also called jus sanguinis · citizenship by ancestry
Acquiring a country's citizenship through a parent, grandparent or further ancestor.
If a parent, grandparent or sometimes a more distant ancestor held a country's citizenship, you may be able to claim it too, even if you have never set foot there. You inherit it through the family line rather than by being born on the soil. Proving the connection with documents is the whole game.
Someone whose grandmother left Ireland long ago digs out her old birth and marriage certificates and applies for an Irish passport. She never lived in Ireland, but the paper trail back to her grandmother is enough to claim citizenship and, with it, the right to live across the EU.
It can hand you a powerful second passport without living there, if you can document the bloodline.
The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.
These split by what qualifies you.
Citizenship by birth is granted by being born on the soil, citizenship by descent comes through a parent or grandparent, and a grandfathered route or right of return extends that to a wider heritage a country chooses to honour.
Naturalization is the process a foreigner goes through after living there and meeting language and residence rules, and naturalization by marriage is the shortened version for the spouse of a citizen.
Citizenship by birth · Naturalization · Naturalization by marriage
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