What defines nationality?

Question:

What defines nationality?

Does it come from where your parents, grand parents, g grand parents, gg grand parents, and etc. were born? If that's the case, shouldn't everyone is every race since their ancestry was born on every place on earth except antarctica. and since they everyone has the same ancestry, wouldn't it make them very long lost sibblings that have the same nationality as some other guy down the street? Or where you were born and that's all?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I'm not sure where some of the misconceptions come from, but your nationality is a purely legal thing and is defined by the country to whom you hold allegiance (not always citizenship, but most often it is). If you were born in the United States but now live in London, but never gave up your citizenship, you are an American national. If you get in trouble you are fully entitled to the full aid and assistance of the American Embassy in England or anywhere else in the world.

It gets a little trickier in commonwealth and colonial lands. If you were born in Puerto Rico, but your parents were American, you are not a Puerto Rican, you are an American national. If you are a Puerto Rican living in Puerto Rico, you are Puerto Rican and don't have to pay taxes. You have most of the rights of American citizens, but you can't vote for representation in Washington. But if you are that same Puerto Rican and move to Chicago you are an American citizen, get to vote, have to pay taxes. If you want to leave to travel to Europe you would be issued an American passport. America is responsible for you in any country to which you travel.

If you want the short answer to how to think of it, your nationality is the one for which you would be issued a passport to travel to another country. If you give up your citizenship in one country to become a citizen of another country, your nationality does change. Sorry to everyone who disagrees with me, but this is a basic tenet of International law. It's also not universally true that your nationality is defined by where you live when you're born. If your father is Indian and your mother British and you're born in Pakistan, you are NOT a Pakistani citizen nor are you a Pakistani national. One of your parents has to apply to add you to his or her passport. Whichever one does so has to fill out documents of international birth for that country to recognize you as a citizen...that's not automatic, either. India doesn't allow dual citizenship, so if your mother applies to make you a British subject YOU ARE BRITISH. You'll have "Indian heritage" but there's no way that India would recognize you as an Indian national. Pakistan is also strict about citizenship and (unlike America) the simple act of being born in that country is irrelevent to your nationality or citizenship. Many other countries are like that, as well. If your parents were American citizens, born here in 1920 but they went to Poland and you were born there after the war and never allowed to leave the country, you are not an American citizen and American is not your nationality. There are laws that if you are a foreign born person and want to have American citizenship extended because of your parents, then you have to return to the US within a certain number of years or the right expires.

Anyway, the long and short of it is don't confuse ethnic heritage (a genetic thing) with nationality (a very legal thing).