Obtain citizenship through ancestry

pepsitruck wrote:

..... Yet, my consulate wants my non-Hungarian father to appear before them and sign a form attesting I am his son. I assume they also would like his birth certificate. This is because my parents were never married but remain together. This isn't as difficult as others' problems I'm sure, but does this not lack common sense? Does anyone know why this would be relevant?....

This  happened to me when my kids where born. I had to do the same (Mrs Fluffy is Hungarian, I'm British) AND we are married.  I think it's something to do with accepting responsibility for the child even though by the sounds of it, you are an adult and can be responsible for yourself.  I believe this was something that has been required for over 10 years. It's just administrative for children, individuals protection and privacy and things like inheritance within Hungary.  The rule does not take into account how old you are. I suspect they probably never took into account when legislating that adults might  actually want to carry out this process.  Quite absurd. What would they have done if your father was deceased? Probably blown a fuse or asked for his death certificate!

I think they actually would have asked for a death certificate - would be silly but not surprising. Yes, I'm an adult. My mother was born in the US with both parents born in Hungary(left in '56-57) and it actually states their place of birth of Hungary on her long form birth certificate, my great grandparents were also born in Hungary, etc. It sounds like a simple case in theory. I would like to be moved or relocated to Hungary for language courses after university, but it looks like it will not be as a citizen as I was told the passport will likely take a year? Not much else I can do other than be patient.

Bureaucracy works in mysterious ways. It is overkill on this matter.

Frustrating for you but it will work out with time. Guess there is no choice other then having your father go onto the embassy and show them he is your father.
My sister traveled the old" Hippy Trail" in the early 1970's all through the middle east, India, Europe from the UK where she lived with her husband. She was turned away at the boarder by I believe it was Iraq because even though she had already traveled all over the world and had her ID and birth certificate, marriage papers and UK ID she couldn't prove to them that our parents were actually married when she was born. They wanted paperwork from a church to prove she was babtised. She was, the only kid to have that out of the 6 of us, still who carries those papers around with them?
They had to drive in their VW bus all around the country to get to where they wanted to go.
Crazy rules.
Been through a ton of hassles myself at the Budapest immigration offices, got so heated for awhile we almost just left the country for good. Our son got his HU citizenship through the embassy in Calif with my husband just sending in papers and talking on the phone in Hungarian. This was over 20 years ago so thing have changed it seems since then.
Don't stress, it will work out, they seem to like to stretch everything out to justify their fees.
One thing I found really insane at the HU immigration offices was they wanted proff we were married, I had to send to Las Vegas for new paperwork from 1978. I only had a registration of marriage paper with me which was more then enough for all legal issues etc. in the US. One just had to click on line to the gov. offices in Las Vegas to clearly see we are legally married still.
While she was searching her files on me at the marriage offices in Hungary she said oh you must prove your legally married and at the same time said, oh, I see your son was married in Hungary to a Hungarian and he is also a HU citizen. Just totally nuts, mother of a citizen but need to prove it twice. Sometimes it seems one dept. is not in contact with the other, papers get all messed around and it is up to you to make sure they do their jobs.
Paper pushers....

pepsitruck wrote:

I think they actually would have asked for a death certificate - would be silly but not surprising. Yes, I'm an adult. My mother was born in the US with both parents born in Hungary(left in '56-57) and it actually states their place of birth of Hungary on her long form birth certificate, my great grandparents were also born in Hungary, etc. ....Bureaucracy works in mysterious ways. It is overkill on this matter.

I've been trying to remember how this came about. With our first child we didn't have to make this declaration but we did with the second.  With the first child I went with Mrs Fluffy's cousin to the registry office to get the birth certificate and there was all sorts of nonsense about how difficult it was to issue a certificate there and then and it would take X weeks. We wanted it quickly so we could get a passport to allow travel for our new arrival (British passport was the quickest to get - just 2 days - so we went for that immediately).  After some pushing and persuasion, the registrar did it in 5 minutes.  Why did she even bother arguing it takes X weeks?   Mysterious.

Anyway, now I seem to remember with the second child, this procedure was required to get the passport. I believe there were cases where people had applied for children's passports without their partner's knowing.  That's so they could leave the country without the father's knowledge.  So the purpose of the declaration is to stop your mother whisking you away to an evil foreign country without your father's permission.  Laughable really in your case.

