In many cases, hopefully, most cases, you should have little or no problem acquiring your birth certificate from the state in which it was issued. It will probably arrive with a raised seal and may be referred to as "certified", but it will still need "the great seal of the state" before being authenticated. Sometimes, these cases can be a little more confusing, so we just wanted to provide a little more detail on how to handle these situations.

As mentioned in the Tips section, if you were born in another state or country, it is a good idea to start early on the request for your birth certificate.

Remember that "certified" birth certificates, as described above must be certified again with the great seal of the state by the state in which they originated.  They are among the docs you will receive with a basic level of state certification (they will have the raised seal of the state from which they originated on them). Birth certificates, marriage certificates and divorce decrees are the most common documents that come this way. Because they are already state certified, these documents do not need to be notarized. In essence, they have already bypassed the notary level. If you have any questions at all, or are unsure if this affects any of your documents, contact World Child.

If you have to get a birth certificate from a country other than the US, ideally, it should be authenticated through the Chinese Embassy or Consulate having jurisdiction over that country. However, this is not always possible and can be quite complicated.

Instead, you may obtain a copy of your birth certificate in the original language and have a translation made into English. These two documents should each have a notarized letter attached, stating that they are true and original copies and signed by the person they refer to. They can then be certified and authenticated as one document. This follows the same procedure as other documents without a "live signature.

If obtaining a birth certificate from another country is not possible, a second method is to make a copy of the photo and signature pages of your passport, add the cover letter to these as above, and then continue through the notarization, certification and authentication stages.

Note: Although this page is referring to birth certificates, you may face a very similar situation if you were married, divorced, or had a spouse who died in another country. Again, if this applies to you, and you are at all unsure as to how to proceed, or, you run into any problems, please contact World Child.