Son of parents who both at one point were British Subjects. Is there a chance of a passport?

khaltire

New Member
Hi All,

Great forum here, Id appreciate it if someone could answer this question as I know there are some experts here:

I have a somewhat interesting situation. Both my parents are from Africa, and originally were given British Passports (they were from Kenya (Dad) and Tanzania (Mum). Something to do with the colonies they were from qualified for British citizenship way back (were talking the 60s). My mom believes she had to give up her British Passport when they chose to come to Canada, we don't know where the passport exists anymore (likely destroyed if this was the case). My dad still has his, expired from many years ago. I took a look at it and it says it was issued in 1974 (unclear if there were others before it), and it says "BRITISH SUBJECT - CITIZEN OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND COLONIES". I've done some research about this, and from my understanding the British Subject was sort of given to people by default and the idea was that they find citizenship elsewhere and their British Subject status is then invalidated. Also, I read some things about this isn't possible to be passed down to children. I was born after 1983.

We are currently Canadian citizens.

Is there any chance?

Cheers
 

Riley Haas

Administrator
Staff member
Location
Toronto
So you cannot inherit this status from your father unless you would have become stateless. And it's moot because it isn't citizenship, it's "subject" status, as you pointed out. He likely lost it when becoming a Canadian citizen.

Your mother, on the other hand: we don't know. It depends what her passport said when she left Tanzania. In theory, if she left Tanzania before independence, and she had a status other than your father's, it's possible that she retained some kind of British nationality that you could inherit. However, I'm speculating and it really depends what that lost passport says. So the first question is: was she born in Tanzania before December 9, 1961?
 

Riley Haas

Administrator
Staff member
Location
Toronto
Okay, so the next question is: when did she leave Tanzania? If she moved to Kenya (or anywhere else) prior to December 9, 1961, there is some chance she didn't lose British citizenship (assuming she had it).
 

khaltire

New Member
Hi sorry for the late reply. She left in 1962-1963 (approximately) at age 7-8, and moved to Uganda. Eventually, they made their way to London for 3 years then over to Canada.
 

Riley Haas

Administrator
Staff member
Location
Toronto
So that sounds like she likely lost her British status. In most former British colonies anyone with British subject status who was a resident of the colony lost British status on independence day when they assumed citizenship of the new country. There are occasional exceptions to this but not very many.

Sorry for the bad news.
 
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