Genealogy for your passport: the documents you need and where to find them

A passport is a right, not a permission. If you get one through your ancestry, you buy nothing and you do not spend years living abroad: you have the state confirm what has often been yours since birth. Which countries open this route is set out in the overview of citizenship by descent. The work that comes first is genealogy with a clear goal: records that an authority will accept.

For Germans, the starting position has never been better. Since 27 June 2024, acquiring a foreign nationality on application no longer costs you your German citizenship. What that means in detail is covered in the article on dual citizenship for Germans.

Citizenship through ancestors: what the authorities look at

A family tree tells a story. An authority wants proof. Between the two lies the gap where many applications fail: grandfather was "obviously Polish", great-grandmother "came from Galway", yet no document shows it the way the law requires.

Every assessment comes down to three questions:

1. Was the ancestor a citizen? Not a resident, not a native speaker, but a citizen at the point in time the law in question looks at.
2. Are you linked to that ancestor without a break? Every generation between you needs its own birth certificate, and every change of name needs a document that explains it.
3. Did the chain break anywhere? If someone lost the citizenship, for example by naturalising in another country, the line of transmission can end right there.

How far back the chain may reach is for each country to decide. Ireland looks at grandparents, Austria opens the door to all direct descendants of people driven out by the Nazi regime, and Italy cut back the passing on of citizenship sharply in 2025. Greece, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Spain and Ghana each have rules of their own, covered in detail in the country articles.

The documents you need for citizenship by descent

The authorities' checklists differ in the details, but at their core they all ask for the same four building blocks. Sort them out early and you save months.

Full birth certificates for every generation

This means not the short-form certificate but the long-form version that names the parents. Ireland asks for the original birth certificate with parents' details for you, your parent and your grandparent. Poland expressly names the full birth record with the parents' names if you were born outside Poland. Only this version links one generation to the next.

Marriage and name-change records

Every name that changes along the chain has to be explained. Usually that is the marriage certificate of your grandmother or mother, sometimes a change of name or a divorce. Ireland asks for the marriage certificate or another document showing the change of name where there was one, and Poland also wants a document on your own marital status.

Proof that the ancestor was a citizen

This is the hardest link. For Ireland, birth on the island, shown by the birth certificate, is normally enough. Poland, by contrast, asks for documents confirming the Polish origin of your parents or grandparents and expressly mentions copies of their Polish documents, such as old passports or identity cards. Papers like these often sit in exactly the shoebox nobody ever wanted to sort out.

Papers on the ancestor's life: emigration, naturalisation, persecution

This is where it turns out whether the chain broke. In Italy, since 2025, what counts for people born abroad who hold another nationality includes whether a parent or grandparent held Italian citizenship only. That puts one question at the centre: did the grandfather who emigrated ever take another passport? In Austria, § 58c requires the records of the ancestor's persecution. If you are tracing your ancestors across the Atlantic, emigration data often turns up in the passenger lists of emigrant ships (in German).

Where to find your ancestors' records in Germany

Many chains start in Germany: you were born here, often your parents too, and the ancestor from Poland, Italy or Austria got married here. Get the German links first.

The registry office: your right as a descendant

The Civil Status Act (Personenstandsgesetz, PStG) gives you a clear entitlement. Under § 62 PStG, records are issued to the person the entry concerns, their spouse, their ancestors and their descendants. As a grandchild or great-grandchild, you therefore need no special justification. Anyone else has to show a legal interest. You can apply from the age of 16.

The responsible office is the registry office where the event took place: the birth where the child was born, the marriage where the couple wed. For family research, the cross-references in each entry are worth a look: since 1926 in Prussia and 1935 throughout the Reich, they connect related entries, for instance the birth of the children with the parents' marriage.

The archive: when the entry is too old

Registry offices do not keep their registers forever. § 5(5) PStG sets fixed periods, after which the registry office offers the registers to the competent public archive under § 7(3) PStG.

For your search, that means: you still get your grandmother's 1925 birth certificate from the registry office. Your great-grandfather's 1898 birth entry is in the archive. If you need an entry outside your direct line, such as a great-uncle's, § 62(3) PStG helps: even before the periods expire, a legitimate interest is enough once the last of the people concerned has been dead for 30 years.

One detail saves a lot of chains: ever since registry offices were introduced, every register has been kept twice, as a main register at the registry office and as a secondary register with the supervisory authority. If a registry office burned down in the war, the duplicate often survives intact in a state archive.

Before 1874 and 1876: the parish registers

Registry offices have existed in Prussia since 1 October 1874 and throughout the German Empire since 1 January 1876. Before that, baptisms, marriages and burials were recorded in the parish registers. For ancestors from that period, the baptism entry is your birth certificate.

Many of these registers have been digitised. ARCHION offers more than 200,000 parish registers from over 25 archives, and you buy access as a time-limited pass. Matricula shows baptism, marriage and burial registers from Germany, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Whatever is not online is held in the diocesan or regional church archive, or still in the parish office.

Persecution and expulsion: the Arolsen Archives

If your claim runs through ancestors persecuted by the Nazi regime, the Arolsen Archives are one of the most important sources. The archive recommends starting every search in its own online archive, and it answers inquiries from relatives who want to find out what happened to a persecuted family member. Its holdings include millions of documents on forced labour and on displaced persons.

Records from the country of origin: Ireland, Poland, Austria and Italy

The other end of the chain almost always lies abroad. Every country has its own registers, forms and habits.

