My peculiar case was successful and I skipped phase one

Congratulations Flavia!
Isn't great when you thing your case is hopeless and suddenly everything works out just fine?
At some stage I thought my case was going nowhere too!

Seblux, and the consulate in Brazil was charging me 500 euros just to ship the certificats de nationalite to my address. Luckily Fabio gave me the idea to call the Nationalite hotline in the Ministry of Justice and so I did this morning and they said I dont need to pay the consulate in Brazil and can pay only 40 euros (10 for each certificate) straight to them. We learn much from exchanging experience. If it werent for Fabio's blog and this forum, I would pay thinking that I was actually supposed to.

Both GGG and GG Grandpa came to the USA in 1856 from Wahl, Lux. GGG Grandpa died a few months after arrival but GG Grandpa lived until 1905. I'm curious about all of this "skipping phase 1" talk since I am a direct descendent from an all male line.

I've done some research looking into naturalization records and only found an index (just the index, not the application itself) where they applied, but could not find any approved naturalization certificate. GG Grandpa also served in the Civil War, and sometimes serving in a foreign military is grounds to lose citizenship. How did you provide proof that your ancestors didn't loose the citizenship?

I'd venture to guess most people wouldn't go out of their way to find proof of loss of citizenship, so I'd expect Luxembourg would require some sort of positive negative proof?

Either way I should be covered, it would be nice to skip ahead a bit though. I actually have all the records ready to go, but don't want to wait 5-8 months if it's possible. What's the procedure you followed to skip phase 1?


(Re-posted on this thread because it was originally posted on a less related thread under a guest account.)

ReLux, I was going to suggest you to write Mr. Xavier Drebensted, he may clear this out for you. First I had understood that to recover your citizenship, your ancestor had to have the Luxembourgish citizenship on 1.1.1900.. so if he naturalized before that, you wouldnt be eligible. But as you called the infoline, you are right and you'd better send your documents to Lux. The good thing is that you will have to go to Luxembourg.. but this is not bad at all. Good luck.

Keeping with the age old tradition of answering my own questions (kinda), I confirmed what I thought was the case thanks to Trevor's blog:

Yesterday I dug into the naturalization process a bit more to see if I could find the naturalization certificate for my GG Grandfather.   I found a website which has indexed the same records I found on microfilm over the summer and it appears they might have the application itself, it's $10 to get a copy so I paid it and emailed them some additional questions.  The librarian responded that she could provide me with the records of GGG Grandfather and 2 of his sons since they were on the same page.   It sounds exactly like the index I discovered, but I'm waiting for them to email me the scan to see what they really have.  Another curious detail is they have a 4th record for my GG Grandfather's brother which is apparently the actual final naturalization itself, but no other records for my GG Grandfather or his father who both made intentions.

The librarian said to check the 1900 census since it contains some important naturalization information (alien, intention and naturalized), I checked this record and it shows 1856 was the year of immigration and that he was naturalized but it doesn't indicate the year.  My Great Grandfather was born in 1873, so it could be possible that his father naturalized after his birth.  I checked the 1857 Territorial Census and it indicates that all the males in the family were naturalized (4 in total, the younger brother is missing from the index), however this could only mean that they had made an intention to naturalize since the 1802 Naturalization Act says that you must be a resident for 5 years and it had only been 1 since they arrived.  The 1870 Census shows a column titled "Male Citizens of the U.S. of 21 years of age and upwards" which is again checked for my GG Grandfather.  What this tells me is that the Census is not a reliable source of naturalization information because the Census taker just writes down whatever they are told.  A possibility could be that whilst my GG Grandfather thought he was naturalized due to his original intention, he may have never completed the process by filing the final petition.

To summarize, the 1857 census shows he was naturalized but this was impossible due to the 5 year residency requirement.  The 1870 census shows he was a citizen but cannot be relied upon because of the error made in 1857.  The 1900 census has a bit more detail, showing that the naturalization process had been completed and not just an intention but does not indicate the year and also cannot be fully relied upon.  There don't appear to be any final naturalization petitions available for my GG Grandfather on-file but it's possible they could have been lost, destroyed or incorrectly indexed.  If this is the case, I suppose it should be possible to obtain a negative certificate but I'm not sure who had the authority to provide such a certificate.  I suppose I can present this situation to Xavier and explain that only the 1900 census shows a status of being fully naturalized, and this had occurred after the birth of my Great Grandfather.

Hi Hollerich! By reading ReLux's post I believe it is clearer for me now that the Luxembourgish who emigrated to America probably had to be naturalized and that's why you didnt skip phase one. Here in Brazil, the immigrants landed on a jungle and were not asked to naturalize. We hardly had registry offices at that time. I had to find the documents before 1920 in churches. I guess it solves the mistery.