I think usually the sovereignty must be handed down through an unbroken chain. This is how monarchy and dynasty worked. Once the chain was broken, then you have a new sovereign entity. I think this is how citizenship works in most countries.

In modernity we have different notions of justice where it becomes meaningful to claim that a chain of sovereignty was unjustly broken from one group of people and handed to another. If this were the case, you might have claims in Europe in some people’s eyes.

Whether this is the actual case or not, parental lineage is a major force that justifies claims of sovereignty in the American legal system and elsewhere.