GUWonder

While many Americans of Irish or Italian descent are familiar with the ability to acquire dual US-EU citizenship based on ancestry, far fewer are aware that Luxembourg is another EU country having a program of ancestry-based citizenship.

Luxembourg's program is open until 2018.

A lot of people in parts of the Upper Midwest of the US, for example, who think of themselves to be of German ethnic heritage may not know that they may actually be, in whole or part, of Luxembourg heritage since the US procedure at times was to register arriving immigrants on the basis of language spoken rather on the basis of country of origin. Many such Americans qualify for Luxembourg citizenship, and the cost to do this has sometimes been not even over a $1000.

http://washington.mae.lu/en/Consular...al-citizenship

For the growing number of US citizens who ought to be concerned about the ability of the US government to deprive them of a US passport despite their status as being otherwise free to travel: dual-citizenship and passports from countries of both/all citizenships is a measure to maximize international mobility.

HGHUA

Does ancestry need to be by blood? I have a grandparent who might be (need to check the records) but he married into the family after my parents were born.

GUWonder

I don't know your history well enough to get an answer for you by myself, but I do know that the ancestry need not necessarily be by blood. Even the adopted, for example, may have a legal entitlement to Luxembourg citizenship -- that's more by parentage than just by blood.

Here is some general info about this program:

http://washington.mae.lu/en/content/...EN+%282%29.pdf

For one Midwest US state once famous for its brewers, the estimate I got was that perhaps 0.5% of the state or more of the in-state-born population is perhaps entitled to Luxembourg dual-citizenship if they make an effort to get the documents in order. Given how small Luxembourg's population is, I found even that small percentage to be rather impressive.

It will be interesting to see if the infamous Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, decides to try to pick up a Luxembourg passport in order to more easily travel after he gets out of prison.

televisor

I believe most european citizenships are hereditary. That likely means there are many European citizens in the US unaware of their citizenship (unless their ancestors explicitly renounced citizenship).

Emphasis on the fact that they are (legally seen) citizens, not that they are eligible for citizenship. In most cases there won't be any documentation to prove this, so these people are de-facto non-citizens, but if it were tracked accurately some people could have a whole bunch of european passports.

(E.g. polish citizenship is hereditary: it's passed on to all children of a polish parent, regardless of this citizenship being documented.)

Out of interest, did/does Luxembourg not pass on citizenship by birth and/or do they automatically remove citizenship if it's not claimed/documented? (I know some other countries automatically do if you don't register yourself with a consulate within 20-25 years of birth, if living abroad.)

GUWonder

Many European countries prohibited dual-citizenship, and so citizenship by descent of people born in the Americas of people who were born in or migrated to the US in the 1800s and a good chunk of the 1900s don't have a valid claim to European citizenship by descent. Add in that a bunch of European countries had changing borders and changed citizenship laws over time, along with the reality that an oath of US citizenship or engagement in US military/government employment was at some times considered an act of relinquishment of non-US citizenship. It, with other things, all makes for a rather complicated picture whennspeaking of so many countries. But there are indeed many millions of US citizens who have a valid claim to European citizenship but don't all know it and pursue it.

For example while Polish citizenship is indeed available by descent, the picture is rather more complicated than that everyone who is descended of some Polish citizen at some point in time is necessarily a Polish citizen.

Luxembourg has citizenship by blood and it doesn't appear that a registration of citizenship had to necessarily take place even before death.

cestmoi123

There can be additional complexities as well - for Austria, for example, for people born after 1983, you qualify for citizenship if either parent was an Austrian citizen at the time of the person's birth. For people born BEFORE 1983, however, a person only qualifies if the FATHER was an Austrian citizen at the time of the person's birth.