Eligibility for Citizenship

Overall, what Mark1552 says is really what needs to be done. Just compile the necessary information and make the application for a certificate of citizenship.

jilljac1 wrote:

. . .
However the wait time stays the same on cic. Not sure if anyone knows whether or not it's accurate, or if process times for inheriting citizenship are shorter.

Are you aware if I would then need to take the citizenship test and have a hearing as well? Either way this is fine, but perhaps you know the answer. It looks like I would by-pass that as well.

Foremost: just compile the information and make the application for a certificate of citizenship.

Read what I linked at the CIC site. Either you are a citizen or you are not. If you are, why would you have to take a citizenship test? If you are not, to become a Canadian citizen you must go through the full immigration process. As I said, no point even looking at going through the immigration process until you determine whether or not you are a citizen.

You could consult with a lawyer to get a better opinion, but that would still be merely an opinion, and it would be based on the information you compile and give to the lawyer, and it will probably cost hundreds of dollars. The application for a certificate will cost less than $70 U.S. (You may be able to obtain a free or cheap consultation from some lawyers, but the opinion you get in that case will largely be general information, conditional in form, and you will still have to go through the process of applying for the certificate of citizenship in order to know for sure, let alone be recognized as a Canadian citizen.)

Again, foremost: just compile the information and make the application for a certificate of citizenship.

The only sure answer is to be found by making the application for a certificate of citizenship. Otherwise you are speculating.

The only way to be recognized as a citizen is to make the application for a certificate of citizenship.

Again, it is not complicated (but will require some detailed information about your mother's citizenship in other countries), quite inexpensive (currently less than $70 U.S.), and the timeline is reasonable (timeline posted for these applications, made by persons in Canada or in the U.S., is six months, but that is for how long it took to process 80 percent of such applications, so the actual timeline is more likely to be less than six months).

To a large extent, the answer lies in whether or not your mother is actually a citizen of Canada. As I posted in my first response, if she has had a Canadian passport issued sometime after she became a U.S. citizen, or has had a Canadian certificate of citizenship issued since she became a U.S. citizen, you know you are a citizen of Canada, a citizen by birth.

But if you do indeed know you are a Canadian citizen, again, you must make the application for a certificate of citizenship in order to be recongized as a Canadian citizen.

Otherwise, the answer is uncertain, so, again, the thing to do is compile the information and make the application for a certificate of citizenship.

jilljac1 wrote:

You also mentioned my mother's US citizenship being by birth rather than naturalization. Not sure if you mis-typed, but she was naturalized to the US, I'm sure I can't do anything to alter that. Unless you meant something else?

As I noted in my first response, there is insufficient information to draw definitive conclusions. As I suggested in my last post, what would be expected given the law at the time does not necessarily dictate what actually happened.

As I noted before, given that your mother's parents were both American citizens, she should have been recognized as an American citizen without having to go through the naturalization process. However, that does not mean for certain she did not go through the naturalization process. You are very confident she did go through the naturalization process (rather than go through a process to be recognized as an American citizen). Thus, while it is unexpected, that could indeed be what happened. Among many possibilities, records in those days were not nearly so thorough let alone complete as they are today. But, if your mother did indeed go through the naturalization process, the law then would have required her to renounce her Canadian citizenship . . . but as to this, again, the law was not so uniformly applied then, and it is possible that despite becoming a naturalized citizen in the U.S. she did not formally renounce her Canadian citizenship, or Canada did not recognize that she had renounced her citizenship.

There are other possibilities as well. Both Canadian law and U.S. law have changed relative to the renunciation of other citizenships when becoming naturalized. A lawyer might be able to readily explain how the law works in such situations, and whether changes in Canadian law in this regard mean that Canada does not consider naturalized citizenship in the U.S. as effecting a renunciation of Canadian citizenship. I do not know. But again, really, all that does not matter much, since the thing to do is to compile the information requested in the application form and make the application.

For some background:

The law in the 50s and 60s was that a child born to American parents (both parents being American citizens) was, by birth, an American citizen, regardless of where in the world that child was born. That said, a child born abroad was not automatically recognized as a citizen. I do not know what the procedure was, back then, to be formally recognized as a U.S. citizen. (A child with one American citizen parent was also an American citizen by birth, but I think the process for being recognized as such was more complicated.)

The law in the 60s and 70s was that a person who became a naturalized citizen in the U.S. had to renounce any other citizenship they might have had. (Was similar in Canada until the latter part of the 70s.) That said, the extent to which this was enforced was undoubtedly less than always, but how much less than always I do not know.

Moreover, Canadian law in that time period (50s through the 70s), children born in circumstances similar to what you describe as your mother's were required to make an election by the time they reached a certain age (or within a certain number of years of attaining the age of majority, the age at which they would no longer be a dependent minor), subject to particular conditions, or they would be deemed to not be a Canadian citizen. By the way, those who were in this group who in effect lost their Canadian citizenship, for failing to make the election to be a Canadian citizen, suddenly became Canadian citizens, as a matter of law, in April of 2009, subject to certain conditions (one of which is that they had not renounced Canadian citizenship).

And there are additional nuances and complexities in the applicable laws, which have changed multiple times over the years.

There is NO need, however, to sort through how any of this affects your status. Or your mother's status. Either your mother is a Canadian citizen or not. If she is, you are a Canadian citizen. Not much point in going through the process to determine if your mother is a citizen, since all you have to do is make the application for a Canadian certificate of citizenship for you, and by doing that you will not only find out if you are in fact a Canadian citizen or not, but if you are that will suffice to establish your citizenship.