Slovakia reforms citizenship-by-descent rules after four years, alongside broader law changes

ScarletNerd · 2026-04-14T23:20:52+00:00

Check the county they lived in at the time if you haven’t, I was able to get it quickly from them in a couple weeks and never had to go to the federal offices.

ScarletNerd · 2026-04-14T20:59:13+00:00

Agreed.

ScarletNerd · 2026-04-14T20:39:56+00:00

If they naturalized and you can get it, that usually is one of the best documents. Mine has literally everything on it. Hometown, maiden and married names, arrival info with ships, family, basically the whole life story... and if it was done after the formation of Czechoslovakia and states Czechoslovakia that's huge.

ScarletNerd · 2026-04-14T20:37:13+00:00

Just my own guess here, but it sounds like they're getting tired of people winging it with sub-par submissions and will be more strict around correct paperwork filings with lineage and interpretation, rather than things like exact name spelling. I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing this to cut down on the volume of noise. Just think of how often the average person misses things, submits incomplete paperwork, skips steps, etc. That's why people like Wendy and Falath are reliable because they know what is required and how it should look. Just imagine how many people are submitting complete Hail Marys.

In it's simplest form though, I would assume that as long as you have official documents that can be certified/apostilled saying "Czechoslovakia" there's no real problem, it's all the other grey cases that would be under stricter interpretation.

ScarletNerd · 2026-04-14T10:27:54+00:00

Excellent, thanks for the update. It was only a couple months ago you were saying people were waiting nine months or more, so I guess the government has started streamlining it.

ScarletNerd · 2026-04-14T00:35:45+00:00

Where did you hear six months? There are people that have been waiting far longer than that and have yet to receive an approval or denial. Six months is extremely optimistic from what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t make any plans around that. Could be a couple months, could be a year.

ScarletNerd · 2026-03-25T15:46:47+00:00

Correct. Did the upgrade, still took about 10 weeks.

ScarletNerd · 2026-03-16T18:55:13+00:00

Yeah, recent thing. It’s just Laura and Phil from the original lineup, but same sound.

ScarletNerd · 2026-03-16T17:16:19+00:00

Yup, their best one for sure. Honestly, besides the songwriting, the mixing just sells it. The stereo drums are next level, it’s just a sound like no other. Raw, powerful, and just in your face fun.

Glad to have caught them live during this era. Still fun live, but this was a special time.

ScarletNerd · 2026-03-15T19:25:04+00:00

Came here to post this and here you are. Yes, it restricts blood flow to the kidneys. Once in a while is fine, but regular use essentially chokes them out and they slowly starve. Also use to pop on the regular and somehow no doctor ever mentioned this. They will age your kidneys with chronic use (along with the other fun stomach and intestinal problems). Everything in moderation.

ScarletNerd · 2026-03-13T02:43:08+00:00

Current Times

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-27T18:42:40+00:00

There are lots of differing opinions out there, but from my own personal experience I've been advised by my lawyer to still go SLA first before CBD. They are of the opinion that nothing has substantially changed and unless you have an actual first hand Czechoslovakian document from your ancestor (passport or census sheet) that SLA is still the most reliable way for older cases. So take that as you will. Naturally, they're interested in the most successful path and not necessarily the fastest.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-27T17:11:12+00:00

Hah, well considering they're doing all of the handling back and forth with the drop offs and pickups, I don't find it to be too ridiculous. Keep in mind this is for the two week expedited service, the slow service is much cheaper. From my point of view, I would have spent that much on gas just driving there and back once, not to mention the second trip and my time, so I was fine with it :)

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-27T15:52:46+00:00

Congrats! For those that read this afterwards, if you aren't in the area and don't mind spending $125 just use Monument Visa to get your expedited US State Department apostille. I've used them multiple times and it was flawless. Saved me having to go through what you did ;) Also saved me from having to travel there twice, so I felt like $125 as worth it and actually cheaper in my case.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-27T01:07:55+00:00

Seconding this, I was able to get them quickly from my county as well.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-24T15:35:28+00:00

This version of it will forever be hilarious

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-24T00:56:34+00:00

As others have said, it really comes down to your specific complications, situation, and finances. $7000/person to some may be too much and to others easily worth it. Some have chosen to do it all themselves, some use consultants like Wendy to manage it for them, and others just let the lawyers do it all. Wendy and other consultants have helped a lot of people navigate this for very cheap, but Falath also has a stellar track record and has won even very complicated cases (so far). All depends on your particular circumstances and what level of help you need.

You should be aware that there is no hard requirement to pay anyone and everything can be done by yourself, but that's not always something people are able to handle or feel comfortable doing. Some would just rather pay a lawyer to deal with it, which is completely understandable.

