# CNF application, missing birth certificates



## 00m3 (Sep 27, 2021)

If anyone is familiar with the process of getting a CNF from descent, please see below.

I am applying for a CNF (certificat de nationalité française) and having read the form, I believe I have nearly everything I need.
My father is registered with the French consulate in London, and is French by filiation from my grandmother, who was born in France to two French parents.
I have collected my father's, grandmother's and great grandfather's French birth certificates, along with the livret de famille of my French grandmother detailing her marriage to my grandfather and the birth of my father. 
I also have the marriage certificates of my grandmother and her parents.

The form states:


> For the first French ascendent:
> ...
> *If this ascendent* was born French by double ground right:*
> 
> ...


In this case the first ascendant would be my grandmother, and I have been able to find her father's birth certificate. 
However, I could not find the birth certificate of her mother, and doing so would be difficult.

As well as this, my own mother was born in Uganda, where record keeping around the time of her birth was extremely poor, and she never received a birth certificate.
This could also be attributed to the civil war in the country at the time.

Is it possible that with all this evidence provided, they will overlook the missing birth certificates?


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

Somehow there are always limits to the document scavenger hunt you wind up doing for just about any French administrative function. What you can often do in these cases is to try and think like a "civil servant" and see if you can come up with any sort of document that shows whatever it is they are trying to "prove" in the process you are going through. For birth certificates, you can sometimes use school or church certificates that give the information being sought. It's not a guarantee, but try to provide something that shows the same (or "much the same") information. 

Or, like with your mother being born in Uganda, you may want to contact the Ugandan Embassy to see if they can suggest anything - or at least confirm the state of record keeping in the country at the time. Sometimes you have to get a little "creative" with these requests. But the key thing is to show your "good will" by trying to think in terms of what the officials need to know.


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