The success of the law firm: confirmation of citizenship of ancestors who emigrated from Poland before 1920.
Recently, our law firm successfully handled a case regarding confirmation of Polish citizenship by our client, whose grandfather emigrated from Poland to Brazil in 1911, i.e. before the provisions introducing Polish citizenship of 1920 came into force. The case in question was unusual in that it required proving that the client's grandfather acquired Polish citizenship in 1920 pursuant to Art. 2 point 1 letter b of the Act of January 20, 1920 on the citizenship of the Polish State, that is: due to having the right of homeland in one of the communes in the territory of the Polish State, which was previously part of the Austrian or Hungarian State. This fact was demonstrated by presenting a document containing the address of the Client's grandfather and great-grandparents in the Polish territory previously belonging to the Austrian State. For the purposes of proving the acquisition of Polish citizenship by the Client's grandfather, it was also necessary to document that the grandfather did not have the citizenship of another country at the time the Citizenship Act of 1920 entered into force.
It is worth emphasizing here that although cases involving confirmation of Polish citizenship by descendants of emigrants from before 1920 are not as frequent as those concerning emigration after 1920, they can undoubtedly end in success. The key is to find documents on the basis of which it can be proven that a Polish ancestor who emigrated from Polish lands before 1920 was born in the territory of the Polish State (in accordance with Article 2 point 2 of the Act of 1920), or that - in depending on the area of partition it came from:
- - had the right to be entered in the books of the permanent population of the former Kingdom of Poland,
- - had the right of homeland in one of the communes in the territory of the Polish State, which was previously part of the Austrian or Hungarian State (as in the case in question),
- - was enrolled in an urban or rural commune, or in one of the state organizations in the lands of the former Russian Empire, which later became part of the Polish State.
It is also necessary to prove that the Polish ancestor did not have foreign citizenship on January 31, 1920 (the moment of entry into force of the provisions introducing Polish citizenship).
