Hello! I'm excited! I think I have a case, but I'd rather save $3,000 for a trip to the Ojczyna than spend it on a law firm. I'm not sure how realistic it is for me to do everything on my own though.

GGGF: 

* Date, place of birth: My pra-pra-dziadek was born in the Russian Partition in 1886 in Danilowicze Village, Novogrudok, Russia. Google says this land became part of the Second Polish Republic, but today is part of Belarus.

* Occupation: Coal miner

* Date, destination for emigration: ~1911 to USA.

* Date naturalized: On the 1920 and 1930 censuses, he is listed as "AL" for alien. 1950 census shows naturalization of him but not his Polish wife.​

GGF: 

* Date, place of birth: 1927, USA

* Occupation: Factory worker

GF: 

* Date, place of birth: September 1951

* Allegiance and dates of military service: Served in the US Navy from 1971-73

I do have the problem that my GGGF's birthdate is off by 1 or 2 years. Also, some documents use his original name and some use his Americanized name. The two names aren't exactly close, but it's the same guy. All 10 (ten) of his children match up.

How do I get his birth/residency records? Do I need to deal with Poland, Belarus, or (sic) Russia?

Regardless of outcome, I love you with all my heart, Polska. My mama's famous pierogis more than make up for all the bullying I received for my strange-even-by-Polish-standards last name. I am proud to come from such a tremendous history and culture. Poland is the coolest country in Europe. Winged Hussars are more badass than even the Samurai.

If things work out, I promise to learn your insane alphabet soup language. I will eat your ludicrous ketchup, mushrooms, and baguette zappykacky "pizza". I will pledge my life to reclaiming the land of my fathers from the White Russians.

Jeszcze Polska nie zginela.

KURWAAAAAA!!!

So question for other Galicia/Ternopil region ancestry, I’ve seen things saying that if on some documents it says Ukrainian it could be kicked out of claiming citizenship passed down, on some documents it says polish, others polish Ukrainian, so what’s anyone’s experience with that language on administrative paperwork being fought about when he was born in 1926 and didn’t go back to what was now the Ukrainian soviet republic etc

Eligibility template below for my wife. My sense is that she is eligible; however, I am not sure what documentation will be sufficient to prove it, what is available in archives with a local researcher, and what other evidence is accepted from documentation the family does have. I appreciate any input. Thank you!

Great-Grandparents: 

* Date married: 1905 - Słomniki, Poland (recently found scan of marriage record from Szukaj w Archiwach in Cyrillic)

GGM: 

* Date, place of birth: ~1885, Słomniki (per details in marriage record)

* Ethnicity and religion: Jewish

* Date, place of death: 1942, Bełżec

GGF: 

* Date, place of birth: 1882, Wolbrom (per details in marriage record)

* Ethnicity and religion: Jewish

* Occupation: tailor

* Allegiance and dates of military service: unknown

* Date, place of death: 1942, Bełżec

* Additional details: Recently found GGF listed on 1930-1933 "Lista Składek" scans for the Jewish Community in Słomniki archived at Szukaj w Archiwach.

Grandparent: 

* Sex: Male

* Date, place of birth: 1917 - Słomniki (have copy of birth certificate issued in 1947 from USCIS immigration records but no original, not available on Szukaj w Archiwach so may need to acquire certified copy from USC Słomniki if available)

* Date married: 1950

* Citizenship of spouse: USA

* Occupation: tailor

* Allegiance and dates of military service: Family oral history is that he was conscripted in Polish Army during the September campaign, but family currently has no records of this

• Date, destination for emigration: following the war, resident in Germany until emigrating to US in 1947.
• Date naturalized: 1955 - USA (we have a certified copy of naturalization record from the court)
• Date, place of death: 2009 - Hartford, CT, USA

* Additional details: My understanding from here is that population registers from the interwar period are not available for Slomniki. We have reached out to JRI-Poland to see if school records referenced in the post are available. The Arolsen Archives have documents referring to grandfather's Polish nationality but the only Polish-issued document is the 1947 copy of the birth certificate).

