My mother was born in the UK in 1915 and left for Canada in 1921 and married a Canadian citizen in 1938. Child was born in Canada in 1943. Does child have any right to British passport/citizenship?
1 Answer
British nationality could not be transmitted at birth from a mother to a child born before 1983. However, a child born to a British mother before 1983 is eligible to register as a British citizen now on Form UKM, as long as as he/she would have gotten British citizenship if mothers could transmit citizenship the same as fathers. Basically, this means that the mother had to have been British "otherwise than by descent", which she was in this case, since she was born in the UK.
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But the father was also a British subject, was he not? And so therefore was the child at birth. Canadian citizenship did not yet exist in 1943, let alone 1938: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Citizenship_Act_1946– phoogCommented Jan 15, 2020 at 5:15
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@phoog: Yes, the father was a British subject, and the child was a British subject at birth, but the child did not become a CUKC (Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies) in 1949 because the child was not born in the UK and the father (I'm assuming) was not born in the UK. Yes, I agree the father was not technically a "Canadian citizen" at the time of the child's birth in the sense we use it today, though the term "Canadian citizen" did appear in the Canadian Immigration Act of 1910. Commented Jan 15, 2020 at 22:09