5. David Skene-Melvin, Toronto, Canada: In 1962, my widowed mother was forced to renounce her USA citizenship. Born Rye, New York, 1900, married St Louis, Michigan, 1931, she had lived her married life in Canada. In 1962, having come out of graduate school and with a steady job, I offered to take her to England to visit her immediate younger sister, British by marriage. The USA refused her a passport because, although she was, most definitely, a US citizen, she had not lived in the USA for 18 years. Although British by marriage, she deliberately took the route to formally renouncing her US citizenship, applied for and received a Canadian passport, and I took her to the UK for a happy two months to reconnect with her sister and visit her husband's (my father's) family.

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