Thank you Mikeg333 for the information about the citizenship ceremony, and congratulations on your success during this long process!
Yktamimi, the reason why Mikeg333 had to register instead of merely applying for a passport is, I suspect, because he or she was born before 1983. After 1983, mothers and civilly married fathers who were British 'otherwise than by descent' (meaning essentially by birth in Britain or naturalisation, though it's a bit more complicated) could both convey nationality for one generation to their children born abroad. Before then, only civilly married fathers could do that; nationality was not passed through the mother. The law changed and now people born abroad before 1983 to British mothers (who are not British only by descent) can obtain British citizenship if only they first register themselves for citizenship just as the UKF people (children of civilly unmarried fathers) are doing, but with a very similar form called UKM instead. So that is why Mike had to register before applying for a passport. It's all about the dates. Correct me Mike if I'm wrong.
Regarding replacement naturalisation certificates, you've probably seen this already but first of all there's this:
https://www.gov.uk/get-replacement-citi ... ertificate As you can see, and as you've already been informed by the national archives, you can't get a *replacement* certificate for a naturalisation certificate issued before 1986, but you can get a certified copy from the archives. This is described here:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help ... 1949-1986/ This must have been what the national archives told you they could give you, what Mikeg333 got, and what your particular passport person rejected as 'not an official document'. It is possible that, as we've been seeing in several places on this forum, the *citizenship* authorities are more lenient than the *passport* authorities: for instance, this thread
http://www.immigrationboards.com/britis ... 83170.html
shows that while the citizenship authorities will allow a person to register or naturalise for citizenship in their married name even though their foreign passport is in their maiden name, the passport authorities won't issue a passport in the married name unless the foreign passport has also been issued in that name or, at their discretion and quite recently following efforts to obtain some flexibility, unless the dual national submits proof that they are unable to change the name on their foreign passport because their other country doesn't allow name changes. My point is that the passport authority is a different office from the citizenship authority and appears to be stricter; ironically, since Mike had to go through a more convoluted (hence from one perspective much more annoying) process to obtain citizenship and it involved the citizenship office, the certified copy of the naturalisation certificate was accepted and the citizenship registration certificate will be able to be used for gaining a passport, whereas your process is technically 'simpler' because you only have to apply directly for a passport, BUT you are facing difficulties due to the problem with your father's naturalisation certificate because the passport people, or just the specific official that handled you case, is being more constipated about this than Mike's citizenship official. It is an example of the Kafkaesque self-contradiction and complication that bureaucracies can develop.
Luckily though, you may now be able to by-pass this entire problem by obtaining a Nationality Status letter, so hopefully the above information will be rendered irrelevant.
So, congratulations to both of you and good luck to all.
