Much like how every few weeks one occasionally spends a night eating nothing but bad food; it is too time once again for another blog post documenting the misadventures in my personal life. I haven’t been on any bad dates or had anything occur at work that I feel like mentioning, instead, I discovered something about my family that may end up providing immense benefit to me soon.

While flipping around on Reddit one night, I came across a post in the popular Today I Learned section detailing the practice of citizenship through ancestry that is law in some nations. Basically, in places like Italy, Poland, Germany and Ireland, if you can show that a generation or two of your family was a citizen of the nation, you too may be eligible for citizenship presently.

My grandfather, though he identified as German all his life, as it turns out was actually born in Poland. I figured this out at the time of his death and didn’t think much of it at the time, but now, things are very different. His past birthplace may end up opening a lot of doors to me right now.

Due to Poland being an EU nation (And correct me if I am wrong here.), I could travel freely to other EU nations and work in them much easier than if I tried to as a Canadian Citizen alone.

Predictably when I told some of my associates about this (My mother and other older friends.), they were mildly dismissive and wondered why I would want to even pursue such a thing.

Why not? One should always move forth with things that can enhance their life and make things more interesting. If I could become a citizen of China without going there I would, this is similar.

So after speaking with them and investigating the issue, I filed a claim. According to the lawyer in the nation, I have a case but he just needs more information in order to proceed on his end.

It’s here that I must admit I am a tad unnerved. Hiring a genealogist to investigate my family history has always been something I intended to do. But now that I am actually doing it, there is a sense of unease gnawing at the back of my mind about possible villainy in my lineage.

What if I am related to some horrendous war criminal?

What if ancestors of mine were owners of slaves or serial killers or rapists?

Interesting questions to ponder and though I hope nothing of that sort comes up, I still would be mildly intrigued if it did. Too many people all over the world let the history of their relatives wither and sink into the proverbial dustbin of history. I will not be one of them. Soon, I hope to have a 100 year history of my relatives to explore. Ideally from a nice apartment in Warsaw.