If Emma married Arthur before he became an american citizen - she would have lost her citizenship Could you lose your citizenship? In 1907, Congress passed a law (34 Stat. 1228 sec. 3) which stated that a female citizen who married an alien lost her U.S. citizenship and took on the nationality of her husband. 34 Stat 1228 sec. 3 was repealed in 1922, but citizenship was not restored until 1936. Under a congressional act of 1936, a woman whose marital status had been terminated, either by her husband' s death or by divorce, could reapply for repatriation and regain U.S citizenship. In fact, the National Archives in Waltham has the original records of "Repatriations of Women Who Were Married to Aliens before 22 September 1922." There are 3,204 petitions, and there is an index, which was prepared by Cynthia C. Winterhalter several years ago. The first petition is dated 9 Sept. 1936, and the last is dated 24 November 1969. Obviously the relevant period of time in which the marriages in question took place would be from 1907 through 1922, and the region covered would be New England. The wife did not have the option of repatriation if her husband was an alien. From 1907 through 1922 the female's citizenship status was derived through the husband. In fact, if the alien husband died and the widow remarried an American citizen, she still had to apply for repatriation (only granted starting in 1936). Women were not granted citizenship status of their own until 1922, when a 21 year old female was considered a citizen and the principle of derivative citizenship was discontinued. Keep in mind that women were not allowed to repatriate until 1936, however. The women who married aliens and lost their U.S. citizenship status were not given the opportunity to vote until they could apply for repatriation in 1936. I guess that for one year (1921-1922) women LOST the right to vote if they married an alien. Otherwise, since they had never had the right to vote anyway, they were just never granted the right to vote. I imagine that the issue of the women's vote and some sort of push toward equal rights were part of what prompted the change in the law starting in 1922. -- --- Ginny Chung <gchung@mindspring.com> Help find a cure for Cancer - Support the American Cancer Society Sponsor Katie Chung at http://www.acsevents.org/relay/MAMarlboro Team ATAC - All Teens Against Cancer Searching for COYLE, DONAHOE, DIRKSMEIER, FALLON, MANNING, MULLER, PLUMER, SCANLON, TULLIS out of Boston Searching for DONOGHUE, SKEFFINGTON, WARD, WHOLEY out of Lowell, Mass http://www.mindspring.com/~gchung/tree.htm - Main page http://www.mindspring.com/~gchung/CemeteryMain.html - Mass Cemetery Transcriptions ==============================================