Very often the question arises whether descendants of Swiss emigrants to the USA or other countries still retain Swiss citizenship. Swiss abroad (in German: Auslandschweizer) still have rights in Switzerland.
The Organization for the Swiss abroad (OSA)
Swiss living abroad, if properly registered, may even vote on federal affairs at their embassy. The following text was copied from the Switzerland - Genealogy mail list. It explains certain aspects.
The text copied over from Switzerland Genealogy mail list Nov. 8, 1997:
"I just had a phone with the EDA (Eidgenössisches
Departement für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten ...Foreign
Affairs...). The words of one of the Great Manitous slaves are:
The limit of age 22 is correct. If the Swiss emigrants of the
first generation (they are Swiss natives) fulfill their
<duties> (i.e. to register their children before age 22) at
the Swiss Embassies, Consulates or at their own Bürgerort, these
children (the 2nd generation) become Swiss citizens as their
parents are. If this second generation fulfills its <duty>
.... a third generation of Swiss citizens is generated.
The game continues without any <legal> end! Finally by some
law of sampling distribution and multiplicative combination (the
thing you never got at school ;-)) all people around the world
could be Swiss. But the <real life> operates the other way!
Duties are not everbodys pastimes ... So the Swiss population
still holds at 7 millions.
Hope this helps
Klaus-F. Augustiny, e-mail: augustiny@pupk.unibe.ch
Switzerland"
http://www.revue.ch/Englisch/05-97/officialnews/municip/municip.htm
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