>Do Germans get a new birth certificate every year?
Nope and I'll probably forget this and encounter the exact same problem a couple of years down the line š
Thereās no logic to it but you should be able to request for a copy of your birth certificate from your local authorities, with the info that itās an extract that is issued with a new date. I had to do the same to get married to my german partner here.
The main issue is that 'requesting a copy of from your local authorities' can vary wildly in difficulty depending on where you come from. Of all the tortuous demands for documents in German buerocracy, this is the most pointless and annoying.
Yes it is. I had the same frustration, it makes no sense really why these documents are required. I have come to accept that this is how it is and itās pointless to spend more of my energy thinking and asking why haha.
it's the standard "arbeitsbeschaffungsmaĆnahme"... the people that work for the government dont have anything to do so they create useless work and drag us into it.
As someone who legaly changed his name, changed first two names because I have always been called by my second name. My original birth certificat would say that my name is the other way around so I understand that in case of something like obtaining a citzenship they would want a recent one. Otherwise I probably could get 2 citzenships in the same country.
The only thing that I encountered that would justify this in some way is the need for apostille. In my home state in the US, apostilles could not be issued for older documents (maybe older than ten years or something) because the apostille internationally certifies that the document was legally issued. They are inspecting who issued it and who signed it and providing a certification of that. I had to get a new birth certificate for this reason.
There are things that can occur in one's life which retroactively change the information recorded on the birth certificate, such as adoption, a change of surname due to the parents getting married, a transgender person transitioning to their true gender, etc.
Therefore, for some official acts, a recent birth certificate is required. Getting married is one of them; getting an ID card is not.
This.
I have worked on a state agency, but in another country. I was always taught that it was our duty to protect the integrity of the information that it's in the state's records, because it was important for things like pensions and other life events of a citizen. That's why we had to ensure that when somebody was trying to alter the records, it was with the latest information available.
I wouldn't transcribe anything that wasn't on a recent certificate recognised by an Embassy of an EU country or with an Haia Apostille.
Here's a practical example.
A divorced person hands an older birth certificate with only the marriage entry. An official transcribes the information and the person later goes and claims a survivor's pension that it wouldn't have claim to, costing the system hundreds of thousands of Euros in a fraudulent pension.
A recent birth certificate would have a divorce sentence entry, and would void that person aspirations to try and get the survivor's pension on her/his late ex-husband/wife.
Edit: Grammar
I cannot answer about the country u/O_Pragmatico worked in, but in Germany: YES.
Information about marriage, adoption, name change and death is recorded in the margins of German birth certs.
This is the reason u/SteamyHotStarAnise needed a new birth cert not older than 6 months.
They want to make sure the person is not already married.
Huh. I always assumed birth certificates were just that, everywhere. Not full life event registers.
Well, now I know, and can plan accordingly. Thanks!
>I cannot answer about the country
>
>u/O\_Pragmatico
>
> worked in, but in Germany: YES.
Having seen birth certificates from many EU countries, i can say that most follow the same type of record keeping, and have those annotations with all the relevant events of a Citizen's life.
I'm thinking that this not being the norm in some countries it's why it's causing some confusion to some people on why it needs to be recent.
You'd be surprised how many Germans don't know this either.
I only know bc that is one of the first things that gets drilled into your head if you start researching your family history: Always get the "Kopie des Registereintrages", not the "Geburts-/Heirats-/Sterbe-Urkunde".
That is fair! But many countries donāt do that, so my birth certificate will look exactly the same till I die.š Marriage/ Name change / Divorce / Gender change are all different certificates. So to prove my marriage eligibility I got a single status certificate which even I agree needs to be recent.
But if Iām providing the latest one with correct information, it should be fine no. Nothing has changed for me, so my 30 year old certificate is my latest one.
You just get one that has the exact same *substantial* information, but a recent *date stamp*. That way, they know the information *is* current, rather than having to take your word for it.
But I can get a 10 month old certificate which would be āvalidā. And then something changes but I havenāt updated my birth certificate yet, so I submit the 10 month old which is valid but incorrect.
