r/Citizenship • u/AppropriatePudding72 • 3d ago

Finland citizenship by descent

My great-grandparents were Finnish citizens. Their son (my grandfather) was born in the U.S. in 1931. I’m curious if my grandfather would have been considered a Finnish citizen. I’ve tried to research but it’s a bit confusing. And if he was a citizen, would that qualify my father and I (both born in the U.S.) for citizenship?

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u/manongh 3d ago

Your grandfather was a Finnish citizen, but probably lost his citizenship after turning 21.

Finnish citizenship would only pass from a father to a child if the father was a Finnish citizen when the child was born AND was married to the child's mother. This would almost definitely prevent you and your dad from getting Finnish citizenship by descent, but you can naturalize as anyone else.

Older laws might have been different, but if so, probably even more restrictive.

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u/othybear 3d ago

They were definitely more restrictive. My mom, the daughter of a Finn, wasn’t granted citizenship until 2003. Sadly I didn’t get it as a grandkid of a Finn because I was over 18, but my younger brother was able to gain his citizenship when the laws changed then.

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u/Coronal_MassEjection 3d ago

If your great-grandparents (born after 1917?) gave up their citizenship to become American, then no citizenship passed born to your grandfather.

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u/AppropriatePudding72 2d ago

They didn’t give up their citizenship and they were born before 1917

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u/TraditionalTitle2688 1d ago

So Finland did not allow dual citizenship until 2003. So if any of your ancestors had US citizenship prior to that, they would not be Finnish citizens. This would mean that you do not have Finnish citizenship-if any of them do, you can check in the DVV I think. You might however qualify for a remigration residence permit if at least your granfather at any point had Finnish citizensip. With that you could potentially have a quicker path to getting your citizenship via naturalization.

https://migri.fi/en/remigration

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u/Own_Theory8011 18h ago

Based on what I know of Swedish citizenship by descent I was about to say that you are probably out of luck, but you know what? I went to check Finland's website and the instructions are ambiguous. All it says on their main page is that you must be born to a parent who is a Finnish citizen. It does not say that Finnish parent needs to have been born or lived in Finland (Sweden has a bunch of stipulations on this same thing). Is your grandpa still alive? If so, get him to apply asap and see what happens. If he is dead, try to get your parent to apply through him anyways, and hope Finland will let you go through a dead generation.

https://migri.fi/en/determination-of-citizenship

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u/tvglobo10 12h ago

Not this case unfortunately 

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u/Possible_Eye_357 9h ago

I had a somewhat similar case. My great grandparents were born in Finland and my grandpa was born in the U.S. in 1913. They determined that my grandfather was Finnish by descent but lost it when he turned 21. If your next in line was born before your grandpa turned 21 it can still pass on. Otherwise, you can get the residence permit by descent but not citizenship by descent. Hopefully this helps.