NY consulate Appointment Next week

[MST995]

Hello everyone, It has been a while since I've posted here, but that time is soon upon and I'm afraid I've procrastinated a bit. My appointment is next Tuesday. I went to the NYC office this morning for my Apostilles and everything went smoothly with one exception.... I got my parents marriage certificate from the town and it is certified by the town clerk, but it has to be certified by a county clerk in order for the Secretary of State to be able to give me an apostille. I ordered it on vital check last night praying that it will arrive at my parents house by saturday... I know its a long shot. I have someone working on the translations and they will be finished by sunday night. Other than the issue of my parents' marriage certificate, I also happened to notice on the train this morning that my Great Grandfather's birth year is one year off on his marriage certificate (1899 instead of 1898). From what I've heard on this board, the consulate will not over look this and most likely require me to amend the marriage certificate of my great grandparents... does anyone know how difficult this will be and what the process is? Should I just reschedule my appointment or go and see what happens?.... sorry for the long winded post

[johnnyonthespot]

Worst case, bring the non-apostiled copy to your appointment. If everything else is good to go, you will be given an opportunity to mail in (or drop off) the correct document as soon as you receive it.

If there are other issues (with NYC, there usually are...), then no harm done.

I wouldn't worry too much over the one year difference on the marriage certificate, especially if it is exactly one year to the day. NYC cut me some slack over a date issue in two of my grandfather's documents, however that was nearly 3 years ago.

[MST995]

That puts me at ease a bit, yes it is exactly 1 year to the day.... and I believe that is my only discrepency, and just to be clear, no apostille or translation is necessary for the naturalization records.... correct? Thanks for the quick response and all of your help along the way, Carmine. I'll report back after my appointment with details.

[johnnyonthespot]

... and just to be clear, no apostille or translation is necessary for the naturalization records.... correct?

That was the case when I submitted and, last I heard, it is still the case.

[rgaetano]

what state is your GGF marriage certificate from? If it is a NYS document, it is easy to fix (i'm only familiar with doing this for NYS). I'm in the process of doing amending my GGF marriage, and I've been told to expect my amended documents in a week. I'd say you can do the whole process in maybe 2 to 3 weeks depending on how fast you can get these things together (The Albany side of things moves pretty fast) see this post for more (http://italiangenealogy.tardio.com/Foru ... rt=15.html)

Request to amend marriage in NYS:
1. Affidavit for Correction of Marriage Record completed, signed and notarized. (Marriage Correction Affidavit New DOH-1827)
2. Affidavit to Request Certified Copy of Marriage Certificate completed, signed and notarized. (Affidavit to obtain marr (VR-255))
3. Supporting documentation such as a birth record of the bride or groom to correct any birth related items or bride/grooms parent’s names. (And a Certified English translation if not in English)
4. Bride and Groom’s death certificates (photocopies)
o If you wish to obtain a certified copy of the corrected/annotated marriage record there is a $10.00 fee for the first
record, each additional record is $30.00. Make check or money order payable to NY State Dept of Health.

good luck! i'm interested to hear how it goes as i have my appointment in nyc in about 2 months.

[MST995]

Hey, thanks guys!
Rgaetano, yes they were married in NY outside the five boroughs... thanks for the details on the process! I'm hoping that they'll let it slide, but if not, at least all is not lost. Thanks a bunch!

Also if anyone on the forum is wondering about the process for getting the Apostille in person down at 123 William st. in manhattan.... It was extremely easy, the workers are very quick and helpful. When I walked in there were over 30 people there for apostilles so at first I thought I was in trouble, but they really streamlined the process (surprising for the government!) and it took about 30 mintes from when I walked in to when I walked out.... and I had 9 documents done.

[rgaetano]

glad to hear NYC apostille is quick. Does anyone know if you can get NYS documents apostilled at both the Albany and Manhattan location?

Also, I seem to remember some "6 month" detail about how long an apostille can be given since the original certification, but I can't find anything about it now. Is there such a rule? I hope not because some of my documents are already 6 months old without apostilles.

[sceaminmonkey]

Where is your great grandfathers birth certificate from?

[MST995]

@Rgaetano- I assume you could get NYS documents apostilled at either, I'm certain you can get NYS docs apostilled in NYC because I just had 9 of them done, all NYS.
As far as the 6 month rule, the date on my certifications is July 27, 2010... so it has been more than 6 months and I was still able to get an apostille.

@sceaminmonkey- My GGF birth cert I obtained from his comune in Italy

[rgaetano]

Thanks, MTST995. That makes me more at ease with the apostilles. If you can't get the marriage certificated amended in time, another thing you may want to try is to get a notarized affidavit (I would go with both an Italian and US version,) explaining that the year is off by exactly one year. Everyone on this forum says that the affidavits don't work, but it is better than nothing and shows you tried to address the problem. Perhaps it will work for a small difference if you have no others.

It doesn't seem be true (because it seems like they want everything to be amended) but the NYC consulate website states:

"If there are too significant differences in the certificates, please provide an official statement from a Court Judge or a Vital Statistic Officer asserting the true and correct information."

Therefore, if you can convince the clerk, you may also want to try just getting a certified letter from them saying that the year is off. I plan to do something like this for a small spelling discrepancy that I won't be able to amend in time (thanks to court order)