Client story
Client's Story
Where they started
Mikhail's family, like many in the 20th century, moved across Soviet territories: ancestors were born in one republic, married in another, with documents settling in a third. By the time Mikhail pursued his Hungarian roots, his genealogy was physically scattered across three different former Soviet republics.
Why the standard route did not work
The difficulty lies not in the absence of facts, but in their dispersal. Each republic has its own state language, archives and registries, its own procedures for document issuance and legalization. A grandfather's birth record, a great-grandfather's marriage certificate, and a father's baptismal record may lie in three countries unaware of each other.
What BRIDGES had to solve
Assembling such a lineage is a separate logistical and legal task: one must know where to find each generation, how to request a document from a specific archive, in what language it will be issued, and how to legalize it for Hungarian procedure. An error at any step breaks the chain.
Why a standard answer would not do
Mikhail contacted BRIDGES, understanding that his case was not about whether roots exist, but about how to gather evidence from three jurisdictions into a single, acceptable dossier for the authorities.
My ancestors are scattered across three former republics - where they were born, where they married, where documents remained - all in different countries. I had no idea how to gather this: different languages, archives, rules. Anna and her team requested each generation from their respective archives, translated and legalized everything, and consolidated it into one lineage. From three countries, I obtained one EU passport.