I've seen it all before:

1) Hurrying, not having sufficient consultation, mistakes and bad drafting of legislation causes unintended consequences

2) Government efficiency is an oxymoron.

pepsitruck wrote:

Yet, my consulate wants my non-Hungarian father to appear before them and sign a form attesting I am his son. I assume they also would like his birth certificate.

Over the years I have found two ways to deal with Hungarian bureaucrats.

1) Just do what they ask. Jump through the hoops. Then they are happy. And you get your documents rubber stamped. And once you get your rubber stamped documents you are golden (a ton of dynamite, a hurricane, and a voodoo witch doctor's incantations all in mass would find it difficult to blow a rubber stamped decision asunder).

2) Write them a letter asking specifically what law section and passage requires you, as an adult, to have your non-Hungarian father do such a declaration in person. This is actually in Hungarian law: the government is suppose to tell you the specific law passage where it describes why you are required to do something. If you ask them for such information. Sometimes what the bureaucrats think you have to do actually has no legal basis, and you then do not have to do it. They sometimes just think that is what you have to do (i.e. don't confuse them being helpful as them being competent and all knowing about all parts of Hungarian law). Other times, they are in fact correct, and there is indeed some law that does require you to jump through 15 hoops, backwards, while spinning a plate on top of a stick (not necessarily by intent, but because the law is poorly designed with unintended consequences). At least then you can show your father it is not you who is crazily asking him his appearance at the Hungarian Embassy.

Hi everybody,

Please note that some off topic posts have been removed from this thread.

Thanks,

Priscilla

Hello Everyone,

I'm in the process of obtaining documents in Padina (previously Austria-Hungary, now Serbia) to prove my line of descent. My 2nd great-grandparents came to the US in the early 1900s (before 1910). I've been reading this thread for information, and I will likely be applying for simplified naturalization.  The problem is, I don't speak Hungarian.  My family spoke Slovakian, and are ethnic Slovaks.  So, I'm going take classes and learn Hungarian that doesn't involve asking for food.

I stumbled upon this posted in the forum:

"In Hungary, applicants for naturalisation must pass an exam on the constitution, Hungarian history and Hungarian literature (civic knowledge). More positively, applicants over 65 or below 18, applicants with physical or mental disabilities, and applicants who attended a Hungarian language primary or secondary school or university either in Hungary or in another state are exempt from the exam requirement."

Here's the thing, and if this is cheating, I don't care: I have two children, who would also technically qualify for simplified naturalization as they are my natural born children and therefore also descendants of Hungarians.  Could my children (ages 7 and 5) apply for naturalization, and then I somehow become naturalized after my children do? 

I'm only thinking this way because I am terrified of being humiliated while speaking my basic Hungarian in front of what I imagine to be a firing squad of people who want to deny what I feel my family deserves.  My heritage is very important to me, and I want it to be important to my children as well.  Hungarian is quite intimidating.

If anyone has any insight to this, please share. 
Thank you

If you're in the US. get in touch with the nearest Hungarian consulate (not the embassy),they are very helpful. They even travel to different cities if you don't live near one.I just moved back to HU. myself.

Yes, the consulate.  I confused the two.  There's one in Los Angeles that is closet to me.

I am still in the process of completing my application since it's a mountain of work. Does the HU passport really take a year to receive? I'm always told different things by different people at the Consulate so I thought I would ask here.

You hear different things because the different routes to naturalization take different times. Simplified Naturalization is supposed to take about half the time of ordinary naturalization because a new "streamlined" bureaucracy was set up to handle it.

And remember that getting a passport is a separate procedure that starts only after you have your naturalization papers.

pepsitruck wrote:

I'm always told different things by different people

There is a saying here in Hungary: "even if there are only two Hungarians in a room, there will still be three opinions".

I have lost track how many times I have asked about an issue, any issue, and gotten a different answer from different people, including those in government who are suppose to know the answers. That is just daily reality in Hungary, and it seems it is apparently exported to the consulates.

Pepsitruck: a year from start to finish is probably not far off the mark, as my case seems to have been a bit on the fast side given others' reports.

Timeline on my simplified application, which I recounted in the original thread on this subject, was as follows:

Time elapsed between interview with filing of application and notification that the response was positive: four months
Time elapsed between notification and ceremony/passport application: two months
Time elapsed between passport application and passport in hand: three weeks

Total time elapsed: around seven months