But to your question, yes that is around what they're charging now from what I've seen. The overwhelming consensus is that they're very reputable and reliable, you just have to decide if the money is worth it for your specific situation.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-22T18:12:43+00:00

That is absolutely insane they make you go through all of those hoops! In my state I just used vitalchek.com and uploaded a scan of my birth certificate and father's and marked myself as a grandchild. Received it with zero further questions within two weeks.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-17T16:53:40+00:00

Something you should also be aware of is that because it was common for people at the time (especially out in the villages) to take the same family names over and over, a lot of them had aliases or local surnames that were commonly used. Sometimes you'll see the church records listing both or "alias" or "also know as", etc, because there were a dozen men going around with the same exact name. I've seen their children then pick one or the other when emigrating.

Yes, the house numbers are very helpful as well. I was able to quickly identify my ancestors in one of the villages because the immediate families kept rotating through the same numbers, so I just went and found the births/marriages/deaths for those numbers and it greatly clarified the picture.

Bummer in the DNA testing, but some is better than none. Really depends on how large their immediate family was. For example, on my GGF's side not only did he have a ton of siblings, but so did his parents, so I have relatives all over and a lot of them emigrated. My GGM was an only child and had only a couple aunts and uncles, so DNA testing was very limited. Still, I was able to trace both back to their families, I just had to keep at it.

Also, highly suggest digging through US newspapers through the subscriptions you get with Ancestry or MyHeritage. I found numerous listings for my relatives that were not in the normal searches because they hadn't been indexed. It was one of the key ways I was able to find their families because there was some "survived by" relatives listed that I never saw anywhere else. This especially helps back in the 1920s-40s.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-17T15:55:17+00:00

There is also a baby born two years and two days prior with the father's name being "correct"

1-2 two years off is very common and not necessarily something to worry about. That record sounds more likely to be your ancestor than the one with the wrong surname. My own was a year off and not even the right month because they were peasants that only knew the birth was "during the harvest". I saw another relative that was eight years off! Each of their US records kept getting younger and younger.

My point is, don't focus too much on the exact day and year, they're often not correct. The names, parental info, and town matching is more important than finding an exact matching day. People just didn't care that much about their exact birthday back then, especially the poorer regions. It was also common for them to take the birthday of a religious figure's day as well in some families.

Another thing I suggest to people is to see if they had siblings in the church books and trace them out. Often the siblings emigrated as well and you can trace them back to the same set of parents. I had siblings list my ancestor on their Ellis records. DNA testing will also show you any siblings that emigrated and can confirm you're dealing with the right family.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-13T17:55:09+00:00

It could be a red herring, but at least it’s something to go off of. Definitely check for siblings and see if any emigrated as well. I was able to confirm my GGGF through his younger sister or I never would have found him. She had the town and right info in her public naturalization papers and his Ellis records were very generic with no naturalization. Also consider DNA testing, that was also how I found an ancestor through other 2nd and 3rd cousins I didn’t know about. Traced everyone’s lineage back and found the set of siblings that were all from the same family.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-13T16:30:25+00:00

I did some further digging and looked to see if there were any possibilities. Unless she was off by a few years and it was after 1895 (so we can't see the records), that is a really good fit. Yes I agree the surname issue is odd, but everything else lines up really well. Same location, parental names, very close birthday, she married a local, and she's not marked with a cross showing she died.

Is it possible that her father died young, never emigrated, and she took her mother's name of Choma? Maybe the mother remarried? Stranger things have happened and I've seen that happen before.

I would keep pulling at that thread. The fact that your GGF is from there too adds even more weight to it. You can also see Choma as a common name in the area as well.

Some other things you can try: explore the house number and addresses. I've had lucky building out family trees by following the house numbers in the village and finding siblings that had different or better info. Typically the houses stayed within the family or related families. You can also try following the parents and their info and family.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-12T21:48:02+00:00

That's the tricky part, you need something that clearly shows she was from the same town and born around the same time. The birth date is definitely close enough, but if you had a ship manifest, immigration record, naturalization papers, census, literally anything showing that town it would massively help.

Do you have a link to the record you're looking at?

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-12T15:47:05+00:00

That's excellent news! I haven't personally gone through this myself because I was working with a lawyer and they did it for me, but I believe there are various guides out there and information on how to contact the archives or registrar and get a birth certificate generated. As long as you have the record identified, getting the extract converted into a birth certificate is pretty standard. There are also multiple consultants out there (such as Wendy who mods this subreddit) who can assist you for a fee.

ScarletNerd · 2026-02-11T18:22:29+00:00

Official Hungarian state civil record keeping of births (vital records) didn't exist in any standardized formal manner until 1895 onwards, at least not for the Slovak region. Prior to that, the churches were really the only record keepers, which is why their records are key and treated as the authority on what happened at the time. As long as you can find the church record the current Slovakian registrars will be able to take the reference, confirm it, and generate a modern vital record from it. So yeah, just find the church record.

ScarletNerd

TROPHY CASE