Which paragraph applies to each generation of your family?
Canadian citizenship by descent is not simply a question of whether you descend from a Canadian. IRCC classifies every generation under a specific paragraph of section 3 of the Citizenship Act, and each generation's answer depends on the one before it. c3check follows that chain and shows its reasoning at every step.
Check your own line
Start with yourself and work back a generation at a time. Free, no account, and your names and dates never leave this browser.
Check a family lineHow it works
Start with yourself
Your birth date and where you were born. Or upload a GEDCOM file (optional) to speed things along. Nothing else to begin with.
Work back one generation at a time
Your parent, then theirs. The app will ask the right questions to help you discover the C3 status that applies to each generation. We stop as soon as we reach an ancestor born in Canada.
Answer only what matters
Most questions never get asked. You only see the ones that can change your answer, and each explains why it is being asked.
Get a table you can act on
Every relative, the paragraph that applies to them, when their citizenship took effect, and why, plus the documents to chase if something is still unknown.
Where this is uncertain, it says so
Parts of the guidance behind these rules are withheld from public release, and IRCC has paused processing on some categories of claim. Where an answer turns on a point nobody can currently resolve, c3check flags the row rather than guessing. Rules are encoded against the Citizenship Act as amended 15 December 2025.
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