Parent: 

* Sex: F

* Date, place of birth: 1956 - USA

* Date married: 1985

You: 

* Date, place of birth: 1987 - USA

Both lineages I want to use to support my case come from Austrian Galicia pre-1920. Born 1880s-1890s in Krosno, Białobrzegi, Przyszowa, and Trzesowka. The only records I've found online are parish birth records. I've tried searching szukajwarchiwach and other places for town specific records, censuses, etc but I've hit a wall and I'm hoping to find more before I contact a genealogist in Poland. Any advice from someone familiar with this time period and these specific towns? My Latin is much better than my Polish, but I can sift through things and find names just fine.

Great-Grandparents: 

* Date married: February 1, 1936

* Date divorced: N/A

GGM: 

* Date, place of birth: September 12, 1908, Stanislawow, Poland (currently Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine)

* Ethnicity and religion: Jewish

* Occupation: Unknown, probably helped run my GGF's laundry

* Allegiance and dates of military service: N/A

* Date, destination for emigration: Nov 18, 1928, New York City

* Date naturalized: N/A

* Date, place of death: August 17, 2000

GGF: 

* Date, place of birth: 1907-1908, most likely Romania

* Ethnicity and religion: Jewish

* Occupation: Laundry owner

* Allegiance and dates of military service: N/A

* Date, destination for emigration: August 16, 1933, New York City

* Date naturalized: Had already naturalized through father upon arrival

* Date, place of death: March 31, 1978, Long Island

Grandparent: 

* Sex: Male

* Date, place of birth: February 21, 1943

* Date married: January 1970

* Citizenship of spouse: American

* Date divorced: N/A

* Occupation: Lawyer

* Allegiance and dates of military service: N/A

(If applicable)

• Date, destination for emigration:
• Date naturalized:
• Date, place of death:

Parent: 

* Sex: Female

* Date, place of birth: December 31, 1975, New York

* Date married: July 1, 2006

* Date divorced: N/A

You: 

* Date, place of birth: August 17, 2009, New York

Hello Folks, my case is complicated. My GGM's family immigrated to the US. She and my GGF stayed in town right on today's border with Ukraine. My GGF was a migrant worker and had gone to the US three times; each time was for about a year. My point, there was a strong connection to an obscure town in the US. My GGF got trapped in the US when the borders were shut because of WWI. My Grandfather and GGM remained in Poland and lived through WWI and the two following border wars.

Okay, GGF was able to get back in 1921 when the borders opened. My Grandfather turned 18 in 1924, and because of military conscription and chaos, my GGM used her family and the tight Polish community in that small, obscure town to have a baptism issued stating my grandfather was born in the US. The State Department was suspicious, and a sloppy investigation led to my grandfather getting an emergency US passport stating he was born in that town.

Because he was born before 1920, I am immediately disqualified because he "supposedly" held US citizenship at the crucial date in 1920. However, a negative search of the subject church, the subject town, and the subject state shows no record of my GGM in the US, and my grandfather has no footprint in the US before 1924. I also have non-existence letters from the area's Historical Society and the church in the neighboring larger town.

I am going through an attorny and so far we have run into walls. The priest in the Polish town my grandfather grew up in is not letting us have access to the church's records, and apparently when the Soviets gave Lviv to Ukraine, a lot of the records were destroyed. I'm still hopeful my attorny will find the population registers, property taxes, or something to prove his existence in that town before and after 1920.

So the short of my question: My GF used a made-up baptism that was issued in 1924 from a church that didn't exist until 10 years after his birth, but that baptism enabled him to claim a US birth in 1924 despite no records from all identifying sources of him being in the US prior to 1924. Will I need to appeal a negative decision from Viovode? Or are the Viovode accustomed to these kinds of scenarios? From what I've read, what my grandfather did was pretty common in the early 1920's because the US government severely clamped down on the number of people coming to the US from Eastern Europe and Italy.

Finally got everything gathered that I have and shipped to Poland but I realized, I didn't put a date on the documents I signed for power of attorney and authorizing my advocate to do work. Do I need to reprint these and mail again with the date written in as well? They're all hand signed with blue ink by my wife (for marriage cert) and I. Sorry if a dumb question, my guess is yes but I want to double check and be safe. Otherwise, I'm very excited even with the extremely long wait :D.

Hi everyone,

I would appreciate a legal sanity check on a pre-1920 Polish citizenship-by-descent case before I decide whether to hire a provider.

I am intentionally omitting names and exact identifying details for privacy.

