Ancestor worship (was Tech writing in Europe)

[Melissa Hunter-Kilmer <mhunterk -at- BNA -dot- COM>]

On Sun, 25 Feb 1996, Peter Kent <76711 -dot- 2557 -at- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM>
wrote:

>>David (the idiot) Ibbetson said:

A check on where your ancestors, especially your male ancestors,
came from could also be useful. Each EU country has kept its own
nationality laws.<<

Why are the male ancestors particularly helpful in this regard?

I'm not meaning to stir up a hornet's nest.  I'm just wondering.
Do you mean those ancestors who have one's last name?  Because
sometimes those will be female.  And not all male ancestors will
carry one's last name in any case.

> Generally this will only help you in Germany . . . If you can
> show that several hundred years ago your ancestors lived in
> what later became Germany, you can get German citizenship
> quite easily--many Romanians, for instance, were able to do
> this (exactly how you prove it I've no idea).

Several hundred years ago?  My goodness.  That's very
interesting.  So I could go over there and get citizenship on the
strength of some ancestors who chose to leave Germany in the
1700s, but current Turkish guest workers who have chosen to be in
Germany for quite a long time could not.  Seems unfair to me, but
I'm sure that's my cultural bias.

I thought I heard something about this in Ireland, too -- except
that to get Irish citizenship I thought you had to have no Irish
ancestor more remote than a grandparent -- but then somebody else
pointed out that there is already a superabundance of English
speakers in that part of the world, so it might be hard for a
non-local person to get a job.  :-)

Melissa Hunter-Kilmer
mhunterk -at- bna -dot- com
(standard disclaimer)