Just something I was playing around with yesterday; I’m not sure why, but it started with one of the boys asking about my parents’ ancestry.
My grandfather was a Greek immigrant, so — fun fact — if I wasn’t already married to a citizen of an EU country, I could apply for Greek citizenship, at least, if this website is correct. The kids couldn’t, though; they’re too far removed.
My grandmother was of Irish descent, but her Irish-immigrant ancestors had come to the US (by way of Canada) a long time back. In any case, I decided to look up the rules of children of immigrants maintaining Irish citizenship; according to the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, in principle it’s possible to maintain your citizenship across multiple generations of immigrants, but only if the family makes a point of preserving this link via the “Foreign Births Register.”
I had had the impression that Germany likewise allowed people of German ethnic descent to immigrate to Germany and claim German citizenship, but, upon doing a bit of investigation, it turns out I was mistaken. Only ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe were ever included in this program. As to German immigrants living elsewhere, it’s the same as elsewhere: you’re a German citizen if at least one parent was, and German citizens who themselves were born abroad can’t pass on citizenship to the next generation.
Anyway, I could probably write up something on ethnicity and citizenship if my lunch break weren’t over, but I had thought that it was more prevalent than seems to be the case, for European countries to consider immigrants elsewhere to still “belong” to the country.
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