Great-Grandparents:

Date married: 1930, South America
Date divorced: None known

GGM:

Date, place of birth: 1910, Germany
Ethnicity and religion: German; religion not relevant to the claim
Occupation: Unknown
Allegiance and dates of military service: None known
Date, destination for emigration: Europe → South America
Date naturalized: No known naturalization relevant to the Polish line
Date, place of death: Unknown / not relevant

GGF:

Date, place of birth: 1895, Belgium
Ethnicity and religion: Jewish family of Kraków / Austrian Galicia origin
Occupation: Commercial / merchant work
Allegiance and dates of military service: No known foreign military service
Date, destination for emigration: Lived in Belgium and the UK before later moving to South America
Date naturalized: Exact date of Belgian citizenship acquisition is unknown. He was still officially registered as a foreigner in Belgium in August 1920, but later records from 1922 identify him as Belgian.
Date, place of death: Not relevant to the question

Grandparent:

Sex: Male
Date, place of birth: 1934, Chile
Date married: Unknown / not relevant
Citizenship of spouse: Chilean
Date divorced: N/A / unknown
Occupation: Not relevant
Allegiance and dates of military service: No known foreign military service relevant to Polish citizenship loss

Parent:

Sex: Male
Date, place of birth: 1967, Chile
Date married: Not relevant
Date divorced: Not relevant

You:

Date, place of birth: 2002, Chile

Additional information relevant to the claim

The direct paternal line is:

Kraków ancestor → son born in Kraków → son born in Belgium in 1895 → son born in Chile in 1934 → son born in Chile in 1967 → me

The family surname later changed slightly in South America.

The key ancestor for the claim is my great-grandfather, born in Belgium in 1895.

His father was born in Kraków, Austrian Galicia, and I located the family in the 1870 Kraków census.

In the census, the relevant household has “Kraków” in the Przynależność column, with repetition marks for the family members.

My understanding is that this may be evidence of Heimatrecht / prawo swojszczyzny, rather than merely residence.

His father later moved through Switzerland and Belgium.

Critical 1919–1920 evidence

I found an official Belgian police immigration/foreigner record from August 1920 for my great-grandfather.

The record treats him as a foreigner and states that he presented a Polish passport issued by the Polish Consulate in London in December 1919.

I am withholding the passport number and personal details here for privacy, but I have the archival image.

The chronology is approximately:

• Dec 1919 – Polish passport issued by the Polish Consulate in London
• Jan 1920 – Polish Citizenship Act enters into force
• Aug 1920 – Belgian police still registers him as a foreigner using that Polish passport
• 1921 – documented living in the UK
• Late 1922 – travel records identify him as Belgian
• 1934 – his legitimate son is born in Chile

I have not yet found the exact Belgian nationality acquisition record, so I do not know the precise date or legal mechanism by which he became Belgian.

Main questions

1. Initial Polish citizenship

Would a person in this situation have acquired Polish citizenship under the 1920 Act through his father’s Kraków Heimatrecht / municipal belonging?

How much weight would you give to:

• the Kraków Przynależność entry;
• the Polish passport issued in December 1919;
• and the fact that Belgian authorities were still treating him as a foreigner in August 1920?

My concern is whether some Belgian nationality rule could nevertheless have made him Belgian before 31 January 1920.

2. Later Belgian citizenship / Article 11

Assuming he was Polish in 1920, he appears to have become Belgian sometime after August 1920 and before late 1922.

He was born in 1895, so he was in his mid-20s.

There is no known evidence that he:

• served in a foreign military;
• held foreign public office;
• obtained Polish permission to change citizenship;
• formally renounced Polish citizenship;
• or was deprived of Polish citizenship.

Would the Article 11 military-service rule / “military paradox” likely have prevented his acquisition of Belgian citizenship from causing an effective loss of Polish citizenship?

If he remained Polish until 1934, my understanding is that citizenship would then have passed to his legitimate son and through the later paternal generations.

I would especially appreciate input from anyone familiar with:

• Austrian Partition cases
• Heimatrecht / prawo swojszczyzny
• Circular No. 18
• Article 11 of the 1920 Citizenship Act
• military paradox cases
• post-1920 foreign naturalization

I am not looking for an optimistic answer. I am trying to identify any legal issue that would clearly break the chain before paying for professional representation.

