Just wanted to ask whether they have an official presentation night in the State offices for all new Swiss?

Someone else will have to answer that question. When I received my confirmation, I was over a thousand miles away from the nearest 'State office' — and I wasn't invited to an 'official presentation' anyway. (It was really quite enough for me to receive official notice in the mail. )

Congrats!

I didn't have an invitation to anything like that. I was naturalized in Basel, but my heimatort is in Zurich. It was rather odd - one day a letter with an expensive price tag arrives in the post and suddenly, you're a citizen!

AFAIk there is an Einbürgerungsfeier for new citizens once or twice a year. You'd have to ask the city for details.

Yes it was the same with me. But my friend thought that they later do an official presentation.

Congratulations!

Hello,

Congratulations on your Swiss naturalization. It seems my situation is similar to yours, so perhaps you could help me out with a couple of things. I have a Swiss grandmother and am intending to apply for naturalization.

1. Had you visited Switzerland several times before applying?
2. Why did you go through a facilitated, rather than a simplified, naturalization process? Do you know if this is the case for all people with Swiss ancestry?
3. Was the interview at the beginning of the process?

Any other information you have would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Swissroots

Im Australian and living here for 17 years. Married to a Swiss. Therefore it was a facilitated naturalization. That's the easiest. Don't know if this is the case if your ancestry was Swiss.Depends probably on how recent.
The interview was towards the end of the application. After that it's more or less smooth going. Read my other posts etc on getting naturalized.

They did not contact any of the people that I gave as contacts.

I have been Swiss for almost three years now, and so have been my children. About six months ago my wife of almost sixteen years declared she would like to take a shot at it as well; as the wife of a Swiss national for more than six years, she can choose to go through exactly the same process of facilitated naturalization, with exactly the same requirements that I had.

My wife prepared for several months for the interview, which took place about three weeks ago. Here is a summary of that:

• She was interviewed by the same lady who interviewed me four years ago. This was a plus, because she knows me and allowed me to be present during the interview (although I promised I would not open my mouth).
• My wife answered a few generic questions about Switzerland (capital, size, population). There was one particular thing she (and I) missed: the lady wanted to know how many lakes we thought there were in Switzerland. My wife misunderstood the question for how many lakes she remembered the names for, and answered "three or four"; I thought to myself "there must be about one hundred", but the lady triumphantly declared "there are about three thousand lakes in Switzerland". This surprised us both; I guess it all depends on what you count as a lake...
• The wife acknowledged to be very nervous about the language requirement, so the lady suggested to go through that right away. They chatted for five minutes in French (how do you know French? how often do you speak it? do you use it to communicate with your family?), the lady declared her level to be intermediate (to my wife's surprise, who was expecting to be placed at the lower level or even be kicked out of the room ) and they switched back to Spanish for the rest of the interview.
• The interview moved onto the history of Switzerland; my wife was asked to give a broad summary, which she did (VERY broadly). The lady asked a couple of specific questions (what were those three original cantons? what role did Napoleon have?), which went well. At one point my wife mentioned Calvin living in Geneva and the lady asked her about "another important reformer who was born in Switzerland". This was surprising to me because I didn't think she would be required to know about Zwingli, which she didn't (and so admitted).
• Then they went into Swiss government and politics, the section gone into the deepest level of detail. I knew this would be the case, so I had coached the wife particularly well in this; she passed with flying colors, if you don't mind me saying so.
• After 90 minutes, the lady declared everything to be fine (including the official documents we had to present), we paid the fees (around 700 CHF) and her folder was dispatched to Bern three days later.

During the chitchat I got a valuable piece of information: the lady mentioned that this interview at the local country of the applicant is the initial filter in the process, but its level of importance varies from country to country. She said that in Chile, about 95% of the cases she did allow to proceed to Bern were successful, and that she even argued and turned around some of the negative cases within the other 5%. But in other countries she mentioned a rate of 50% success. I suspect (but of course she didn't mention it and I didn't ask) in those countries they would rather get the 700 CHF paid, even if they don't see much chance of success for the applicant.

That's about it. We are now waiting to be notified by our Swiss friends residing in Switzerland that they have been contacted by the government in relation to my wife's application. My previous experience makes me expect this to happen around October 2012.

Hope this helps someone else. Best regards.

Received my 765fr letter this morning. Total time 9 months for the whole process.

Congratulations Miss Schweiz ( or Mrs? ). About the same time for me.

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Well finally got my Swiss Biometric Passport

Enjoy! ....

Great! How much did you pay for it? How long does it last? How long did it take from the time you applied till the time you got it?

Well the pass and ID cost 148 CHF-took 9 months. I dont know how long valid guess 10 years.

Had my interview today, lasted about 40 minutes at the police station. Seemed to go ok, I was just asked personal details:
Previous address
Why and when we moved
Date of marriage
Husband's job, does he live at same address
Did we have children, what is their Heimatort
Where and when were they born and do they live at the same address
Are they Swiss
Do I let them socialise with Swiss children
Do I have friends in the neighbourhood
What is the native language of the children
Do I have any secret children back in the UK
Do I have a job/previous employment
Then the are you in trouble with police/have debts/have I paid my taxes questions.

Now the police just have to wait for confirmation that I've paid my taxes and they'll forward the papers on... So all that reading up about Swiss history/geography/politics/random facts was a waste of time!

Today the Rechtskraftmitteilung arrived in the mail!!

Does anyone know if they'll send me a new Familienschein or do I need to call for one?