A 90-year-old central New York woman has been officially sworn in as a U.S. citizen -- 86 years after she emigrated from Europe.

The Post-Standard of Syracuse reports Anne Zajac of Liverpool was nearly four years old when she arrived in the U.S. from Poland. A clerical error on her parents' citizenship application meant that she wasn't a documented American citizen.

Zajac didn't find that out until last November, when she tried to file paperwork to receive her deceased husband's social security benefits.

When no record of her citizenship was found, her son turned to a local congressman for help. His office helped locate her parents' 1935 application and the error was corrected.

On Thursday afternoon, a government official gave the oath of citizenship to Zajac in her home outside Syracuse as her family looked on.