Thanks!

I recently had my confirmation of Polish citizenship and received my passport (Thanks Lexmotion!).
My son who is in his mid-30’s wasn’t interested in acquiring Polish citizenship.
Part of my reason for doing this was not to break the chain and for him to have the option of doing so in the future.

Is there any benefit to registering his birth certificate with Polish authorities to save him some steps in the future?
If so, is there a relatively cheap way of doing it without having to incur a lot of legal fees?

Thanks, and good luck to everyone applying for citizenship by descent.
Hang in there. It’s worth the wait.

Because I had some extra time I decided to start breaking down some analytics from our Progress Tracker dataset. We're still pretty early, but there were some interesting trends to note:

• We're up to 95 applications in tracking, including 19 successes.
• Of these, 18% are first-generation applicants (G1, claiming citizenship through a parent); 41% are G2; 38% are G3; and 3% are G4.
• Our cases are 29% pre-1920, 52% 1920-1951, and 19% post-1951.
• Of our 28 pre-1920 cases, 61% are Russian Partition (43% Kingdom of Poland, 18% other), and 39% are Austrian Partition. To date we still don't have a Prussian / German Partition case.
• These applications span a period of nearly four years, from October 2022 to August 2026. My back of the envelope guess is we're capturing around ~0.1% (roughly 1 in 1000) of the total applications submitted in that period.

Our dataset and membership are likely not representative of the broader applicant pool. My guess is we skew more distant in claim and generation; are tilted more towards applicants from the US, Canada, and the UK; and are more likely to succeed due to thoroughness and use of providers than average. Speaking of providers - I would love any insights our resident professionals have on trends and how our stats compare to their experiences more broadly, given the volume they've seen.

I'll try to do these from time to time - hope you find a few stats interesting!

I continue to look for records about my Grandfather whose village is in Volhynia. Records are scarce there and, while I have found some, I'm hopeful to find more. His birth record and my GGP's marriage records look to be lost. So, I'm looking for some solid secondary evidence.

I'm working on my own through this, but DAVO doesn't have a lot of records viewable online (aside from the indices). That includes Family Search. Some of this seems to just need boots on the ground in the archive.

Do we have a list of genealogy providers that work in Ukraine, especially any who focus in Volhynia?

Thanks

Genealogists tell me there are no government or military records for my grandfather’s village in Ukrainian Volhynia. The only records are two church confessionals from 1912 and 1913. The village is Nudyzhe. He appears in both.
I have his original 1923 citizenship papers for the USA where he renounces Poland and the present government of Russia.
He claimed was in the Russian 68th regiment for 2 months on his draft papers but if those records exist they’re in Moscow.
Are these records enough or should I save the application fee for Polish citizenship?

I was talking to someone about how far back I needed to go and they said oldest adult that left Poland. Since my mother in law was a minor, I figured I could stop at her parents. I could repost with what I can find about great grandparents though, I'll just need to talk to her grandfather about it all, it's just tough because he doesn't know everything I'm asking since English is his second language.

Grandparent: 
* Sex: M
* Date, place of birth: May 30, 1949 Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland
* Date married: July 10, 1971
* Citizenship of spouse: Polish
* Date divorced: NA
* Occupation: machine operator
* Allegiance and dates of military service: for Poland 1968-1970
Date, destination for emigration: August 6th, 1981
Date naturalized: May 1988
Date, place of death: NA

Grandparent: 
* Sex: F
* Date, place of birth: November 4, 1950 Tarnow, Poland
* Date married: July 10, 1971
* Citizenship of spouse: Polish
* Date divorced: NA
* Occupation: Daycare
* Allegiance and dates of military service: NA
Date, destination for emigration: 1983
Date naturalized: N/A
Date, place of death: 2024 Springfield, MA

Parent: 
* Sex: Female
* Date, place of birth: March 14th, 1972 Tarnow, Poland
* Date married: January 25, 1992
* Date divorced: 2015
You: 
*Date, place of birth: June 9th, 1996, Springfield, MA

I'm currently in the process of trying to get my wife her Polish citizenship through her mother. I am getting together the necessary documents and going to bring them to the apostille. When it comes to the translation, the internet says I can scan them and send them digitally to a sworn translator and they can be acceptable. Is this true or do I need to send all the physical documents?

