Koland, by all accounts, is eligible to become a U.S. citizen. His father was born in Iowa and his mother is from British Columbia. Koland’s wife, Martha, is a U.S. citizen, as are his five children.
Proving citizenship through his father is supposed to be the quickest route, but that has been tricky. His father died in 1984. Koland can’t find his father’s birth certificate. His mother has Alzheimer’s disease and can’t remember anything.
Koland also has been searching for his parents’ marriage license. What he has is a yellowed photograph of a handsome man in a suit and wire-rimmed glasses, standing close to a dark-haired bride. The photo is dated Aug. 25, 1944. The location is a mystery.
Koland contacted Chisago County, where his father grew up, but it had no record of the marriage. He tried British Columbia, but there’s no record there, either.
What I find interesting is that it took the government so long to catch this dastardly illegal.
bearing blog 