Aussie adoptee gains Swiss citizenship at 54 thanks to old envelope

For decades, Swiss authorities wrongly denied her citizenship. But Cate Riley, daughter of Swiss parents and adopted by an Australian couple, finally won her Swiss citizenship. She had almost given up. But now, Australian Cate Riley's long fight now has a happy ending. The Administrative Court of the Canton of Zurich has granted her the right to Swiss citizenship. "I have to pinch myself to believe it," says Riley on the phone from Australia. But what happened? Riley’s story began in Sydney in 1970, where she was born to Swiss parents and given the name Margrith. She was conceived during the short-lived relationship between her biological parents, at a time when authorities were urging unmarried women to give up their children for adoption. The practice was booming in Australia at the time – there were 10,000 adoptions in 1970 alone, and societal pressures were denying women the ability to care for their children alone. Her birth mother, who was a Swiss woman living on her own in ...