Manitoba birth certificate, 1950.
This is the second post of the “Guide to a Passport” series. We’re still on step one of Roadmap to Citizenship, which involves proving that I’m my grandparents’ grandson. I’ve already gotten an apostille for my State of Illinios birth certificate, and given the specific instructions to do so. So I’ve proven that I’m my mother (Daiva)’s son. Now I have to prove that my mother is my grandparents (Pranas and Julija)’s daughter. And already things have gotten messy. In my previous post, I closed by writing:
The next part of this step, proving that Daiva is Pranas and Julija’s child, is more difficult. I can replicate what I did with my birth certificate, but hers was issued by the Province of Manitoba. I’m not traveling to Winnipeg to get a copy of a birth certificate and an apostille for it. Alternatively, I can try to get US documents that attest to my mother’s parentage. Luckily, that should include her naturalization certificates. So getting apostilles for those certificates will be subject of the next post in “Guide to a Passport.”
The first, most important mistake in this paragraph is assuming that a naturalization certificate would attest to parentage. None of the pictures of certificates I looked at has fields for parents. This means that I have to return to my mother’s birth certificate as the best way to prove parentage. Now if anyone chooses to follow this as a guide, this is probably the big step that diverges from the “typical” experience: my mom was born in a country that isn’t the US, isn’t a Displaced Persons camp, and isn’t Lithuania.
Manitoba birth certificate, 2009.
The other mistake was assuming that I could get an apostille for my mother’s Canadian birth certificate. This is, in fact, false. Canada did not sign the 1961 Hague convention that the US and Lithuania have, which means that I cannot get an apostille. That means the for any Canadian documents in my citizenship application, I need to get them legalized/authenticated by an office in Ottawa. My friend was able to have his Ontario birth certificate legalized by the Canadian Embassy in Vilnius, but the Canadian Consulate in Chicago told me that I would have to get my authentication done in Ottawa by the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada office.
Because my mother was born in Winnipeg, I can’t just wake up a little early and drop by to get a copy of her birth certificate on my way to work, like I could for my own here in Illinois. According to a Province of Manitoba webpage, I could get a duplicate of my mother’s birth certificate sent to me for $25. I could then send the certificate on to Ottawa for legalization. Then when I called Ottawa, they told me that most likely I would have to submit the documents to the Lithuanian Embassy in Canada, because they are best equipped to judge the veracity of Canadian documents. This would add yet another step: I write to Winnipeg, who sends the certificate to Ottawa, who sends it to the Lithuanian Embassy in Ottawa, who returns it to me. Too many chances for failure in this chain.
Luckily, however, the Lithuanian Consul in Chicago stepped in here and said that they are accustomed to authenticating a US notarization of a foreign document. In other words, I can receive the birth certificate from Winnipeg here in Chicago, get it notarized here (on campus, for me), and submit that (with translation) to the Consul. Thank goodness!
(Here I have to pause and give a shout out to Vytautas Mikėnas, the Vice-Consul in Chicago. He’s been super helpful and quick to reply to my queries.)
So that’s what I did. I had my mom sign a letter giving me permission to get a copy of her birth certificate, filled out the application, and sent it off to Winnipeg. And yesterday the envelope finally arrived. Because Mikėnas was a little unclear about notarization, I decided to take the sealed envelope to the notary and open it in front of him. I had that action notarized, and then I made a copy of the certificate and had that notarized as well. But I will still send the original off to Ottawa this afternoon for legalization.
Costs this post:
- $1.11 (envelope + postage to Canada)
- $20.22 ($25 CDN + credit card fees for processing a new birth certificate)
- $0.06 notarization / copy of Canadian birth certificate
- $1.11 (envelope + postage to Canada for legalization)
Cost to-date of dual citizenship: $24.50
October 12th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
After reading this post I realised that I might have a problem with my father’s birth certificate. Although my grandparents were born in Lithuania my father was born in Ebenrode (Stallupönen), East Prussia. This is now called Nesterov and part of the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast. He has a copy of his birth certificate but how would I get this legalised? It was part of Germany at the time so I suppose a German consulate or embassy could legalise it? Or would Russia have to do that? Also, sending off his only copy to Russia or Germany is less than ideal. And I’ve read that Russians made a point of not preserving anything after gaining control of the northern part of East Prussia so obtaining another copy is probably impossible. It’s handwritten indicating both parents with an authenticating stamp from the place where he was born. Any thoughts?
October 13th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Karl,
This is kind of a fascinating problem to have. First, know that if you get that handwritten certificate authenticated, from my understanding, that means you’ll forfeit it to the Lithuanian government when you make your application. Instead, you should get a new certificate for your father. To do this, I would talk to the German government. They’d be the first step.
I’m not sure if a birth certificate is even *necessary*. There are other ways to demonstrate paternity, etc.