NYC: The Land of “Long Form” Birth Certificates and Letters of Exemplification
“What’s that?,” you ask. Well, allow me to explain.
I received word from CCAI on 6/20 that our Full-Dossier Compilation Service Agreement, payment, and a few dossier documents had been received. There was, however, a problem… Ben was born in Manhattan. This means that his birth certificate falls under a “special requirements” clause. He needs a “long form” or “vault copy” birth certificate with letter of exemplification, or else the document cannot be sealed properly by the Chinese Consulate.
If you’ve been paying attention, then you know that we ordered both of our birth certificates from VitalChek. It’s a lovely service, actually. However, it only supplies “short form” birth certificates.
The ONLY way to obtain a “long form” birth certificate from Manhattan is to call the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and speak to a live operator. Operators are available from 8AM-4PM on Mondays thru Fridays. Their website notes that the wait for operator assistance “can be as long as 20 minutes.”
So, Ben called this morning at approximately 8:45AM. He waited… and waited. And drew a few rather pathetic and sad-appearing doodles during the waiting process, might I add.
Finally, after 1 hour and 28 minutes of waiting, he spoke to a rather knowledgeable operator who helped him order a “long form” birth certificate and “letter of exemp,” as she put it. This should arrive by UPS courier in a few days.
Ben will be sure to thank his parents for deciding on Manhattan as his birthplace.
July 13th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I am currently on hold to order the “long form” and “letter of exemp” for my kids’ Italian citizenship applicaiton.
Ben’s parents have nothing on mine – I am very familiar with VitalCheck because I discovered 11 years ago, when I needed a new copy of my birth certificate and contacted VitalCheck, that my parents had not registared my name. My certificate has been in the legal office of the D.C. registrar since. Apaprently, my parents had been sent a copy without a name and they “just” typed it in themselves. Nice.
February 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Melissa
I am interested in our daughter Lili who has been adopted from China getting Italian citizenship – are you able to indicate what we have to do (I understand it has to go through the italian courts). (We are in Australia)
Jon