Many Americans with a Polish-born parent, grandparent or great-grandparent are already Polish citizens by law - they have simply never had it confirmed. Confirmation opens a Polish passport and the right to live and work anywhere in the European Union. The process runs on documents, and the documents are in Poland.
We do the part that decides most cases: finding the records that prove the chain of citizenship from your Polish ancestor to you.
Who is usually eligible
Polish citizenship passes by descent, without limit of generations, as long as it was never lost along the way. Whether it was lost depends on dates: when your ancestor left Poland, when they naturalized in the United States, when the next generation was born, and which Polish citizenship act was in force at each of those moments. The acts of 1920, 1951 and 1962 each set different rules, and a case that fails under one can succeed under another.
Typical starting points for an American applicant:
- An ancestor born in Poland, or in territory that was Polish between 1918 and 1939, who was alive and resident there when the Polish state was re-established
- Emigration to the United States after 1920, or earlier emigration with a family member who remained
- US naturalization after the birth of the next generation in the line, or no naturalization at all
- A grandparent or parent who served only in the US armed forces after 1951, or not at all
None of these is a guarantee, and one wrong date can end a case. That is why the assessment is done on documents, not on family memory.
What we do
1. Eligibility assessment
We map your line of descent, place every birth, marriage, emigration and naturalization on the timeline of Polish citizenship law, and tell you in writing whether the line holds, where it is weak, and which documents will be needed to prove it.
2. Polish document retrieval
Birth, marriage and death records of the Polish ancestor; pre-war residence and population registers; passport and identity-card applications; military service records; any document showing the ancestor was a Polish citizen after 1920. We obtain official copies from Polish civil registry offices, state archives and parishes in the form the Voivodeship Office accepts.
3. American documents, checked for what Poland needs
Naturalization papers, ship manifests, US vital records and military discharge papers must show the right facts in the right form. We tell you which US certificates to order, and which need an apostille and a sworn translation into Polish.
4. Application file
A complete, ordered evidence file with a written explanation of the line of descent, ready for submission to the Voivodeship Office through the Polish consulate that covers your state.
Cost. The Citizenship Assessment is $450 and is delivered within two weeks. If the line holds, obtaining the Polish documents usually fits an ESSENTIAL25 project. See projects & prices.
What we do not do
We are researchers, not a law firm. We do not give legal advice and we do not promise an outcome. What we give you is the evidence, assessed honestly: if the line is broken, we tell you so before you spend money on an application.
How to start
Order the eligibility assessment, then complete the intake form with the names, dates and places you have and copies of any documents already in the family: naturalization certificates, passports, church records, letters with Polish addresses. Uncertain details are welcome; mark them as uncertain.
Related: Single Document Retrieval for a record you already know exists, and archival document translation for papers you already hold.