The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

zagubov

Whose turn would it be? ukmaggie, m'good self, Yorkie1, and others have had a go recently-ish. Is it the turn of a male NP?

silvercar

SO everyone should check that the email address they have registered with MSE is one they can access. Otherwise go into your user control panel now and change your email address to one that you can get access to.

silvercar

The latest conversation topic among some of my friends is how to get an EU passport.

Quite a few of my Jewish friends can trace back a couple of generations to family that fled Germany/ Poland/ Russia/ Lithuania etc either at the turn of the century (the previous one not 1999-2000!) or before the World War II. Some of these countries will now allow a claim to citzenship from those that were forced to leave. The hoops required to jump through vary by country, but still so amazing that people are clambering to be recognised by countries that not so long ago they were desperate to flee.

silvercar

zagubov wrote: »

Whose turn would it be? ukmaggie, m'good self, Yorkie1, and others have had a go recently-ish. Is it the turn of a male NP?

Would be a good idea. GDB?

SingleSue

silvercar wrote: »

The latest conversation topic among some of my friends is how to get an EU passport.

Quite a few of my Jewish friends can trace back a couple of generations to family that fled Germany/ Poland/ Russia/ Lithuania etc either at the turn of the century (the previous one not 1999-2000!) or before the World War II. Some of these countries will now allow a claim to citzenship from those that were forced to leave. The hoops required to jump through vary by country, but still so amazing that people are clambering to be recognised by countries that not so long ago they were desperate to flee.

It's something we have thought of, my great grandmother was a young girl when she arrived here after her parents and their young family had to flee persecution.

zagubov

silvercar wrote: »

The latest conversation topic among some of my friends is how to get an EU passport.

Quite a few of my Jewish friends can trace back a couple of generations to family that fled Germany/ Poland/ Russia/ Lithuania etc either at the turn of the century (the previous one not 1999-2000!) or before the World War II. Some of these countries will now allow a claim to citzenship from those that were forced to leave. The hoops required to jump through vary by country, but still so amazing that people are clambering to be recognised by countries that not so long ago they were desperate to flee.

It might be worth checking if such citizenship is inheritable to your children. I've got the right to an EU passport but won't have any ability to offer it to my kids.

It's making me very unenthused about jumping through the necessary hoops.

Wish I'd had the foresight to do it before we had kids. It'd be different then.

Pyxis

SingleSue wrote: »

It's something we have thought of, my great grandmother was a young girl when she arrived here after her parents and their young family had to flee persecution.

I, too, looked into this idea three years ago, having familial connections to an EU country, but it looked like it would be very difficult, as I don't have the documents necessary, and it could be impossible to get them. Plus, the bureaucracy of the country involved is notorious, and there could be double taxation issues.

All in all, then, I reckoned that unless things get extremely dire here, it wouldn't really be an option, just to have an EU passport for easier holiday transit, although there would have been a psychological benefit in the feeling of 'belonging'.

Doozergirl

DS is really very keen to have an EU passport.

DH's parents have dual nationality, being immigrants. The forms have to be completed in Portuguese. We will have to pay someone because if my in laws' Portuguese is as 'interesting' as their use of the English language, we're in trouble. They have been here for 60 odd years, but their misuse of words is still a source of great hilarity.

My MIL once announced at the dining table that she was a great fan of the word tw*t. The one with an A. She pronounced it using an 'O' but that's what she meant. She pronounces the W word with an O as well, for some reason.

Her colourful language is the result of learning English from her children.

So yeah, EU passports.

silvercar

zagubov wrote: »

It might be worth checking if such citizenship is inheritable to your children. I've got the right to an EU passport but won't have any ability to offer it to my kids.

It's making me very unenthused about jumping through the necessary hoops.

Wish I'd had the foresight to do it before we had kids. It'd be different then.

The most likely country seemed to be Latvia. OH can trace a line back and the citizenship is inheritable. The down side we have found is that in order for him to gain the citizenship he would have to renounce his UK citizenship, so not ideal. But offspring can maintain dual nationality.

Then we thought if he could persuade his mother to do it, it would only be her that has to renounce her UK citizenship and she is very retired, so doesn't require a working passport, doesn't travel that much, would have indefinite leave to remain here, by her family connections to the UK etc ...then we find in order to regain citizenship you also need to pass a Latvian language test! :rotfl:

There is also the possibility of a Russian passport, but until Russia enters the EU that is not very useful.

zagubov

silvercar wrote: »

Would be a good idea. GDB?

Why not? He's been a thread member of good standing since this enduring edifice of goodwill was all fields.