Ireland: Foreign Births Register

If a grandparent was born on the island of Ireland and both your parent and you were born outside Ireland, the route runs through the Foreign Births Register. You need the original birth certificates with parents' details for all three generations, marriage certificates wherever a name changed, plus copies of identity documents or, for anyone who has died, the death certificate. The application form is witnessed by someone from one of the listed professions who knows you personally and is not related to you. Your originals are returned at the end.

You can find your grandparent's Irish birth certificate on irishgenealogy.ie, the portal run by the Irish culture ministry. Birth entries from 1864 to 1925 are online there; for privacy reasons, births are released only after 100 years, marriages after 75 and deaths after 50. For grandparents born before 1864, the register accepts a baptism certificate. What else the Irish passport brings with it is covered in the article on Irish citizenship through parents and grandparents.

Poland: confirmation of citizenship

In this case Poland grants you nothing new; it confirms a citizenship you may have held all along. The application is addressed to the voivode (the provincial governor), and you can file it through the Polish consulate responsible for where you live, in person or by post. The form is filled in in Polish only. You attach civil status records and documents proving the Polish origin of your parents or grandparents, such as birth, marriage and baptism entries and copies of their Polish documents. Foreign-language records are translated by a sworn translator or by the consul, and the consul certifies copies.

Austria: § 58c for descendants of persecuted people

Austria opens citizenship to people who left the country before 15 May 1955 because they were persecuted by the Nazi party (NSDAP) or the authorities of the German Reich, or feared such persecution, and to their direct descendants: children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and further generations. Besides the form, a travel document, a photo, your birth certificate and a criminal record certificate no more than eight months old, you need the records of your ancestor's persecution and the documents proving your direct descent. The papers must be in German or English or come with a certified German translation. You file with the Austrian embassy or consulate, which passes the application on to MA 35, the immigration and citizenship authority in Vienna. You do not have to give up your existing citizenship.

Italy: the single-passport question

Since 24 May 2025, Law 74/2025 has applied, converting a decree-law of 28 March 2025 into statute. People born abroad who hold another nationality are now Italian only in certain cases: for example if a parent or grandparent held Italian citizenship only, or held only Italian citizenship at the time of death; if a parent lived in Italy without interruption for at least two years after acquiring citizenship and before you were born; or if the application was filed by 27 March 2025, or an appointment for it had been notified by that day. Genealogy for Italy is therefore above all the search for proof that the ancestor had no second passport.

Apostille, translation and the multilingual form

A genuine record is not enough if the destination country does not accept it as genuine. Here the EU helps you a great deal.

Since 16 February 2019, Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 has applied in all member states. Public documents from one EU country are accepted as authentic in another without an apostille. This covers, among others, records of birth, death, name, marriage, divorce, parentage and nationality. For birth, marriage and death, you can also request a multilingual standard form, provided the issuing country offers one; with it, a translation may be demanded only in exceptional cases. No such form exists for nationality and parentage. Where a certified translation is required, any translation made in an EU country must be accepted. The regulation, however, governs only authenticity, not legal effect: whether a document supports your claim is still decided by the law of the destination country.

Outside this framework, the traditional route remains. Poland, for example, requires an apostille for EU documents outside the regulation and, for documents from non-EU countries, an apostille or legalisation, depending on whether the issuing country has joined the Hague Convention of 1961. For § 58c, Austria likewise asks for an apostille or diplomatic authentication where no exemption applies. What a document roadmap like this looks like for countries outside Europe is shown in the apostille roadmap for Latin America.

When a record is missing: closing the gaps in the chain

Hardly any family history is complete. Wars, shifting borders, emigration and burned-down town halls have left their marks. Yet a missing link rarely means the end.

Different spellings. Grandfather's name appears differently in the Polish baptism register than in the German marriage certificate, and the date of birth is a day off. Collect every record that shows the same person with the same parents. The more entries agree, the clearer the identity.

Substitute records. Where the civil birth certificate is missing, the church entry often helps. Ireland expressly accepts the baptism certificate for grandparents born before 1864, and in Germany the baptism entry is the only source for the time before 1874 and 1876 anyway.

Duplicates. The supervisory authority's secondary register and the duplicate parish registers have survived many losses. Ask the state archive before you write off a link.

Records about the person rather than the event. Passports, military papers, emigration and naturalisation files, residents' registration cards and, for victims of persecution, the holdings of the Arolsen Archives often show who someone was and which state they belonged to, even when the birth certificate is missing.

From shoebox to application: the order that saves time

Most people lose time because they start in the middle. This order has proved itself:

1. Country and rule first. Check through which ancestor and which country a claim is possible at all, and how far back the chain may reach there.
2. Family tree as a list of records. Write down every generation with birth, marriage and, where relevant, death, and mark what you have and what is missing.
3. Request the German links. Registry office for recent entries, archive for older ones, parish register for the time before 1874 and 1876.
4. Request the foreign links. Registers and archives in the country of origin, plus the emigration or naturalisation files.
5. Settle authenticity and language. Check for every record whether the EU regulation applies, whether a multilingual form is enough, or whether you need an apostille and a translation.
6. File the application. Only once the chain is closed. Ireland, for one, expressly returns incomplete applications unprocessed.

And what if it turns out that your ancestry is not enough? Then you take another route to a second passport. Naturalisation through residence abroad needs no investment but takes years. Citizenship by investment buys you exactly that time. Why the two belong together is explained in the article on CBI and naturalisation. You can see all programmes side by side in the comparison, and who in your family can come along under family.

One last thought: the records you gather today will be the proof for your children and grandchildren tomorrow. Keep them in good order, because how a second passport passes down through your family also depends on this paper. More on that in the article on passing on citizenship.

Frequently asked questions