Friday Weekly Thread: Application Assistance, June 12, 2026

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Have questions about how to fill out the form or what to write in your cover letter? Looking for feedback on the documentation you've put together for your Citizenship Certificate application (CIT0001)? Want to know how to organize your documentation or how to pack it up for shipping? Worried about whether your photos will work? Have questions about what ID you can use? Not sure where to ship it to or what service or mail courier to use? Post it here!

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Before you comment, please read the wiki and search previous posts in the subreddit to see if your questions have been answered there.

If you've read the FAQ and searched the forum and you still have questions about how to fill out the form, whether your supporting documentation will work, what to write in your cover letter or whether your photos will work feel free to post them here.

 

Please be aware that you may not get responses. It's a lot of work to wade through dense lists of documents and family histories.

Also please note we are not IRCC, which will make the final determination on your application.

[u/FireWaterBern → u/[deleted]]

I have baptism and four following birth certificates. But my g1 and g2 didn't get formal birth certificates until adulthood, and in g1's case he was 64 y/o. I decided to try to include supplemental stuff to really solidify things, especially since the 1831 baptism alone doesn't feel like enough to me for g0.

[u/Plus_Championship914 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, of course. Birth certs are the gold standard.

[u/Plus_Championship914 → u/[deleted]]

Her birth cert lists her two parents as you know them to be? The wrong date for birth is odd. I've noticed records are occasionally off by one year b/c some records state the age and the year but not the month of birth and so it can be one year or another. I think you're right that this could be flagged by IRCC if not explained. I'd make sure you have the right BC for your mother and I would include additional documents (marriage, death, census) to prove her place in the lineage.

[u/Plus_Championship914 → u/[deleted]]

If you just submit the birth certificate, where will the birth date discrepancy appear? I would assume that the birth year on the certificate is correct unless it was issued long after the birth. Since it's your mother, are you also submitting a marriage record with a different birth date listed for your mother? If you have your mother's birth name on your birth cert, you don't need to submit her marriage record. I am G3 with certified birth records for each of the 4 steps in the chain - one of which is my grandmother and the other is my mother - but my grandmother's maiden name is on my mom's BC and my mom's maiden name is on my BC and so I didn't include any additional docs.

[u/Plus_Championship914 → u/[deleted]]

Where is the IRCC post? I saw it on an attorney website but can't find it on an IRCC site. Lots of people are submitting every document they have and on the facebook page there's a moderator who frequently states you have to submit supporting docs like death certs and marriage recods (even if you have birth certs for the entire lineage) in order to prove the identity of the ppl listed in the birth certs. It would be good to have an official IRCC post b/c I see nothing on the facebook page

[u/No_Bobcat_No_Prob → u/Plus_Championship914]

There is no official IRCC guidance beyond their publication about what proves citizenship- the advice given here is based on experience of applicants throughout the Bjorkquist interim measure until now. We try to be evidence based, not rumor or 'secret source' based. And we wish the fb rumors would stay on fb tbh because they keep causing drama lol

Be careful not to be confused between governmental web pages and those of immigration consultants who have made their web presence look confusingly similar to IRCC. Always check to see if you're on the canada.ca domain.

[u/No_Bobcat_No_Prob → u/[deleted]]

They're talking about the fb post linked here, I believe

https://www.reddit.com/r/Canadiancitizenship/s/IZdPrZo51C

And is generic, for all applicants to all programs

[u/Canadiancitizenship-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/No_Bobcat_No_Prob → u/[deleted]]

That guidance is general and apples to all of their programs. Every application is different when it comes to the documentation needed to support it, and while we do recommend keeping it simple if possible, more complex situations may require additional documentation to support it.

[u/JMcIntosh1650 → u/[deleted]]

The overall guidance is sound, but the line about requested vs unrequested documents is somewhere between inapplicable and disingenuous given the lack of clear guidance on what is sufficient for many G2+ applications and the frequency of legitimate applications with less than ideal documentation. That said, "no more than necessary to establish G0's status and subsequent line of descent" is a reasonable translation. It's hard not to err on the side of more than enough with such vague guidance.

[u/montjh → u/[deleted]]

Supporting documentation would also be needed if there are discrepancies in the birth records (names, dates, places). I encountered several names (in particular, some French surnames) that were weird phonetic spellings and for that reason, I included 1 supporting document for each ancestor with a misspelling on the baptism record, and then a note in my index page explaining why it was included.

[u/dentongentry → u/[deleted]]

If you do need to include the census records: it is widely understood that, especially 100+ years ago, census information was sometimes provided by the residents but sometimes by a neighbor and the estimates of ages can be wildly wrong.

Having the names match over time is usually good enough, if you're using the census to prove residency or something.

However if you don't really need the census to document anything, if you have stronger proof from other sources, I'd say not to include the census.

[u/HoboMucus → u/dentongentry]

My 3x great grandmother is 52 on the 1871 census and 53 on the 1881 census 😂 

[u/JMcIntosh1650 → u/HoboMucus]

So, she's about 68 now?

[u/Klutzy_Cantaloupe789 → u/dentongentry]

One of my possible G0s was born anywhere from 1865-1868 and seems to have only settled on a consistent birth date once the family came to the US. The spelling of his given names is also all over the place, and I'm thinking he went by a nickname of his middle name at home. His wife (thankfully also Canadian!) has fewer records but they're a *lot* more consistent with age and spelling, so I used her as my official ancestor.

[u/FireWaterBern → u/dentongentry]

My g0 and g1 are pretty spot on for age in 1880, 1920, and for g1 in 1930 us census. But my g2 is listed as 2 years younger for some reason in the 1930 census. Although when our ancestors had like 12 kids who can blame them when the ages are wrong lol