As Chairman of the Family History Research Group of the Medicine Hat and District Genealogical Society (MH&GS), we receive through the MH&GS website, numerous requests from around the world from individuals wanting information about a family member or relative who may have had, at some point, a connection to Medicine Hat. We endeavour to respond to these requests in order to promote family history or genealogy.
A recent request from a woman in Michigan in the United States of America seeking a birth certificate or birth record of her paternal grandmother who was born in Medicine Hat (1918) and who has since passed away was very interesting. The stated purpose of obtaining the birth record by the granddaughter was in support of a desire from this American to obtain a record or proof of Canadian citizenship.
As an amateur genealogist and local historian, I decided to investigate.
The result, from my perspective, creates an interesting political and legal anomoly.
1 thought on “Canadian Citizenship by Descent: An Interesting Political and Legal Anomaly”
Hi, Bill! Many thanx–some useful information, indeed! (A number of years ago I had to renew my passport. The first response I had from the department told me they could not find any record of my being born at all. Fortunately, further correspondence cleared up this “misconception of my non-birth”, and I was again able to officially declare not only that I was born, but that my birth took place in the ‘Hat!)
Hi, Bill! Many thanx–some useful information, indeed! (A number of years ago I had to renew my passport. The first response I had from the department told me they could not find any record of my being born at all. Fortunately, further correspondence cleared up this “misconception of my non-birth”, and I was again able to officially declare not only that I was born, but that my birth took place in the ‘Hat!)