How to obtain certificates and references from the archives of the Civil Registry Office in your home country while in the USA

Moving and even living for decades in another country does not guarantee that at some point you will not need some kind of certificate or reference from your homeland. And then the difficult quest of "getting a document from the archive from the registry office" begins. If the identification data is available (full name, date and place of birth, death, marriage, etc.), duplicate certificates of registration of civil status acts or references (extracts from act records) are issued.

Photo: Oksana Abramova | Dreamstime.com

Why might certificates and references from the registry office archives be needed?

The civil registry offices contain information about:

• birth;
• marriage;
• divorce;
• change of surname, first name, patronymic;
• of death.

In some cases, contacting the civil registry office helps to establish the applicant's place of residence on the date of the registration record, as well as his place of work, education, the names of his parents, children, spouse.

With the help of the answers from the civil registry offices, you can compile a family tree, conduct historical and genealogical research, find a person and his relatives, and find out the burial place.

Archival responses from civil registry offices help people not only to learn their roots, but also to take advantage of immigration programs in various countries, as well as to move to permanent residence in other countries and/or obtain foreign citizenship (for example, to move to Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship based on the nationality of their great-grandmother; one can become a citizen of Romania, Latvia, and so on).

The registers of Orthodox churches, Roman Catholic churches and state rabbinates must be sought in archives.

Who can receive documents from the Civil Registry Office?

The information contained in civil records is not publicly available. The laws of most jurisdictions limit who can obtain such records.

A duplicate certificate of state registration of a civil status act and other documents confirming the presence or absence of the fact of state registration of a civil status act are issued:

• the person in respect of whom the civil status record was drawn up;
• to a relative of the deceased or another interested party if the person in respect of whom the act record was previously drawn up has died;
• parents of minor children are issued a duplicate birth certificate;
• parents of persons over 18 years of age are issued an extract from the birth certificate;
• a representative on the basis of a notarized power of attorney (including on the basis of a power of attorney issued abroad, subject to the requirements for the legalization of foreign documents);
• An unmarried person, at his request, is issued a document on the absence of the fact of state registration of marriage on the basis of information contained in the Unified State Register of Civil Status Acts.

In some cases, instead of a duplicate certificate of state registration of a particular act, a document replacing it is issued. In particular, a marriage certificate is not issued after its dissolution. Instead, a certificate of the established form/extract from the act record is provided, confirming the fact of the marriage in the past.

Parents of a person who has reached the age of 18 are not able to obtain a duplicate birth certificate, but they can obtain a birth certificate, which is an alternative to a birth certificate in cases where it is impossible to obtain one (the most common reasons are the residence of an adult son or daughter in another country or the absence of a relationship between parent and child).

A duplicate birth certificate is not issued after the death of the person. In this case, relatives will also receive a certificate confirming the fact of birth. In Ukraine, for example, a certificate of divorce is not issued if it was dissolved after 2010. In this case, proof of divorce is a court decision with a note on entry into legal force.

But the most unexpected news came from Belarus in 2023. After the presidential decree No. 278, many actions cannot be performed from abroad. All documents from the civil registry offices, except for death certificates and certificates, are banned. But there is an exception to every rule, sometimes more than one. Firstly, the restrictions apply only to citizens of the Republic of Belarus, and if the applicant has a passport of another country, this will allow him to obtain any document without any problems. But that's not all. Many immigration procedures require the presentation of a birth certificate, which a citizen of the Republic of Belarus will not be able to obtain remotely from the civil registry offices of the Republic of Belarus. However, this in no way means hopelessness, because the law still allows the parents of an adult to obtain a certificate of his birth, and this certificate, issued by the civil registry offices, is an absolutely legitimate alternative to a birth certificate.

When entering into marriage, the legislation of many countries requires the provision of a document confirming the absence of the fact of state registration of marriage in the homeland. Such a certificate can be obtained by proxy in almost any jurisdiction, except, perhaps, the Republic of Belarus, where the remote issuance of such certificates is limited by the above-mentioned presidential decree. An alternative to such a certificate for the Republic of Belarus will be a handwritten affidavit of the applicant, certified by a notary, about the absence of a registered marriage.

Karina Duval. Photos from the personal archive

Features of obtaining documents from the Civil Registry Office

When receiving duplicate documents from the civil registry office, it is necessary to present an identity document of the applicant and documents confirming the right to receive the relevant document.

The record of the act contains information about the citizen's personal data, the distribution and (or) provision of which is limited. In this regard, duplicate documents from the Civil Registry Office are not sent to applicants by mail either within the country or abroad.

The validity period of documents issued by civil registry offices is usually unlimited. The exception is certificates issued in the Republic of Belarus, the validity period of which is one year.

The validity of a civil registry document can be limited by the body to which the document was originally requested. For example, Costa Rica's immigration authorities require that civil registry certificates be no more than six months old. It is impossible to understand the logic of this, because if a person was born, say, in 1973, this fact remains unchanged both after 6 months and after 100 years. But the fact remains - they want to see any certificate as fresh.

Our office helps to obtain any documents from civil registry offices from almost any jurisdiction - be it the USA, Canada, Australia, Europe or the countries of the former USSR. Experience and knowledge allow us to solve almost any problem with the search and restoration of documents of any complexity and age. We work to make your life easier, and the passage of legal and administrative procedures - painless.

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