[ATLGIRL]

I'm ordering my birth/marriage certs. from Florida, which allows you to order them already apostilled. Do these expire after a certain time? I wasn't sure if they were only good for a year after the apostille date or something.

Thanks for your help.

ATLGRL

[KimOH]

I'm not an expert, but I don't *think* they expire. We ordered two copies of DH's birth certificate (from Missouri) during our 2001 adoption. (I ordered doubles of most paperwork, just in case.)

When we adopted in 2005, I just gave them the leftover copy of DH's appostilled birth certificate. The appostille was nearly 4 years old, but no one questioned it.

I think the expiration on some documents is due to their content, not the appostile. They want to make sure that your "status" has not changed (financial forms, health forms, employment letters, etc.) Since your birth/marriage certificates aren't going to change, I think it's okay.

[Katie63011]

I had to have our marriage certificate redone as the notarized date has to be less than a year old when you go to court (3 months in some of the more difficult regions). I would go ahead and order some more just to be sure. Same thing with our birth certificates!

[jaw's mom]

We were told that our birth/marriage certificates being sent to Russia couldn't be more than 1 year old...if dated. Our state didn't have a date requirement.

[mom2M&A]

In our region the "notary" and the appostile need to be less than 1 year, so don't go ahead and order extra they'll just be expired. In our state (MI) they don't notarize the marriage liscence, they have their own stamp.

[Wendrew]

Our agency told us that we had to redo them so that the notary stamp was less than a year old also, but when we gave it to the judge at court she laughed and asked if we had gotten married again or something. I guess we probably did not really need it, but better safe than sorry.

[KimOH]

Originally Posted by KimOH

When we adopted in 2005, I just gave them the leftover copy of DH's appostilled birth certificate. The appostille was nearly 4 years old, but no one questioned it.

You know...now that I think about it, the agency we used for our second adoption handled getting appostiles for us. I thought we were "ahead of the game" by giving them the previously appostiled birth-certificate, but I suppose it's possible that they threw away the original appostile and sent it back out to be reappostiled. I would have no way of knowing.

At any rate, it sounds like my experience was not the norm, so I apologize for any confusion I might have caused.

[tigger44]

Here's my understanding about expiration dates:

In Russia, when the notary's commission expires, the document is considered expired. This is why a lot of agencies instruct adoptive parents to ensure the long term validity of each notary's commission in thier dossier. So that all documents will have a non-expired notary commission on them for the court hearing.

When the apostille is dated more than one year, then the document is considered expired. In this case, a certified and apostilled birth or marriage certificate would expire when the apostille becomes one year old.

[dlhall]

Two days before we were to leave for our second trip, I received a call that our marriage certificates had expired since the notary date was over a year old. Talk about having to scramble. I live in NC and we were married in AZ; thank God I still have family in AZ and a wonderful sister-in-law that was able to run around and get the marriage certificates and get them apostilled for me!

Liz

[emjay]

We had to re-do birth and marriage certs because notary/apostille was only acceptable for one year. But, just notarized as "true and attested copy" the second time around and it was fine...didn't have to get a new original.

[ATLGIRL]

Thank you everyone!