Irish Citizenship Through Grandparent - Question on FBR

[howonearth]

Hi everyone,

I hope you can help me. Unsurprisingly, I am going to apply for Irish citizenship through my grandparent (the father of my mother) following Brexit. So I will be applying to the Foreign Birth Register first.

I have almost all the documents required for the FBR, however there are two things I'm not sure on:

(Possibly important: My mother never changed her surname in any of her marriages - she always kept it.)

1. The FBR guidelines state that for my mother they will require:
"Original Civil Marriage Certificate (if married)
Original Divorce Decree (final) if Divorced and Current Civil Marriage Certificate (if remarried)"

My mother has been married four times.

The first marriage was in a very distant foreign country, and a marriage and divorce certificate are most likely unobtainable.

I am the child of her second marriage, which was to an Englishman and documents for this marriage are easily obtainable.

- Do I need the marriage and divorce certificates for her first marriage, and also for her 3rd and 4th marriages? Even though a) I'm the son of her second marriage and b) she never changed her surname.

2. The FBR guidelines state that for my grandfather they will require:
"Copy of current EU PAssport certified by the person who witnessed the application or by the Post Office"

- My Irish grandfather is deceased and never had a passport. What do I do in this case?

Any help would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[sweetbeatrice]

1. The FBR guidelines state that for my mother they will require:
"Original Civil Marriage Certificate (if married)
Original Divorce Decree (final) if Divorced and Current Civil Marriage Certificate (if remarried)"

My mother has been married four times.

The first marriage was in a very distant foreign country, and a marriage and divorce certificate are most likely unobtainable.

I am the child of her second marriage, which was to an Englishman and documents for this marriage are easily obtainable.

- Do I need the marriage and divorce certificates for her first marriage, and also for her 3rd and 4th marriages? Even though a) I'm the son of her second marriage and b) she never changed her surname.

I would assume that you only need the marriage license for the second marriage - and that it matches your father's name on your birth certificate. If your mother had changed her name with her first marriage, you would likely need the marriage and divorce paperwork to document that. I would check with the consulate to confirm.

2. The FBR guidelines state that for my grandfather they will require:
"Copy of current EU PAssport certified by the person who witnessed the application or by the Post Office"

- My Irish grandfather is deceased and never had a passport. What do I do in this case?

I submitted the death certificate for my deceased grandfather. No ID - just birth, marriage, and death certificates.

[howonearth]

Hi sweetbeatrice,

Thanks so much for replying.

I managed to get through after trying lots of numbers to a very helpful guy at the Irish citizenship office, and his answers were:

1. They would require the three marriage certificates for marriages 2,3 and 4 and the two divorce certificates for marriages 2 and 3. However, with an explanation letter from myself, both the marriage and divorce certificates could be omitted for marriage number 1. What a relief. He said it helped that my mother had never changed her surname as it would be the same on her birth certificate, my birth certificate, her current passport and her marriage certificates.

2. Exactly as you say.. the passport is not required in this case for my grandfather - only the birth, marriage and death certificates.

Am I right in thinking that you have gone through this process yourself already? Are you based in the UK?

All the best.

[sweetbeatrice]

Yeah, of course. I would think the marriage certificate is vital in the case of name changes. I often wondered because I used my father's father to submit - last names all remained the same. I did submit marriage licenses for my grandfather, father, and myself (even though my last name never changed - it's still the same as my grandfather's surname). How would they know if I am married or not - I my current ID still has the same last name as my birth certificate. I probably could have not submitted my own marriage license. For you, how would they know how many marriages your mother had - as long as her last name is the same on all the documents.

Yes, I did submit for the FBR. It took about 5 months for them to process in Spring 2015. I'm in the United States.