First off, I want to thank folks for all the excellent information here as it has already helped me immensely in my research on getting my UK citizenship.

That said, I have a quick question for the experts here. I believe I have a straightforward claim to UK citizenship but I am not sure whether to go via UKM or ARD. To give the background. My mother was a UK citizen by birth (born in England in 1943 to British parents). She met my father a US citizen working in the UK in the 1960s and they got married in the UK. I was born in 1969 in the USA. My mother eventually became a naturalized US citizen some years after my birth but never renounced her UK citizenship. She actually tried to register my birth with the British Embassy in Washington, DC (where we resided at the time) back in 1970 and was surprised when she found out British women couldn’t pass on citizenship at that time.

I have wanted to get UK citizenship for the last couple of decades (once the pathway became available circa 2002) but due to my employment was unable to do so until I recently retired. Ideally, I would like to find a path for my daughter (aged 21 and born in 2004 in USA) to have a path to UK citizenship as well. The advantage of form ARD as I understand it is if you have minor children, it also provides a pathway for them (since it is UK citizenship not by descent). However, it doesn’t seem clear it offers any advantage to children who are 18 and over (in fact all evidence I can find is it does not). So, my question is, is there any reason for me to go the ARD route? Basically, at my age I don’t plan on having any more children and my only interest beyond myself getting UK citizenship would be to get my daughter a pathway as well so I don’t want to close any doors for her by going down the wrong process/form. Cost/complexity is a non-issue if there is an advantage but if there is not then I might as well go with UKM for simplicity. From everything I have researched since my daughter is past 18 and neither of us has spent three consecutive years in the UK (though I have actually spent more than that there just not consecutively) there is probably no advantage to the Form ARD.

Am I missing anything?

No, you’ve got it. Which form you choose now makes no difference to your daughter. As she was born after 1987 then it’s unlikely that there is a route for her.

Thank you so much for this response and you other responses in this forum which helped a lot with my research. I'll move forward via UKM then.

Just to follow up on this, can I assume you didn't spend three consecutive years living in the UK before your daughter was born?

Hey, hey sorry for delay got side tracked on other things. You are correct. I was not in the UK for 3 consecutive years at any point. My father was a US diplomat assigned to various posts in the Europe so for my entire childhood we would visit my mom's family in the UK vs going all the way back to the US. So I probably have three years in the UK prior to daughter's birth but not consecutive (more like two months here, one month there).

I moved ahead with UKM online and interestingly (perhaps this is not news) you now appear to be able to just upload scans of your supporting documentation (via VFS) which is much nicer than dealing with sending documents. You also can set up your biometrics immediately upon submission of UKM electronic version.

Okay, good to know. I didn't want to have sent you down the wrong path!

One more reason to go with Form UKM as Form ARD is only a paper form for the time being.