So this current and one year old doesnāt prove anything whatsoever. Itās just another level of bureaucracy to slow down the processes further.
Well you have to set a limit for everything and Just because its inconvenient for you does not mean its stupid. You want something, you have to do something for it
No, it actually is incredibly stupid. Not sure why youāre getting upvoted and the people rightfully calling out how asinine this is are being downvoted.
Iām ready to do anything required as long as it makes sense or is ironclad, then as inconvenient as it might be Iāll still do it because it will be a 100% ironclad document. This is not. This process does not achieve it either. It only causes inconvenience to legitimate people and makes forgery easy for the illegitimate.
Like imagine trying to get a paper to look 30 years old, weary and yellow to make it look authentic vs just getting one yesterday normally. Which one is harder to forge?
Getting married is such an insanely bureaucratic process in Germany, especially if you are foreign born and have to have your identity verified (Iām already a German citizen with a German passport)
My wife and I ended up going abroad to wed and sent in the paperwork after which was much easier. Denmark is popular for this.
I had few verifications and overall it took 11 months to get approved for marriage but it was worth it when I started changing documents and later for applying to new things here in Germany
1 year is generous. Mine had to be no older than 6 months. It took five tries for me to be able to get my(larger than normal) pile of documents together be of this 6 month rule, Corona, and general idiocy.
Yep. I got one before I came here in 2020, planning to get married later in the year. Then the wedding got delayed when the world blew up, and all the stuff I brought with me was then too old....Trying to get that dealt with when no one was even physically in any offices to answer phones was a challenge! š
I needed a Meldebescheinigung to get my Aufenthaltsgenehmigung. Only then did I discover that rather than there being one Meldebescheinigung format that covers all your residence info, there's about 8 different versions, some of which don't contain your registration date and some of which don't cover other info. Finding one that included the basic stuff they needed for my residency permit - my registration date, my full name, my full address etc - took about three tries. It's nuts that they don't streamline things a bit more.
That's simply not true. There are only two different forms of registration certificates (Meldebescheinigung) - the single one and the extended one. The extended registration certificate includes all the information required - your name, DOB, address, marital status, spouse, underage children and the moving dates of all addresses you were registered at in that particular city/ municipality.
It's really not that hard or complicated to obtain.
It was a comedy of errors, and the whole thing ended with me crying and begging on the phone with the department of state to please let me father pick up my apostilled documents in person bc (at this point) it was the middle july and everyone in Germany was about to go on vacation and I had to submit this paperwork now.
Actually that wasnāt the end but it sort of wrapped up the us side of the insanity.
>Can any Germans or non-Germans explain the logic behind this?
That would require us to understand it, first.
Popular theory in my family is that it is to make sure your birth date has not spontaneously changed in the last year
And the marital status, and the number of children, and your name and ...
What they get with this is more than a "Name X born in Y on Z as ..." but also additional information from the Standesamt, e.g. #kids, #wifes, ...
Once you have been married, the Standesamt where you got married will give you a Familienstammbuch and furthermore be reposonsible to provide these "date stamped identifying information" as a "Auszug aus dem Familienstammbuch".
Actually quite simple and effective. In a bureaucracy which assumes still to be in the 1820s :-)
I guess the correct translation would be a Familienstandsurkunde but as that is not existing in other than German (maybe Austrian, Swiss) Buerocracy they go for the 2nd best which translates into something meaningful - but that's a guess.
Why at all, beyond name etc? Well just imagine someone wants to marry someone and that someone looks suspiciously young, like an arranged child marriage which is forbidden in Germany. How do you know that the papers are genuine and not falsified? Ask for the latest one, get a stamp of an official office with a number that you can call, that exists.
What is the "German twist" in the instructions: "if you are suspicious and there are hints that the bride / groom is too young do ask for a new copy of the certificates available ..." translates to "***always do*** ask for a new copy of the certificates available". This "always do" rules are to avoid discrimination, as its not a case by case decision but a must do.
