Passport office wanting GREAT Grandmother’s birth certificate

There’s a helpline to call, give them a ring and check that’s correct, as it seems excessive as you’re the grandparent, I’ve not heard of them needing great-grandparents certificates

They may automatically be British citizens or they might not, since 1983 being "British born" isn't enough. The passport office cannot tell without you providing the evidence.

If/when your DC go on to have children of their own then those children will automatically be British citizens if at least one of their parents was a British citizen or settled here at the time of birth. But they need to provide evidence of that in order to get a passport.

Normally, having a British passport at the time of the birth of the child should be sufficient to provide evidence but it is possible that if the mother has got a new passport after the birth of the child then they may not be able to link back to her original passport from when the child was born. In that case, they would need to go back to scratch and look at the birth certificate.

I am so confused. Does the law mean that if my British born dc who were born in the 1990s and early 2000s to two British parents have children, those children won't automatically be British citizens?

Will my British born dc (with British born ancestors going way back ) have to provide my proof of British citizenship to obtain British citizenship for their future dc?

I don't know the laws surrounding this but it does seem bonkers! Hope you get it sorted soon. Also, my mum became a grandma before the age of 41 so it definitely can and does happen.

It's not that unusual!

Just means both mums had their first child under 20.

As I read it, even if the OP's mother received her citizenship by descent- IE OPs mum may not have been born in the UK but received her citizenship through her parent, she can still 'pass down' her citizenship to her daughter (the OP) because the OP was born in the UK. This would have been checked when OP got her passport.

So, it is possible to hold a passport and not be able to pass that UK citizenship to your child- but only if the child is born outside the UK and the passport that the parent has is obtained by descent.

But that does not appear to be the situation here- so I'm confused by other comments on here by people who work in this area who say it's expected.

Exactly. Their passports are evidence that they’re citizens.

It’s confusing for most of us because the law written in 1981 means that just being born in the U.K. doesn’t mean that you’re a citizen. One of the baby’s parents must be a British citizen in order for the baby to qualify. This child’s mother is obviously a British citizen, evidenced by her holding a British passport. The child’s grandmother is obviously a British citizen, evidenced by her holding a British passport. Yes, Mum and Gran were both born after 1983, but they are still British citizens, and can prove such by showing their passports—they both had to clear the bar of having British parent(s) when they were granted citizenship.

But two of those 3 people born after '83 already have passports, so checks should have already been done on the pre '83 persons citizenship status- and all 3 were born in the UK and have already submitted UK birth certs.

The applicant (granddaughter), applicants parent (OP's DD/DS), and the applicants grandparent were all born after 01/01/83.

I hadn't realised that.

Simple explanation then!

And if your parents weren't British, then what? Your kid wouldn't be British, despite have two British citizens for parents and being born in the UK?
All this costly extra admin is fucking pointless!

Im assuming from what you've said, both you and the child's mother were born in the UK. What if the great grandmother was not born in the UK and was not British? Are they trying to say her great granddaughter then isn't British? And then by extention you and your daughter aren't British? Equally, are they saying you can go back so many generations to claim to be British? Batshit! If you didn't have the time pressure of going away (and assuming it's not a simple admin error) I'd be kicking up merry hell about this. I'd be the first constituent banging on my new MPs door.

was that for a first passport, seems a bit much?

'boomer' 🙄

The applicant (granddaughter), applicants parent (OP's DD/DS), and the applicants grandparent were all born after 01/01/83.

The passport aren't asking because it's a great grandparent, they're asking because of the 1983 rule for proof of entitlement to a British passport, which is not automatic for people born after 1983 (which all 3 people in this situation are).

You can thank the British Nationality Act 1981 for these rules.

I disagree. There's a tendency on MN recently to claim that any mention of old age is in itself ageist. It's not ageist to mention a retired person being on an extended holiday either as retired people don't work anyway. She just meant that her mother is far away for a long time and is of retirement age.

Boomer itself isnt ageist, but It's irrelevant to the passport issue, and written together with the " extended holiday " comment , in my view , is ageist.

It's not ageist just to refer to someone as a boomer.
My parents are part of the boomer generation. There's nothing ageist in saying that.

Having to use birth certificates to prove citizenship all the way back to someone born before 1983 when the people you are providing birth certificates for already have British passports and should have had to prove citizenship to get them.

Indeed-it's hardly joined up thinking is it?

But that's your mother's parents so it's one generation up.

The OP is saying her granddaughter requires the OPs mother's detail so that's 3 generations!!!

Unless I’ve misunderstood what the passport office are trying to do here, there is so much about this that seems mad to me:

First off - That you have to apply to one bit of government to get a piece of paper to send off to another bit of government is itself annoying, costly and seems like a weakness in terms of vulnerability to forgery.

But more fundamentally - Having to use birth certificates to prove citizenship all the way back to someone born before 1983 when the people you are providing birth certificates for already have British passports and should have had to prove citizenship to get them.

Some posters seem to think because so few people at the moment won’t have a parent of grandparent born before 1983 it’s just an anomaly and not worth worrying about. But it won’t be that long before most children don’t have a grandparent that old.

Is the plan that from now on to get a passport (or to prove you are a citizen in any situation) you’re going to have to get hold of birth certificates for ancestors all the way back to pre-1983? In another few years some kids will have to go back to their great-great-grandparents, and then a couple of decades after that great-great-great-grandparent, etc.. That’s not a sensible long term mechanism and it’s something that quite a lot of people would have significant difficulty with. We need to be able to rely on our citizenship without having to trace our ancestors back to a particular, ever-receding year.