# Can you lose US citizenship without knowing it?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-us-citizenship-without-knowing-it/736844>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 6, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-us-citizenship-without-knowing-it/736844 "2015-11-06T20:14:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-us-citizenship-without-knowing-it/736844/41 "2015-11-13T00:20:14Z")

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> [@md2000](#):
>
> Well, IIRC (someone with more British expertise may correct here) until a few decades ago, you could be a British citizen if your grandfather or father was British, but not your mother’s side. This was mentioned in the context of the irony of the Falklands war, where some of the islanders had lived there enough generations that they no longer qualified as full British citizens.

Yes, until the early 1980s British nationality could be acquired by descent through the male line, but not through the female line. Plus, it had to be _legitimate_ descent. There were various exceptions and qualifications and special cases - British nationality law is nothing if not insanely complicated - but that was the basic rule.

However, the right of abode in the UK was separate from citizenship. Simply being a “Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies”, as the status was known at the time, did not entitle you to settle in the UK. For that, you needed some further connection with the UK. There were a variety of different connections that would do - having been born there, having been resident there for five years or more, etc. Some of these depended on inheritance and those conditions were gender-neutral. Anyone born in the Falkland Islands was a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and if _either_ of their parents was a CUKC born or naturalised in the UK, they would have a right of abode in the UK.

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