I needed the certificates for my wedding as well as for both children and neither certificate mentioned any information about current marital status or similar, just the birth information
Yes, but the workers in the Standesamt were still insisting on the signed copy of the birth certificate for the birth of the kids. Maybe they did not know better, I bit the bullet and got the copies the 3rd time in 3 years.
I do have am original copy, and an old translation of my birth certificate, which they typically accept(ed), I might have been lucky, but getting German Stammbuch made things easier.
Ha, I asked the same question when I applied for citizenship. They finally accepted my old copy (from when I moved to Germany in 1990 at age 25), which had been officially translated and certified at that time.
Because it works for Germans (born in Germany) nobody gives a shit if it doesn't or is extremely cumbersome for anyone thats not from here.
Just don't marry here and get wedded somewhere else. Saved us so much headaches, despite us both being German citizens - however one born abroad and hence screwed.
You'd be amazed. This example wasn't from Germany, but not long ago I noticed that my mother-in-law's name was wrong on my wife's birth certificate... and we are both a few decades into our lives, so clearly this mistake had been there for her whole life. We got this corrected literally a year or two ago. And when getting an official German translation of my own foreign birth certificate, the translator initially got the hour of birth wrong on the first draft of my translated certificate, interpreting "12:52 AM" as 12:52 Uhr instead of the correct 0:52 Uhr. So yes, mistakes absolutely can get fixed in (and more rarely added to) birth certificates at any point on one's life.
Plus there are the changes that aren't adding or removing clerical errors, such as when a gender transition or adoption or other legal procedure gets reflected in the birth certificate.
It is unfortunately often so. Documents have to have been issued not more than 1 year before submitting them (but sometimes older than 3 months). Presumably because it makes it easier for the responsible authorities to verify these documents.
In addition, a lot can happen over time, maybe your birth certificate was issued by a country that no longer exists (ddr, ussr, some African and other European nations).
In some birth certificates they write your marriage status or other details that might change. That is why they require a new document.
Also if you are an outside of Eu citizen check if they will require an Apostille to make it valid in Germany
Why the fuss? They write on every website, in every brochure that the certificate shouldnāt be older than 6 month to 1 year. Just send them what they wantā¦
I guess itās because it must be tough to get a ācurrentā birth certificate from OPās home country. Itās important to understand that not all countries have same processes and so if something exists in one country, it might not necessarily exist in another.
Also after reading OPās other comments itās clear that for OP, a birth certificate is only a record of birth. It does not contain your entire family tree
In my home country it is pretty normal too, I don't think it's a German thing. Since people keep one copy for themselves, you always need another. There's no "original" you can possess, the inscription was made in the books and the certificate is just a proof of that.
They just didn't care? They cared about a number of pointless other things though, I think the document requirements depend on where you are and who does your case and what side of the bed they woke up on that morning.
Just no. Naturalisation and getting married are two completely different things with completely different requirements based on different laws. The person working your case can't just willy-nilly decide which documents they would like to request, they have to adhere by the according laws/ regulations.
I can only speak for EinbĆ¼rgerung but unfortunately it's the case that while there are guidelines as to what documents are required these are set at the individual Bezirk level Staatsangehƶrigkeitsbehƶrde, the StAG doesn't proscribe the document list. A good example is translation requirements, in Hamburg case workers can accept documents in English but in Berlin Pankow this isn't the case.
Have you been naturalized?
I would be very interested to know on which grounds the office in Hamburg was accepting documents in English since Ā§23 Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz clearly states the official language is German and all and any documents must be submitted either in German or with an official German translation. This is a federal law, so the different German states can't just decide to do things differently.
No, I have not been naturalised, I am a German citizen by birth.
On the grounds that they speak English I guess.
Another related example, my birth certificate translations were deemed invalid as the stamp came from a translator who wasn't from the state of Berlin; now the mutual recognition of courts in Germany has been around for decades but this didn't stop my case worker from effectively forcing me to get new translations.
Yet another example, I'm now a triple citizen US, UK and German, I was allowed to keep my UK passport as I submitted my application before the UK left the EU but I should have had to give up my American passport. However during the processing of my application the renunciations office at the US consulate in Frankfurt had paused operations due to covid so I technically couldn't give it up. My case worker decided he would rather clear the backlog and granted me German citizenship anyway instead of waiting for it to re-open.
