United Kingdom - Passport & Nationality - British Overseas Citizen (BOC) - Marriage before 1949
This solution - known as British Overseas Citizenship (or BOC) - arises from an anomaly in the British Nationality Act of 1948.
The 1948 Act gave Citizenship of the UK & Colonies (or CUKC) status to those people connected to Australia and Canada if they did not become citizens of a Commonwealth country on 1 January 1949. The anomaly arises because the law of these two countries relies on a woman claiming citizenship through marriage to reside in either of these two countries before 1949 (and not all did so. The solution relies on the following set of circumstances to a woman:
- born before 1949;
- not born in a British Crown Dominion;
- married to a Canadian or Australian man before 1949; AND
- not resident in Australia or Canada on 1 January 1949.
Where this woman has the Right of Abode through a UK-born grandparent, their status would have been reclassified as a full British citizen on 1 January 1983.