The State Department form DS-4079 supposedly has a “15 minute average response burden.”

That’s probably true if you’re renouncing, because most of the questions on that form are irrelevant to your case. If, on the other hand, you’re relinquishing based on a decades-old expatriating act (typically becoming a citizen of another country, or an employee of a foreign government, or enlisting in the armed forces of another country, all voluntarily and with intent to relinquish US citizenship), that time estimate is outrageously low, given what documentation they ask for.

Among the things they ask for is the wording of oaths of allegiance you took. My wife and I both swore oaths of allegiance upon starting employment in the Government of Canada in the 1970s, and we’re both certain the wording including allegiance to the Queen and her heirs and successors (as does the citizenship oath). The wording of the current oath of office in the federal government at most levels no longer says anything about the Queen, they changed the wording somewhere along the way. We’re trying to track down the 1970s wording to confirm our recollection, because the current wording is pretty innocuous compared with swearing fealty to an hereditary monarch, especially in US eyes (at least from the 1776 perspective!).

After some digging and phone calls to the Public Service Commission, which as it happens was where we both (never having met until years later) started our employment in the federal government, to get the original wording we’ve been advised to contact Library and Archives Canada, where hopefully this wording has been archived. PSC no longer keeps the wording of old oaths, which are of only historical or (in obvious cases today) legal value.

So don’t waste your time trying to contact PSC or your original federal employer, if you were a fed decades ago and are citing that as an additional expatriating act on your DS-4079. Contact Library and Archives Canada instead, telephone or go to their website, to find the wording of the oath you actually took, which very likely is NOT the oath they use today and what you’ll find via Google. And don’t trust Wikipedia on this stuff – get the official version from the official custodian of the information, our Archives which your taxes paid for and from which you are entitled to service.

Good luck getting even that one bit of info, never mind all the other intrusive details State wants from you, in 15 minutes! Someone must have dreamed that up or drawn it out of a hat without trying to fill out the form themselves ...

Other posts on this thread should ideally only related to specifics of what/how to complete DS-4079 or where to track years-old information you might need. Please post other matters on a different thread – too many threads are now wandering all over the place like lost sheep , and it makes it really hard to keep track of posts and topics especially for those of us who have very specific concerns. Please keep your posts on this thread to the topic ("Request for Determination of Possible Loss of US Citizenship" DS-4079)

Thanks. And happy holidays to everyone!

If it's useful to anyone, the CF enrolment oath can be found here.

This is the oath up to and including 1971 ...the first sentence was taken out in 1973.

I HEREBY RENOUNCE ALL ALLEGIANCE AND FIDELITY TO ANY FOREIGN SOVEREIGN OR STATE OF WHOM OR WHICH I MAY AT THIS TIME BE A SUBJECT OR CITIZEN.

I SWEAR THAT I WILL BE FAITHFUL AND BEAR TRUE ALLEGIANCE TO HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH THE SECOND, HER HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS, ACCORDING TO LAW, AND THAT I WILL FAITHFULLY OBSERVE THE LAWS OF CANADA AND FULFIL MY DUTIES AS A CANADIAN CITIZEN SO HELP ME GOD..

This is the citizenship oath that was used up until 1973, as Baird says.

There is a separate oath that used to be taken by all public servants on entering the federal public service, though I understand from a couple of web searches that now only certain categories of public servants take an oath. I definitely took one in 1976 as did my wife in 1978, and we're both pretty sure it mentioned the Queen. However I can't find it on the Internet, hence the query to Library and Archives Canada.

Thanks for the citizenship oath wording. I think that too changed recently, I believe the "so help me God" part has been modified to accommodate people who don't want to use that particular wording for religious/non-religious reasons.