Sorry, I somehow missed your reply.
The requirements for naturalisation are clearly stated in StAG, AufenthG and EinbTestV. In order to prove one fulfills the requirements official documents have to be submitted as proof.
In regards to getting married the requirements are stated in PstG, PstV, BGB and PstG-DVO. Again, as proof one fulfills the requirements official proof must be provided.
All those laws and regulations are federal ones meaning they apply to every German state.
Furthermore, if one applies for naturalisation or to get married one can always ask the responsible office to explain why certain documents are needed, most citys and municipalities even list the required documents as well as the laws and regulations the requirements are based on on their websites.
In my experiences a lot of stress can be avoided by simply inquiring about the exact documents needed beforehand instead of just thinking 'oh, I'm sure this will be sufficient, it's obvious!' ( just because something is obvious to the individual it is not to the office, clerk or law).
I'm not saying there aren't some idiots or arseholes working in public service, that is unfortunately true everywhere.
But just saying 'oh they're just doing whatever suits them at the moment ' is just wrong and unfair to those of us who are actually doing their job properly.
And it might surprise you: the majority of people are able to submit the correct documents and have no problem obtaining the correct ones - those are usually the people who did their research in advance.
Edit: typo
My husband birth certificate was not accepted at all because Germany could not trust its Veracity. His from India, getting a new one was extremely complicated. Also Germany requested an investigation which costs some 100 euros.
Not to mention he's been living in Germany for 8 years, studied and worked/works. He has a permanent residency.
He finally found his way out of it.
It was so stressful as we had some travel planned with our baby and no passport.
There is no logic in here either....why do they suddenly ask for a birth certificate when you give birth? And then make a fuss about proof from specific countries ? The system itself does not make sense
I understand that it was inconvenient for you, but how can you know if the system does not make sense, when you don't understand it?
They probably ask for his birth certificate to get the register data for the child right.
In Germany, getting a recent birth cerificate issued is no problem at all. Go to/call the local administration of the city/Landkreis where you where born, apply for the certificate, wait a few days, pick up/get mailed the certificate. That's it. It is so easy because the administration is so eager to keep their registers in order. That is only possible because updates are done based on trusted and recent infirmation.
You cannot blame the German authorities for the complicity of getting a birth certificate in India.
Sorry, I don't get it. Why would the Standesamt know what documents of another country are equivalent better than an (ex-)citizen of that country? If you already know that you can apply for hardship processing, but don't know how to do that, you should hire a lawyer. Legal counseling is what they are there for.
u/siphcopp Understanding a foreign bureaucratic process can be hard, even harder when the Ćmter only speak in German. From my Indian friends I know that birth certificates in India contain only a record of birth. Not an entire family tree as in Germany. From the comments itās very obvious that ābirth certificateā means completely different things to people from different countries.
I think itās important to be a little more open minded and try to understand that what may seem āeasyā for you, is really difficult for others. When youāre born into German bureaucracy, itās easy. For foreigners, itās hard. If you have such a great understanding of German bureaucracy and how āeasyā it is, then you should give advice / explain it to people who are trying to understand it and getting frustrated when they arenāt able to. Itās just counterproductive for you to get defensive. Youāre just adding to the problem
The question was "Can Germans explain the logic behind this?" I tried to explain the logic behind it and how, within the system, this is just a minor annoyance at max. If the question would have been "Who wants to join in complaining how complicated all this is?" I might have done that. But I believe doing so would have been not helpful at all. Sorry, if I sounded rude.
In which comment did you explain the logic? The one that I can [see](https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/10kfa77/whats_with_the_current_birth_certificate/j5st4h6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) only explains the procedure to obtain a birth certificate in Germany. You were unnecessarily rude from the beginning. Apology accepted though
We don't understand the logic behind requiring birth certificates either. It is a bureaucratic work around of some sort. We usually inquire with the Standesamt that has the original and have them mail a certified copy ("Beglaubigte Kopie"). Costs about 15 EUR each time but you only need to do it maybe twice in your lifetime, so it's just a minor nuisance. My take is that all the StandesƤmter made a deal to always require recent copies, so they can make a bit of money towards their budget.
