Elspeth wrote:Hello,
I hope this is the right kind of place to be posting about this.
I have been researching on how to go about obtaining British citizenship. I was born in Australia, but my mother is a British citizen, as was my grandfather. I was told that my mother was a British citizen only recently, which is a nice surprise for me because I'd love to go and live in the UK someday.
Ok, but here's the thing. My mother was born in Seychelles in the 1950s. Seychelles was a British colony up until 1976. My grandfather was also not born in the UK, but he lived there for 40 years.
....
This quote seems to say that I would be eligible for citizenship by descent, as my mother is a British citizen by birth and I was born in 1989 (am currently 18 years old). But huh, I am just not sure if the fact that she was born outside the UK - in a UK colony that is now independant - enables her to pass on her citizenship to me...
Sorry to be a bother, but is there anyone with the knowledge to clear this up for me? I've basically been reading in circles about it! Thanks.
There is a difference between being British
at birth and
by birth.
The status of British citizen only came into existence in 1983. Your mother acquired Citizenship of the U.K. & Colonies (CUKC) by birth in the Seychelles before independence.
By the early 1980s, many CUKCs not connected by birth, descent or residence with the United Kingdom itself (including the Channel Islands and Isle of Man) did not have "right of abode" in the U.K.
In other words, there were effectively two "classes" of CUKC - those who could live in the U.K. and all the others.
In 1983 all this changed when the British Nationality Act 1981 came into force. CUCKs with the right of abode in the U.K. (with one minor exception) became British citizens on 1 January 1983. Those who did not have right of abode generally became British Overseas citizens (unless they were connected to a British territory not yet independent).
It's reasonable to assume that your mother became a British citizen on 1 January 1983, so therefore she had a "right of abode" immediately before that. It's also reasonable to assume that she did not lose her CUKC upon Seychelles independence in 1976.
However, many people who were CUKC by birth or naturalisation in a colony or territory prior to 1983 only became British citizens
by descent on 1 January 1983.
So that's the key question for your mother. Looking at her British passport won't help, so you'll need to be clear about:
- where was her father (your grandfather) born?
- when did he live in the U.K.?
- Did he ever get British nationality? If so, then how/when?
- did your mother live in the U.K.? If so, when?
- where was your grandfather's father (ie your mother's paternal grandfather) born?
These will help assess whether your mother is British "by descent" or otherwise.
If she's British by descent then you're out of luck and you don't even qualify for the Ancestry Visa unless one of your other grandparents is U.K. born.
On the other hand if it turns out that she's British "otherwise than by descent" then you would be a British citizen yourself.