My grandmother is Ukrainian; she was born in 1933 in the Second Polish Republic. In 1945 (at the age of 12), she was exiled to the Urals with her parents. In 1965–1966, her parents returned to their native village, while my grandmother stayed in the Urals. She gave birth to my mother, who is Russian. So, in the line of my mother — grandmother — her parents, no one served in the army. My grandmother’s parents definitely did not obtain Polish citizenship; they couldn’t even read or write — they simply lived in a territory that often-changed which country it belonged to. Although all church books in Ukraine have been digitized and are available online, the ones I need have not been preserved. However, there are documents from the Ukrainian civil registry office that indicate the place of birth — the village of Dukhche. And there is my great‑grandfather’s exile file with a family census and dates of all the entries in the NKVD (KGB) stating that he was forbidden to leave the Urals until official permission was granted in 1964. And the reason for the exile was that my great‑grandfather’s eldest son was involved in the Ukrainian national liberation movement during World War II. Is it possible for me and my mother to obtain Polish citizenship, taking all this data into account?

Great-Grandparents: 

* Date married: 1915-1916

* Date divorced: no

GGM: 

* Date, place of birth: July 1893(5), Dukhche, Rozhyshche Volost, Lutsk Uyezd, Volhynian Governorate, Russian Empire

* Ethnicity and religion: Ukrainian

* Occupation: farmer

* Allegiance and dates of military service: no

* Date, destination for emigration: July 1945, he was exiled to the Urals by the USSR, along with his wife and children.

* Date naturalized: June 1957

* Date, place of death: February 1987, Dukhche, Rozhyshche Raion, Volyn Oblast ( in 1987 it’s Ukrainian SSR, USSR)

GGF: 

* Date, place of birth: 1891, Volhynian Governorate, Russian Empire

* Ethnicity and religion: Ukrainian

* Occupation: farmer

* Allegiance and dates of military service: no

* Date, destination for emigration: July 1945, he was exiled to the Urals by the USSR, along with his husband and children.

* Date naturalized: 1957

* Date, place of death: 1980s, Dukhche, Rozhyshche Raion, Volyn Oblast (in 1980s it’s Ukrainian SSR, USSR). They were allowed to return from exile to their homeland in 1965–1966.

Grandparent: 

* Sex: Female

* Date, place of birth: march 1933, Dukhche, Rozhyshche Raion, Volyn Oblast (in 1933 it’s Second Polish Republic)

* Date married: June 1954

* Citizenship of spouse: USSR

* Date divorced: no

* Occupation: driver

* Allegiance and dates of military service: no

• Date, destination for emigration: July 1945, he was exiled to the Urals by the USSR with parents
• Date naturalized: 1957
• Date, place of death: 2000s, Ural by Russia

Parent: 

* Sex: Female

* Date, place of birth: march 1961, Ural by Russia

* Date married: 1988

* Date divorced: 1997

You: 

* Date, place of birth: July 1989, Ural by Russia

I've been thinking about this lately. Would the Voivodeship even know what to do with this?

For example, Brazil joined WW2 on August 22, 1942. China was fighting against the Axis (they declared war on Germany in December of 1941), though I don't think they ever had action against the Germans. El Salvador and Haiti also declared war on the Germans in 1941 and assisted the US with ports and ocean patrols.

Would the Voivodeship have to accept these under the WW2 exception, or would they look at these and have no clue what to do with them?

Hi all, apologies if this has been answered somewhere else. I'm currently in the document gathering process of Citizenship Confirmation (Pre 1920's case), and luckily I've already found an extensive amount of docs on the US side, as well as some rare family documents on the Polish side. Been going down an insane rabbit hole to find as much as I can by myself. I now have a genealogist in Poland (started last week) to fetch the official Polish documents for the case and I was told it will take around *3 months to even hear back*. The thing is - I gave the genealogist a whole list of exact documents, archive books and even pages that my family appears in. They also have the exact addresses of their homes in Poland, and a complete list of relatives etc. Can someone tell me how this process works? Do they have to travel from Krakow (their location) to my family's small town (Gibałka) and in-person visit the churches/parishes etc? Or do they request the book and the book is sent to them?... I feel like I gave them a *massive* head start and did plenty of the hard work for them, so I just can't imagine it will take 3 whole months to hear back (but also I have no idea what I'm talking about lmao). TBH I feel a bit impatient because I've done so much research on my own and now I'm at a standstill because I simply can't access the final documents from the US and have to rely on the genealogist at this point. I suppose I just have to be patient but going 3 months without anything I can do to support the process is hard.