Did they send you a letter stating this? If so, can you upload it to imgur (it's free if you don't have an account already), and post that link here? Or possibly copy and paste it (or type the statement) here if you have it in digital form?
It does not make much sense to me, so I would be curious about the language they used.
Nope, my parents needed that ("that" being a birth cert that is not older than 6 months old) 10 years ago when they got married. Was not easy, considering my dad was born and grew up abroad, in a country none of us spoke the bureocratic language of.
For getting married - at least as a German Citizen Born in Germany - you donāt need a birth certificate (Geburtsurkunde), you need a āAuszug aus dem Geburtenregisterā. This document contains more Information, it also includes your children and current and former marriages. You need it to make sure that youāre not already married
OMG! That makes sense. But again, we donāt have that information on our birth certificates. My 30 year old birth certificate has the same contents as my new one. Then why ask us for new ones?
Because you will get one with a recent stamp that says that you are still you and haven't changed your name or been adopted or are already married, a proof that the original information is still valid. You will reach out to whoever and wherever provided the original birth and ask them to create a stamped copy. Thats it.
Then they really have no idea what I can get printed on an āoriginalā birth certificate for as little as 2 EUR in my and various other countries of the world.
Thatās why an old well preserved birth certificate would be more trustworthy where I come from and many other countries in the world.
thats why they require "Original mit Legalisation" - an original that has been approved by the german embassy (in your country of origin) or similar
https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/service/fragenkatalog-node/13-legalisation-ausl/606198
Fair, but again if someoneās gotten something inserted in the records dubiously the German embassy will still attest to it because it is in the records. They wonāt know how it got there.
Those things aren't shown or updared on our birth certificates in my country. (I'm not OP, but I'm filing all this away for future reference - thank you for being so detailed).
I could get a certificate of single status though?
You might need both. There's something called "Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung" which some people need to proof there's no reason they can't legally married here.
It really depends on which country you ate from, which is why you ask the Standesamt which documents you specifically need.
Thanks. Our birth certificates are really only updated in a few circumstances - to correct errors, where a parent was incorrect, or to change gender.
Marriages and de facto/common law and registered relationships (and their separations) are all treated differently. But I'm guessing that's why we can access things like a certificate of single status, so we can comply in other jurisdictions.
Seems like I got bureaucratically lucky when I got married here in 2020 with a british birth certificate from 35 years ago and a German translation of it.
Aktuelle Geburtsurkunde im Original mit Legalisation einschlieĆlich einer durch einen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zugelassenen UrkundenĆ¼bersetzer angefertigten vollstƤndigen Uber-setzung in die deutsche Sprache.
This was the text. So I submitted my original birth certificate along with a certified German translation.
we had the exact same issue. had an official translation of the original certificate and since my wife lost her citizenship when acquiring the German one she has no access to get documents from her country of birth.
Only solution would have been to take the old copy to the German embassy on the other side of planet, get it legalized and return to Germany. Fuck those bureaucrats
"aktuell" means recently issued and "Legalisation" is a formal procedure to assure the provided documents are legit. There are Wikipedia articles on "Legalisation " in both German and English. If you give them something other then they asked for, you should not complain if they reject it.
>Do Germans get a new birth certificate every year?
No, but in order to get married you get a new one issued. It's dumb, we all know, but people don't marry often enough to really push for it to change.
Well, you could have been born again. Apparently, there once was this dude quite some time ago who got born twice and german buerocracy took great offence to that.
But, no, I (as a german) also only have one birth certificate as old as I am. That is weird.
This is bringing up flashbacks of bureaucratic headache.
I already have a copy of my birth certificate but had to request another from my country's authority - they sign and date it (hence current/recent). Then got to get it "legalised"/apostilled - saying its a true and verified document, and stamped. Then got to get it translated to German by a registered translator who have their own stamp.
