German citizenship work built around law, records and evidence

Our work

A German citizenship case usually depends on two disciplines. The first is the correct reconstruction of the family line from the records: births, marriages, emigration, naturalization, consular registration. The second is the correct application of German nationality law as it stood at each moment of that history, from the act of 1870 to the provisions in force today.

Hannover brings the two together in one structure. Genealogists and case managers find and prepare the evidence; the questions of law that the evidence raises are examined within the same case, by the person responsible for them.

Hannover German Citizenship, LLC is the group's United States company. It carries out archive research, genealogical reconstruction, translation and legalization, the assembly of applications in the form the German authority requires, filing, and follow-up until the file is decided.

Fabio Werlang

Founder. Lawyer admitted in Portugal and Brazil

Fabio Werlang founded Hannover after researching his own German ancestry and obtaining confirmation of his German citizenship from the Bundesverwaltungsamt. He examines the questions of German nationality law that arise in Hannover's cases and is responsible for the legal submissions made on those issues, including objections (Widerspruch) against refusals.

Professional admissions:

• Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, Paraná Bar, no. 32.133
• Ordem dos Advogados de Portugal, Lisbon Regional Council, no. 64569L

Portugal is a member state of the European Union.

He is himself a German and Brazilian citizen.

He is also a member of the following professional associations. These are memberships, not professional admissions:

• Deutsch-Brasilianische Juristenvereinigung (DBJV), Frankfurt am Main
• Ausländischer Anwaltverein Deutschland e. V.
• International Law Commission, Brazilian Bar Association, Paraná Chapter

The team

Research, genealogy, document preparation, file assembly and follow-up are done by a team that works on German citizenship cases every day.

• 

  Fabio Werlang

  Founder. Lawyer admitted in Portugal and Brazil

  Examines the questions of German nationality law that arise in Hannover's cases and is responsible for the legal submissions made on them. The first file of this kind he ever worked on was his own.

• 

  Ana Cecília Werlang

  Director of Client Relations

  Responsible for the initial relationship with new clients, service coordination and communication throughout the early stages of a case. She works in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

• 

  Hermann Möller

  Genealogist

  Reconstructs family lines from German civil registers, parish books and emigration records, and finds the documents that prove each link.

• 

  Jaqueline Braun

  Genealogist

  Works on archive research in Germany and in the Americas, including the consular registers that often decide whether a line survived.

How the file reaches Germany

For applicants living outside Germany, German citizenship procedures of this kind are generally handled by the Bundesverwaltungsamt (BVA) in Cologne. Hannover keeps an address for service of documents in that city, so that correspondence and formal notices reach it in the country where the file is decided.

The group also serves families in Brazil and Portugal, and its Austrian citizenship work is done under a separate name.

How this started

In 2001 Fabio Werlang travelled to Germany to look for the records of his own German ancestors, in several regions of the country. With those documents, and after studying the nationality legislation from 1870 onwards, he obtained confirmation of his own German citizenship from the Bundesverwaltungsamt.

Hannover was founded in April 2015, when the demand for that kind of work turned out to be much larger than one family. The American company followed, for families in the United States.