Client story
How the situation developed
Where they started
Igor grew up with stories about his Hungarian great-grandfather, but only one document survived in the family - a single thread back to his roots. When he began thinking about an EU passport, his first thought was that one piece of paper could not possibly be enough.
Why the standard route did not work
That is a common misconception. What matters for citizenship by descent is not the volume of paperwork but the continuity of the line: the line from the Hungarian ancestor to the applicant, where every generation - birth, marriage, change of surname - is supported by a document. One document of an ancestor is a solid starting point, not an obstacle.
What BRIDGES had to solve
The weak point in such matters is not at the beginning but in the middle: generations lie between a great-grandfather and the applicant, and it is there, in the records of parents and grandparents, that the line usually breaks. Restoring those generations is the real work.
Why a standard answer would not do
Igor came to BRIDGES understanding that the question was not whether one document is enough, but how to build an unbroken line from it down to himself.
One document survived from my great-grandfather and I was sure it was not enough for citizenship. Anna explained that the point is not the number of papers but the continuity of the line. They built the line from my great-grandfather down to me, finding every missing generation in the archives. One document became the start of a line, and at the end of it I have an EU passport.
