Guide
Every descent route the Portuguese state actually lists
Updated
The English-language picture of Portuguese descent claims is two routes wide. The state's own enumeration is considerably wider, and several of the headings people never hear about are the ones that fit the harder cases.
The two everybody knows
"Nascido/a no estrangeiro, filho/a de mãe/pai português à data do nascimento (por transcrição)" for a child born abroad, and "Neto/a de avó/avô português originário e possuir laços de efetiva ligação à comunidade nacional" for a grandchild.
They differ by a condition rather than by a degree of difficulty, and that condition is the connection requirement on the second one.
The broader headings
"Descendente de português originário", descendant of an original Portuguese national, is a wider category than the grandchild route and is where claims beyond that generation get tested.
"Membro de comunidade de ascendência portuguesa", member of a community of Portuguese descent, is about belonging to a community rather than about a line of descent, and it is a genuinely different kind of claim. Reading it as a further genealogical route is a common misunderstanding.
The line that runs upwards
"Ascendente de cidadão português originário", ascendant of an original Portuguese citizen, is listed alongside the others and is easy to miss because it points the other way.
It is worth knowing about in families where a younger member's position is already settled, because it is not always the eldest generation whose status is established first.
Adoption, split by a date
"Adotado/a por nacional português, após a data da entrada em vigor da Lei da Nacionalidade" and "Adotado/a por nacional português, antes da data da entrada em vigor da Lei da Nacionalidade" are two separate situations divided by whether the adoption took effect before or after the Nationality Law came into force.
So the first document to find is the adoption order, and the first fact to establish is its effective date. Everything downstream depends on which side of the line it falls.
The minor route, which expires
"Menor ou incapaz, cuja mãe/pai tenha adquirido a nacionalidade portuguesa, depois do seu nascimento" covers a minor whose parent acquired Portuguese nationality after their birth.
As worded, it is about a minor. A family in which a parent has recently naturalised should look at this before the children grow out of it, because the value of the route decays with time in a way that the descent routes do not.