[Amalia83]

My Great Grandmother was born in Greece (Crete) and lived there for few yrs, I have her birth certificate and all the papers! She moved to Egypt but she was married to a turkish man, yet my grandmother never claimed the citizinship for Greece of Turkey! The question is can I claim the citizenship for either Turkey or Greece while I'm living outside of both countries? PLease reply ASAP.

[acrules3]

I am no expert on Turkish law. You may have a claim to Greek citizenship through your great grandmother, but it really depends on the circumstances.

Firstly, you need to establish whether your great grandmother was a Greek citizen at the time of her birth. If she was born to Greek citizens after the union of Crete to Greece in 1913, then she may have been a Greek citizen at the time of her birth. If she was born before 1913, then she may have been naturalized Greek with one of the laws that allowed this to happen.

However, even if she had Greek citizenship, she very likely lost it at the time of her marriage to a foreigner [in your case a Turkish citizen] if the wedding was recognized in Greece at the time. All Greek women who married a non-Greek before 1954 lost their citizenship; while Greek women who married a non-Greek between 1955 and 1984 lost their citizenship unless they declared before the wedding that they did not wish to lose their citizenship.

In any case, if your great grandmother's wedding was not recognized by the Greek state at the time [i.e. if it were a civil ceremony, etc] you would still have to trace the citizenship claim through your grandparent and parent in order to make a claim for yourself. Talk to your local Greek consulate to see if that is a possibility for you.

Best of luck!