This coming week is special. You might know it as "intercontinental meeting scheduling goes sideways" week. Most of Europe adjusted their clocks for daylight savings this morning, the US does so in a week.
German Consulates around the world add new appointments at midnight in Germany. Polling for an appointment right before midnight has the best chance of grabbing one, and this week midnight in Germany is at a different time in the US. Lots of people miss this, your chances of getting an appointment are better this week by checking at the correct time.
If your family emigrated from Germany in the 20th century, you might have a path to German citizenship. Grandparents, great-grandparents, etc are all possible. 1904 is the significant cutoff, emigration before that almost always forfeited German citizenship.
Your ancestor might have been told they had to choose one citizenship or another at age 18 or 21 or 23. That is a longstanding myth, people born as dual citizens were always able to retain both and pass it down to their children.
Your ancestor might not have inherited citizenship from a German mother prior to 1975. Staatsangehörigkeit § 5 is a declaration process to address this former gender discriminatory policy, allowing descendants of German mothers to declare their citizenship.
If you've idly wondered whether there is a path to Europe for your family, this week is a good week to look into it.
Everything I've written about this process and related matters is linked from this blog post.
