Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Apostille Stamp and German Birth Cert

Options
  • 14-09-2015 9:05pm
    #1
    casper2345
    Registered Users Posts: 7 ✭


    Hi all,

    This forum has been wonderful in another thread I posted about the particularities of helping me and my US girlfriend walk the bureaucratic minefield before marriage.

    So I'm running up against another hurdle and wondered if you guys could help me.

    I was born in Germany to an Irish mother and German father. In short, we don't talk.

    In order to get married the marriage cert department of Ireland needs my German birth cert with an Apostille stamp.

    I don't have my birth cert so I'd need to get it somehow from Germany.

    Has anyone gone through this particular scenario. My German is very poor and we're in a bit of a rush due to Visa issues etc. (see other thread).
    Tagged:


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    MistyCheese
    Registered Users Posts: 4,005 ✭✭✭MistyCheese


    The most direct way would be to apply to the Standesamt in the district where you were born. I don't know for sure but I imagine you would be okay to do this in English, that is, you wouldn't have to write to them in German. Here is a page with contact info for various offices. The info is about halfway down the page, under 'Which Standesamt do I go to?' The top of the page is about how to register your baby.


    Another option would be to contact the German embassy in Dublin. If they can't arrange it for you they should certainly be able to assist you in applying. They will help you with the Apostille too. Ideally they can arrange to have the cert sent to them so they can verify it and send you on both the cert and the stamp together.

    Good luck with the rest of your planning, the red tape's such a PITA isn't it?


  • Options
    #3
    casper2345
    Registered Users Posts: 7 ✭casper2345


    MistyCheese wrote: »
    The most direct way would be to apply to the Standesamt in the district where you were born. I don't know for sure but I imagine you would be okay to do this in English, that is, you wouldn't have to write to them in German. with contact info for various offices. The info is about halfway down the page, under 'Which Standesamt do I go to?' The top of the page is about how to register your baby.


    Another option would be to contact the in Dublin. If they can't arrange it for you they should certainly be able to assist you in applying. They will help you with the Apostille too. Ideally they can arrange to have the cert sent to them so they can verify it and send you on both the cert and the stamp together.

    Good luck with the rest of your planning, the red tape's such a PITA isn't it?

    Thanks for the reply. I wish the above were true.

    Firstly, communicating in German is very difficult for me. However even if piecing something together to send to Hamburg, I'm unsure of the exact jurisdiction in Hamburg that I was born in. They've a ton.

    Apart from the above, the German Embassy has flat out refused to help and told me that they don't help with Birth Certs. The chap on the phone even said they're tired of people from the Marriage Cert. Office sending people their way.

    They don't provide legalisation of documents nor Apostille stamps. I know other Embassies do. The Germans don't.

    I have to use a third party service once I do (I hope & pray) get the Birth Cert to get it Apostilled. They're not cheap.


  • Options
    #4
    MistyCheese
    Registered Users Posts: 4,005 ✭✭✭MistyCheese


    Oh I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't realise that the German embassy would refuse to help, that's awful.


  • Options
    #5
    dreamer2009
    Registered Users Posts: 39 ✭dreamer2009


    The usual way is to get a German Lawyer to apply for the document and get it apostilled for you.

    The most convenient way to do that from ireland is to get a solicitor here to liaise with a German lawyer (usually a firm they have frequent dealings with) on your behalf. I know of someone who has done this and I think the German Lawyers fee was about €160.00


  • Options
    #6
    casper2345
    Registered Users Posts: 7 ✭casper2345


    Do you have contact details? Feel free to DM me.
    Thank you!


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    dreamer2009
    Registered Users Posts: 39 ✭dreamer2009


    I don't have the specifics I'm afraid- they just used their own solicitor here who looked after it all for them.


  • Options
    #8
    fjon
    Registered Users Posts: 2,084 ✭✭✭fjon


    This is bizarre, but we have so much in common!
    I was born in Germany to a German father and Irish mother, and I married an American girl last week.

    We went through what you are going through very recently.

    First off, you probably know this, but your fiancée will need to be working with the US authorities to get her documentation also. This could be as difficult for her as for you (but without the language problems).

    For you - forget about the German embassy in Dublin - they can't help you at all.
    I did it by contacting the state I was born in directly (Hesse) and gave them the name of the city I was born in. They put me in touch with the authorities for that city, and I then contacted them (in English). Through a series of phone calls and emails (in English and broken German) I eventually got the documentation required, but it took a few weeks. It wasn't expensive - the birth cert and stamp cost €40 all together. Note the same "office" that gave me the birth cert also gave me the apostille stamp.

    I don't know how this will work for you in Hamburg - it's 5 times the size of the city I was born in so I imagine things are more complicated.

    You probably know this, but you can begin to fill out your documentation in a civic office here in Ireland before you have the stamp, and the date you begin to sign the form is when the 3 months marriage notification starts counting.


Advertisement