Ellen Arthur, a 79-year-old retired family lawyer in Lexington, Virginia, has decades of experience digging up personal records for her clients. But it was a first to reveal a century-old baptismal ledger kept in a Catholic church in Montreal, where his mother was born.
Ms. Arthur is relying on that dusty old record to obtain Canadian citizenship for her two adult sons.
They are among thousands of Americans taking advantage of a new requirement in Canada’s citizenship rules that came into effect in December, under which people who can prove a direct Canadian-born ancestor — a grandparent, a great-grandparent, or someone even earlier — can officially become Canadian.
Ms. Arthur was already eligible for citizenship as the daughter of a Canadian-born Canadian, but she had not pursued it. Under the old policy, known as the first-generation rule, her sons would not be able to obtain citizenship because neither they nor they were born in Canada.
Now, if someone can prove that they are a direct descendant of someone born in Canada, access to being Canadian can theoretically go back generations.
And while the process is bureaucratic and Ms. Arthur’s case is stalled by clerical and administrative hurdles, it is already attracting hopeful Canadians, most of whom are from the United States.
The number of successful applications by native-born US citizens for Canadian citizenship increased by nearly 50 per cent in January from 1,715 to 2,470, according to Canadian Immigration Ministry data. This was the first month for which data was available after the new rules came into effect.
These changes came as a result of a legal campaign by some families living abroad who were unable to give up Canadian citizenship due to the first generation condition. Following a court ruling, Canada expanded citizenship to descendants of Canadians born outside the country before December 15, 2025.
For children born or adopted abroad after December 15 by foreign-born Canadian parents, the parents must have lived in Canada for at least three years before the child’s birth or adoption in order to obtain citizenship.
Rick Lamanna, a Toronto-based partner at global immigration and resettlement company Fragomen, said the change could “potentially grant Canadian citizenship to millions of people around the world, many of whom have never lived in Canada and may only have a distant ancestral connection to it.”
He said the new policy contrasts with other advanced economies that are seeking to limit immigration, and contrasts with Canada’s own significant tightening of other immigration routes.
Over the past two years, Canada has decreased the number of foreign students, temporary workers and permanent residents. Canada’s population has already declined as a result.
The policy expanding who can qualify for Canadian citizenship stands in stark contrast to the evolving debate about who should be an American in the United States, where President Trump wants to see birthright citizenship also reduced.
Among developed economies, Canada now has one of the most inclusive rules for transferring citizenship between generations.
Until 2024, Italy offered citizenship by descent with no generational limits, a path used by many Americans, but has since limited citizenship to people with Italian parents or grandparents.
In recent years only a few other countries have extended their citizenship to people with more distant ancestry, including Portugal and Slovakia, but with some limitations.
A spokesperson for the Canadian Immigration Ministry said the burden of proof is still significant to pursue this new path to becoming Canadian, particularly because it may require extensive archival research and retrieving documents dating back more than a century.
“Although these recent changes have expanded access to Canadian citizenship by descent, having distant Canadian ancestry does not automatically make a person eligible,” said Matthew Krupovich, a spokesman for the Immigration Ministry.
Documents meeting the standard for Canadian authorities may include birth certificates, citizenship or naturalization certificates, or other official records showing family relationships and citizenship status, but not information obtained from genetic testing.
There is early evidence that the new regulations are already leading to greater demand for historical records. For example, the Nova Scotia Archives has seen a sharp increase in requests for official copies of historical records, from about 260 requests in all of 2024 to nearly 1,500 in the first three months of 2026, said John MacLeod, manager of the archives.
Yet, data from the first few weeks after the changes came into force also highlight that the majority of people fail to secure citizenship. Between December 15 and January 31, approximately 6,280 applications for proof of citizenship were processed by Canadian authorities. The Immigration Ministry said 1,480 of them were confirmed as citizens by descent under the new rules.
The motivation behind obtaining Canadian citizenship varies from person to person. For Ms. Arthur, the political situation in the United States has made her feel that she no longer recognizes her country.
“The standards and values I thought we had – equality for everyone regardless of color, race, gender – they’re gone,” Ms Arthur said. “I want my sons to have the option to move to Canada if this country continues to move in a fascist direction,” she said.
Ms Arthur feels she may be too old to pursue it at this age, but wants her children to be able to take advantage of it. “I’m really trying to pave the way for them,” she said.
For others, becoming Canadian is about reconnecting with roots.
Approximately 900,000 French Canadians left Quebec between 1840 and 1930 for work opportunities during the rapid industrialization of New England.
In the mid-1700s, approximately 10,000 French residents of Canada’s Atlantic provinces, known as Acadians, were expelled for refusing to swear allegiance to Britain.
That’s how the ancestors of 55-year-old Michelle Beauregard-Castoro ended up in Louisiana.
Ms. Beauregard-Castoro, a disaster relief consultant who now lives in Bay St. Louis, Miss., felt deeply connected to Canada in the process of tracing her family history.
“The relationship was broken 300 years ago and it’s time to put it back together,” he said.
She often wonders what her family would have been like if her ancestors had not been expelled by the British.
“I think it’s important for the family to come back to Canada,” she said, “and if it’s through a passport for me, then so be it.”