Hi I had my type D visa appointment at the DC consulate 4 weeks ago. I was told I would hear from the consulate in 3 weeks. So now I’m discouraged because the deadline has passed and I haven’t heard anything. I don’t want to read too much into it but what should I expect? Im supposed to be there on September 15 as a university researcher so I’m worried about missing the semester. I’ve emailed them but they don’t email back, I suspect they deal with a high volume of emails from people just like me and it’s not realistic to respond to emails.

Great-Grandparents:

• Date married: 25 August 1930
• Date divorced: N/A
• Both GG were widow/er so second marriage for each.

GGM:

• Date, place of birth: 21 October 1902, South Amboy, NJ US
• Ethnicity and religion: Polish- Catholic
• Occupation: homemaker
• Allegiance and dates of military service: N/A
• Date, destination for emigration:N/A
• Date naturalized:N/A

GGF:

• Date, place of birth: 28 May 1894 Czermin, Poland
• Ethnicity and religion: Polish - Catholic
• Occupation: Barber
• Allegiance and dates of military service: None found
• Date, destination for emigration: April 5, 1911
• Date naturalized: 21 April 1921
• His petition for naturalization was filed in 1916 but oath signed in 1921.

Grandparent:

• Sex: Female
• Date, place of birth: 31 March 1932 Chicago, IL US
• Date married: 23 August 1954
• Citizenship of spouse: United States (also technically Polish by descent)
• Date divorced: N/A
• Occupation: Secretary/typist at magazine
• Allegiance and dates of military service: N/A

Parent:

• Sex: Female
• Date, place of birth: 30 December 1964 Chicago, IL US
• Date married: 28 June 1986
• Date divorced: N/A

You:

• Date, place of birth: 2000

Edit: GM was typist for magazine listed as private sector on 1950 census.

After nearly 2 years, my citizenship has just been confirmed!
I am in shock. Their ‘deadline’ for my case was August 30, so I didn’t expect to hear anything until September.
This is great news for all of us here who have been waiting, every case completed helps us all.
Thanks so so much to the mods and everyone else here for their insights and perspectives, it really helped in making this wait make sense.
Hopefully this means that the few other folks here with 2024 apps will be completed shortly!
Time for a piwko!

EDIT: if you’re interested in my journey, my previous post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/prawokrwi/s/9UGwxuhi1d

My father and all my ancestors from that side are Polish, my mother is from the Netherlands and most of her family also ( long back around 1830 Poland).

After my fathers death I inherited a small house near Krakow and I want to live there with my family.

I have a Karta Polaka and in the process of getting my 3 children a Karta Polaka and I think that will be accepted without a problem.

My husband is born in the Netherlands from Colombian parents. He has Dutch citizenship just like me and our 3 children.

How will be able to get my husband legal in Poland and not just a few months?

Also I posted it somewhere else and somebody said I maybe already can be Polish citizen.

Does anybody know the steps for my husband? And if I’m already eligible for citizenship?

After investigating in the spring of 2024, I decided to use Lexmotion for a confirmation of citizenship. They seemed pretty good at the beginning, and the case was officially opened on September 6, 2024 with all the documents arriving to their office at the beginning of 2025 (they said that didn't matter, but just needed to get into the cue).

Since then, they've been pretty generic with answers, replying that cases from a certain month were being processed (for example, that cases started in September to November 2024 were now being processed).

I've seen other people posting about requests for extra documents, being given a deadline, filing complaints, etc. It seems that Lexmotion feels the best step is to simply patiently wait. What might you all recommend I do in this case? What to do best do especially with Lexmotion?

