Dual citizenship helps Owatonna native with post-wedding plans

Dual citizenship isn’t something that Charlotte Vaillancourt thought about, but when the opportunity presented itself, she took it.
Vaillancourt, who now lives in Montana, her mother, Nancy, who is the director of the Blooming Prairie library, and her brother, Alexander are now citizens of both the United States of America and the country of Luxembourg.
Vaillancourt said her dual citizenship will be extremely helpful.
“My fiancé is French and, this has been very helpful in solving the problem of how I can legally live and work in France without waiting under certain time restrictions that they would have imposed if we would have just gotten married,” Vaillancourt said.
Vaillancourt said the process began when her mother was having a conversation about whether she had Luxembourg descendants. When she confirmed she did, she was informed of a program in Luxembourg that allows citizenship to those with descendants who had left the country before 1900.
Charlotte Vaillancourt’s great-great-grandfather, Nicholas Biwer, had left Luxembourg to come to the United States at the age of nine, moving to Wisconsin before eventually living his later years in Oregon. While alive, he fought in the Civil War as a part of the Union.
With this discovery, the family decided to pursue citizenship.
Charlotte said the process was long, but said that an introduction to Kevin Wester, who is sanctioned by the Luxembourg government to assist with this process, provided a lot of help.
“We met with Kevin, and discovered because it was only males until my mom and, I was born after 1969, we only had to do a certain part of the application because of how their (Luxembourg’s) laws were written,” Charlotte said. “We had to submit birth, death, and marriage records from my great-great grandfather down through me. Kevin reviewed everything and, made sure everything was in order, provided assistance as needed, and in October 2018, he sent it off to Luxembourg.”
In December 2020,  the Vaillancourts received confirmation that their citizenship had gone through.
While the wait was long, Charlotte said the process would have been more complicated if her great-great-grandfather had been a woman. In that case, the family would have had to travel to Luxembourg to provide police reports and additional documentation.
However, she said, that the pandemic is slowing the passport process.
“The offices are not open very often anymore and it will be at least May or June before we are given our appointment times for our passports and ID cards,” Charlotte said.
She also said she and her mother are planning to travel to Luxembourg once they can get their passports.
As a Luxembourg citizen, Charlotte said, that in addition to her upcoming marriage she is looking forward traveling easier and, potentially continuing her education in Europe.
 
 
 
Photo: Charlotte Vaillancourt recently became a citizen of Luxembourg, a small European country surrounded by Belgium, France and Germany.