Interesting Joe My reading is that Home seretary Discretion only applies where the claim comes from a parent with British nationality through descentOriginally Posted by joebloggs
marriage is not required in all cases, depends on when the child was born, also you may well be asked for a dna tested to be done if your not married.
also citizenship is not a right in all cases, it can be at the discretion of the Home Secretary
A child born outside the UK on or after 1 January 1983 will automatically acquire British citizenship by descent if either parent is a British citizen otherwise than by descent at the time of the birth.
- Only one parent needs to be British otherwise than by descent - either the father or the mother.
- As a general rule, an unmarried father cannot pass on British citizenship automatically in the case of children born before 1 July 2006. Although, if the parents marry subsequent to the birth, the child normally will become a British citizen at that point if legitimated by the marriage and the father was eligible to pass on British citizenship. Further, if the unmarried British father was domiciled in a country that treated (at the date of birth of the child born before 1 July 2006) a child born to unmarried parents in the same way as a child born to married parents, then the father passed on British citizenship automatically to his child, even though the child was born before 1 July 2006 to unmarried parents.[1] Such countries include Jamaica and New Zealand [2],Brazil[3] and Hungary[4].
- Failing the above, the child can be registered as British if it would have been British if parents were married and application is made before the child is 18.
