to press their claims for Bermudian status.

One of the women, Mrs. Nancy Barcelow of Vermont, says she is a direct descendant of Mr. Christopher Carter, who arrived in Bermuda aboard the Sea Venture in 1609.

Mrs. Barcelow's great uncle was Bermuda Journey author W.E.S. Zuill, whose lineage goes back to the wreck of the Sea Venture . But because she was born off the Island of a Bermudian mother and non-Bermudian father prior to 1956, she has been denied Bermudian status.

Along with Mrs. Betsy Dix of England, Mrs. Barcelow, 41, has put her name forward to the Human Rights Commission as a test case.

The women are challenging 1956 as the cut-off date for an amendment to the Immigration and Protection Act passed last year. The case was to go before the commission yesterday.

Government said the Immigration and Protection Amendment Act 1994 removed a major inequity in the way Bermudian men and women were treated under the law.

Until then, Bermudian men who fathered children overseas could pass on their status to their children. But Bermudian women could not.

Mrs. Dix was born in the United States of a Bermudian mother. But the amendment did not make her Bermudian, since she was born in 1942. The 1994 amendment only dealt with children of Bermudians born since 1956 -- the year the Immigration and Protection Act was passed.

"It's an extreme double standard,'' Mrs. Dix told The Royal Gazette . Mrs.

Barcelow's situation is similar, though her family lineage makes her case more compelling. "How can you get more Bermudian?'' she asked.

Born in the United States in 1953, Mrs. Barcelow is the granddaughter of Mrs.

Lilla Zuill (nee Frith) and Mr. Alan James Zuill, the brother of W.E.S. Zuill.

Her mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Beardwood (nee Zuill), is now 70 and living in Texas with her American husband Mr. Gordon Beardwood.

Both Mrs. Barcelow's brother, 30-year-old Dr. Gordon Beardwood of Massachusetts, and her sister, 35-year-old Miss Norma Beardwood of Texas, received their status due to last year's amendment.

"Somehow in the bottom of my heart, it seems to me that Bermuda is going to have to come to terms with sexual discrimination prior to 1956, just as they came to terms with discrimination after 1956,'' she said.

Mrs. Barcelow, a registered dietician, is married to optomestrist Dr. Jerry Barcelow and has two children. She said she spent a lot of time in Bermuda over the years and considers the Island home.

Her grandmother would like to leave her property in Bermuda to Mrs. Barcelow's children, her only heirs, she said. But due to the status situation, she feels she cannot.

Canon James Francis, the chairman of the Human Rights Commission, said all cases were confidential and he could not confirm the complaints had been received.

Meanwhile, officials are said to be preparing a report for Labour and Home Affairs Minister the Hon. Irving Pearman on the "double standard.'' Mrs. Dix is the sister of Bermuda building expert Mr. Sanders Frith Brown. Her mother was Bermudian Mrs. Lucy Hutchings Frith Brown, who died last year. Her father was American Mr. Warren Moen Brown, who died in 1968. The couple divorced in 1952.

She noted that children of her mother's brother, the late Mr. Alexander Frith, were deemed to be Bermudian.