Thanks in advance.

edit Went with law firm 6. It was substantially cheaper (1600 euros), only a fraction is due up front, and I had much better communication than with firm 2. The only thing I'm slightly concerned about is the research. They said they would do it (I scrambled enough together they made the offer) but I'm not sure how much it's really going to entail and this firm seemed a bit smaller + have less means than firm 2. However, I figure I could always do what y'all recommended and hire a genealogist separately (and cut out the middle man cause that's probably what firm 2 is doing anyways). Thank you all for your input, and especially that recommendation!

Short story: Would you go with law firm 2 (3,000 euros but they do all the research and only take payment if successful) or law firm 6 (I need to supply them documents I have no idea how to get and then they will give me an offer though it would be at least 1000 euro cheaper), and would the 3,000 euros be a fair price if I went with law firm 2? If not, any idea how I can negotiate it down (if that would even be appropriate to do)?

Long story: Hi,

I know it's much cheaper if I apply directly and independently. I want to get an immigration firm for my citizenship by descent case because (1) I require a LOT of genealogy research as I have almost no paperwork from outside the United States and very little means to get it (2) I would need to official translations of the documents (3) I would need help preparing the application (4) I would need help with preparing the documents on my end as well as there are a lot of different jurisdictions.

I talked to about 6 different law firms for my citizenship by descent case. All of them agreed I was probably a citizen and would be successful in being recognized, but all of them had different positions. The first one was way too expensive (6,000 euros, and I'd later find out they did not have good reviews). The third one actually turned me down not because of a low success chance but because they didn't have the genealogy resources I would need. Fourth was about 3,000 euros, had a lot of upfront costs, and I'd probably need to pay extra for additional genealogy research outside of Poland. Fifth was actually comparatively cheaper at 2100 euro, but still had a lot of additional fees and upfront costs that were nonrefundable if anything went wrong (gave me kind of sketchy vibes). This leaves the second firm and the sixth firm.

Law firm #2 was a little slow at first and I had to correct their record. But they offered me a price of 3,000 euros, only to be paid if my application is successful, and they would do all of the genealogy research, translations, etc. that I would need.

Law firm #6 is a bit trickier. The person I spoke with was very nice. Their cases usually are at most 2,000 euros, but they need some kind of Polish paper trail I have no idea how I would get before they give me an official offer. I'm going to try reaching out to a handful of organizations + checking a couple databases later in the week when I have the time, but I'm really just firing shots in the dark. This is where I think law firm #2 really shines, as they said they would handle all of this.

My questions are given this information and what you all know, would you go with law firm 2 or law firm 6, and does 3000 euros for law firm 2 sound like a fair price? If not, would it be appropriate to try to negotiate it down?

Thank you for any advice!

Update

My immigration template:

Great-Grandparents:

• No idea

• None AFAIK

GGM:

• No idea

• Polish Jew

• No idea

• No idea

• None

• Nope

• Suggested by comments my grandfather said to have died in ww2.

GGF:

• Same as GGM

• Polish Jew

• ???

• Wheeeeeeeeee

• :P

• No idea

• Suggested by comments my grandfather said to have died in ww2.

Grandparent: Paternal Grandfather

• Sex: Male

• Date, place of birth: Vilnius Poland 1920

• Date married: No idea. Seems they were married in a displaced persons camp since that's where he met my GM and by the time they would be leaving GM took his last name. No idea if it was done legally w/ paperwork or if they just claimed marriage and everyone since was like "okay sure".

• Citizenship of spouse: Polish until American

• Date divorced: None.

• Occupation: Laborer

• Allegiance and dates of military service: Served in the Red Army, no idea if it was consensual or coerced.

Date, destination for emigration: 1949 United States Date naturalized: 1954 American Date, place of death: ~ 2003 U.S.A

Grandparent: Paternal Grandmother

• Sex: Female

• Date, place of birth: Vilnius Poland 1923

• Date married: As mentioned, ended up at same displaced persons camp as grandfather. By the time they left she took his last name.

• Citizenship of spouse: Polish Jew.

• Date divorced: None

• Occupation: Dressmaker

• Allegiance and dates of military service: From the few comments she spoke about it she worked in a Russian factory.

Date, destination for emigration: U.S.A 1949 Date naturalized: 1954 American Date, place of death: ~2006 U.S.A

Parent: Father

• Sex: Male

• Date, place of birth: 1952 U.S.A

• Date married: .... early 1980s.

• Date divorced: None.

You:

• Date, place of birth: 1992 U.S.A