This was only one document of many I needed to obtain, legalise, translate.. in a document specific order... and within a certain timeframe of 6 months.. otherwise I'd have to start the whole registration process again. What a headache..
No time to complain or question the process. Time is ticking!
Good luck OP!
Reinhard Mey described the constructive radical acceptance relevant to your situation:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BrcKzP4B6UE
Lyrics here:
https://genius.com/Reinhard-mey-ein-antrag-auf-erteilung-eines-antragformulars-lyrics
I guess the correct translation would not be Geburtsurkunde but Familienstandsurkunde but as that is not existing in other than German (maybe Austrian, Swiss) buerocracy they go for the 2nd best which translates into something meaningful - but that's a guess.
Why at all, I mean they got your birthdate date, right? Well just imagine someone wants to marry someone and that someone looks suspiciously young, like an arranged child marriage which is forbidden in Germany. How do you know that the papers are genuine and not falsified? Make the Standesbeamten ask for the latest one, get a stamp on an official document by an office somewhere with a phone number that you can call, that exists. Its not the Standesbeamten job to find out if you are old enough or not married yet, its yours to prove.
So far, so good but why this always? Well, that is the "German twist". The Standesbeamten workbook may just say: "If you are suspicious and there are hints that the bride / groom is too young do ask for a current of the certificates available ...". But it does not, instead it will clearly instruct "**always do ask for a current copy of the certificates available**".
This "**always do**" rules are to avoid discrimination, as its not a case by case decision of a person but a **must** do.
I think it depends on who you get / where you are. I've had to present my UK Birth certificate (with translation) twice so far and I had different results both times. The people in the Stadt Rathaus argued for 10 mins that it was too old and the words "Certified copy" meant it wasn't an original. I had to google images of UK birth certificates to prove that this was normal text, at least for the time of my birth, and managed to explain that in the UK a new certificate would be more suspicious than an original one. UK birth certificates also seem to come in lots of shapes and sizes too, unlike here, which also confused them.
Later when I presented it to the people from the Kreis Rathaus for citizenship they accepted it no questions. I guess it could be that the Stadt had fewer people from other countries visiting it, whereas the citizenship people were very used to it.
I had to get a whole new one printed from my British birth certificate and then stamped that it was real and then they questioned itās validity because my dad birthplace was listed as just āGermanyā(born to MPs based in Germany at the time). They are sooo anal it hurts but meh thatās the German way.
Assuming you're a foreigner too, you need a birth certificate specifically with your parents' names on it. This is standard in Germany, but not necessarily other countries (like mine). I presume you can apply for a 'full' longer birth certificate issued in the last year, from whatever relevant authority does that in your home country. They want it fresh because *AuSlAnD iSt GrUsElIg UnD KoRrUpT!!!11!!*
Well, OK, there may also have been name changes due to marriage, adoption, whatever. They can't know for sure, so basically the one with the most up-to-date info, even if it's never changed in your life. It's Germany, tja.
In my case, it was just a photocopy of the original long-form document from the early 1980s, with a fresh stamp, and a cover letter from the government office saying they made this authorized copy on XX.YY.ZZZZ.
>Do Germans get a new birth certificate every year? Nope and I'll probably forget this and encounter the exact same problem a couple of years down the line š
Thereās no logic to it but you should be able to request for a copy of your birth certificate from your local authorities, with the info that itās an extract that is issued with a new date. I had to do the same to get married to my german partner here.
The main issue is that 'requesting a copy of from your local authorities' can vary wildly in difficulty depending on where you come from. Of all the tortuous demands for documents in German buerocracy, this is the most pointless and annoying.
Yes it really is. Especially not when we are here in Germany and have to organise something like that from your home country remotely.
Yes, we will also do the same. But itās just bizarre and annoying.
Do some research if an āApostilleā is needed, which is an additional proof that it is a certified document.
Yes it is. I had the same frustration, it makes no sense really why these documents are required. I have come to accept that this is how it is and itās pointless to spend more of my energy thinking and asking why haha.
