Grandchildren win century-old legal battle for family recognition
ISTANBUL

Nearly a century after three brothers immigrated from Skopje to Istanbul following their father's martyrdom in the First Balkan War, their descendants have won a legal battle to have them officially listed together in the population register, resolving a long-standing discrepancy that had hindered their family recognition.
Two brothers, Yahya Kolçinoğlu and Abdullah Kolçinoğlu, along with their mother Rabia Kolçinoğlu, moved to Türkiye after İslam Kolçinoğlu lost his life in the warfare and settled in Istanbul’s Eyüpsultan district in the 1910s. The eldest child and the family's breadwinner, Abdül Kolçinoğlu, on the other hand, arrived in Istanbul later than his relatives.
Following the establishment of the Republic of Türkiye, the population administration registered Abdül Kolçinoğlu's name in a different home and volume in the population register than his brothers.
During their lifetime, the Kolçinoğlu family did not view this as a significant issue, despite the apparent lack of brotherhood between Abdül Kolçinoğlu and his two brothers in the official documents.
As a result of having separate population registries, grandchildren of the Kolçinoğlu family filed a petition in an Istanbul court in 2021, seeking a ruling to officially acknowledge the brotherhood of Abdül, Yahya, and Abdullah.
During the nearly four-year lawsuit, the birth registration office in Eyüpsultan requested that the graves be exhumed and DNA tests be conducted to confirm the maternal connection between Abdül and his mother.
However, Judge Emrullah Özer denied the request to exhume the graves, ruling that the population records should reflect the fact that Abdül, Yahya and Abdullah were brothers born to the same mother and father.
Özer based his decision on the fact that Abdül’s mother is listed as Rabia and his father as Islam in all civil, military and commercial records, and that he is buried in the same cemetery as his mother. In his ruling, he also emphasized that the state unquestionably holds the duty and responsibility in this matter.