relying on Simplified Naturalization.

Please read the long threads here on SN: there's a lot information in there.

But basically, you'll need to start with the birth certificate of an ancestor born in pre-1920 Hungarian territory, and then build a trail of marriage and birth certificates demonstrating your descent from that ancestor. Only one ancestor is necessary.

I assume your GGGPs were born before 1895, so their birth records would be church records.

Of course under SN you'll also have to demonstrate a reasonable command of Hungarian, and all your documents will need recognized Hungarian translations, if not already in Hungarian.

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