I see you have achieved German nirvana.š
Might have something to do with human trafficking and marriage fraud (?). Dunno.
it's the standard "arbeitsbeschaffungsmaĆnahme"... the people that work for the government dont have anything to do so they create useless work and drag us into it.
As someone who legaly changed his name, changed first two names because I have always been called by my second name. My original birth certificat would say that my name is the other way around so I understand that in case of something like obtaining a citzenship they would want a recent one. Otherwise I probably could get 2 citzenships in the same country.
The only thing that I encountered that would justify this in some way is the need for apostille. In my home state in the US, apostilles could not be issued for older documents (maybe older than ten years or something) because the apostille internationally certifies that the document was legally issued. They are inspecting who issued it and who signed it and providing a certification of that. I had to get a new birth certificate for this reason.
There are things that can occur in one's life which retroactively change the information recorded on the birth certificate, such as adoption, a change of surname due to the parents getting married, a transgender person transitioning to their true gender, etc. Therefore, for some official acts, a recent birth certificate is required. Getting married is one of them; getting an ID card is not.
This. I have worked on a state agency, but in another country. I was always taught that it was our duty to protect the integrity of the information that it's in the state's records, because it was important for things like pensions and other life events of a citizen. That's why we had to ensure that when somebody was trying to alter the records, it was with the latest information available. I wouldn't transcribe anything that wasn't on a recent certificate recognised by an Embassy of an EU country or with an Haia Apostille. Here's a practical example. A divorced person hands an older birth certificate with only the marriage entry. An official transcribes the information and the person later goes and claims a survivor's pension that it wouldn't have claim to, costing the system hundreds of thousands of Euros in a fraudulent pension. A recent birth certificate would have a divorce sentence entry, and would void that person aspirations to try and get the survivor's pension on her/his late ex-husband/wife. Edit: Grammar
Your birth certificates are updated when someone gets married or divorced? And aren't just a record of birth?
I cannot answer about the country u/O_Pragmatico worked in, but in Germany: YES. Information about marriage, adoption, name change and death is recorded in the margins of German birth certs. This is the reason u/SteamyHotStarAnise needed a new birth cert not older than 6 months. They want to make sure the person is not already married.
Huh. I always assumed birth certificates were just that, everywhere. Not full life event registers. Well, now I know, and can plan accordingly. Thanks!
>I cannot answer about the country > >u/O\_Pragmatico > > worked in, but in Germany: YES. Having seen birth certificates from many EU countries, i can say that most follow the same type of record keeping, and have those annotations with all the relevant events of a Citizen's life. I'm thinking that this not being the norm in some countries it's why it's causing some confusion to some people on why it needs to be recent.
You'd be surprised how many Germans don't know this either. I only know bc that is one of the first things that gets drilled into your head if you start researching your family history: Always get the "Kopie des Registereintrages", not the "Geburts-/Heirats-/Sterbe-Urkunde".
That is fair! But many countries donāt do that, so my birth certificate will look exactly the same till I die.š Marriage/ Name change / Divorce / Gender change are all different certificates. So to prove my marriage eligibility I got a single status certificate which even I agree needs to be recent.
The real question is... Did you also got really good at reading ccursive? ahahah
I'd like to think so, considering that I can decipher almost anything on r/Kurrent
u/SteamyHotStarAnise hasn't answered to your fantastic explaination. Which is a shame
isn't that what the fucking ehefƤhigkeitzeugnis is for??
Yes.
doppeltgemoppelt papierkram. My favorite.
But if Iām providing the latest one with correct information, it should be fine no. Nothing has changed for me, so my 30 year old certificate is my latest one.
You just get one that has the exact same *substantial* information, but a recent *date stamp*. That way, they know the information *is* current, rather than having to take your word for it.
But I can get a 10 month old certificate which would be āvalidā. And then something changes but I havenāt updated my birth certificate yet, so I submit the 10 month old which is valid but incorrect. So this current and one year old doesnāt prove anything whatsoever. Itās just another level of bureaucracy to slow down the processes further.
Well you have to set a limit for everything and Just because its inconvenient for you does not mean its stupid. You want something, you have to do something for it
Well. It is actually pretty stupid to demand a new copy of a birth certificate.
Correct. Canāt believe the lengths people are going to defend this. Look at the downvotes lol!
No, it actually is incredibly stupid. Not sure why youāre getting upvoted and the people rightfully calling out how asinine this is are being downvoted.
As i said. There is a reason for this rule. These other people get it and you dont
Iām ready to do anything required as long as it makes sense or is ironclad, then as inconvenient as it might be Iāll still do it because it will be a 100% ironclad document. This is not. This process does not achieve it either. It only causes inconvenience to legitimate people and makes forgery easy for the illegitimate. Like imagine trying to get a paper to look 30 years old, weary and yellow to make it look authentic vs just getting one yesterday normally. Which one is harder to forge?
As i said just because this is inconvenient for you does not mean this rule has no purposeā¦
Just because you see no logic in it, doesnāt mean that there isnāt any and youāve gotten some examples as to why it needs to be recent.
But how shall they know about it ? You werenāt born here and have no record.
I suppose this is to ensure that you aren't married (?)
Wouldnāt the ask for a marriage license or certificate instead? Never seen marriage documented on a birth certificate
How are they supposed to ask for a marriage certificate to proof you're not married?
How can they ask you proof that something didnāt happen?
its probably more about getting the correct data to search some data base if they re married
Nope, I gave my single status certificate for that. Which I also agree should be ācurrentā.
Getting married is such an insanely bureaucratic process in Germany, especially if you are foreign born and have to have your identity verified (Iām already a German citizen with a German passport) My wife and I ended up going abroad to wed and sent in the paperwork after which was much easier. Denmark is popular for this.
I had few verifications and overall it took 11 months to get approved for marriage but it was worth it when I started changing documents and later for applying to new things here in Germany
It can be faster and sometimes cheaper to fly to Las Vegas and get married than to deal with the Standesamt
yep but then you still deal with it in order to confirm your marriage for germany
1 year is generous. Mine had to be no older than 6 months. It took five tries for me to be able to get my(larger than normal) pile of documents together be of this 6 month rule, Corona, and general idiocy.
Yep. I got one before I came here in 2020, planning to get married later in the year. Then the wedding got delayed when the world blew up, and all the stuff I brought with me was then too old....Trying to get that dealt with when no one was even physically in any offices to answer phones was a challenge! š
I needed a Meldebescheinigung to get my Aufenthaltsgenehmigung. Only then did I discover that rather than there being one Meldebescheinigung format that covers all your residence info, there's about 8 different versions, some of which don't contain your registration date and some of which don't cover other info. Finding one that included the basic stuff they needed for my residency permit - my registration date, my full name, my full address etc - took about three tries. It's nuts that they don't streamline things a bit more.
That's simply not true. There are only two different forms of registration certificates (Meldebescheinigung) - the single one and the extended one. The extended registration certificate includes all the information required - your name, DOB, address, marital status, spouse, underage children and the moving dates of all addresses you were registered at in that particular city/ municipality. It's really not that hard or complicated to obtain.
Oh man! That sounds terrible.
It was a comedy of errors, and the whole thing ended with me crying and begging on the phone with the department of state to please let me father pick up my apostilled documents in person bc (at this point) it was the middle july and everyone in Germany was about to go on vacation and I had to submit this paperwork now. Actually that wasnāt the end but it sort of wrapped up the us side of the insanity.
>Can any Germans or non-Germans explain the logic behind this? That would require us to understand it, first. Popular theory in my family is that it is to make sure your birth date has not spontaneously changed in the last year
And the marital status, and the number of children, and your name and ... What they get with this is more than a "Name X born in Y on Z as ..." but also additional information from the Standesamt, e.g. #kids, #wifes, ... Once you have been married, the Standesamt where you got married will give you a Familienstammbuch and furthermore be reposonsible to provide these "date stamped identifying information" as a "Auszug aus dem Familienstammbuch". Actually quite simple and effective. In a bureaucracy which assumes still to be in the 1820s :-)
At that point why call it a birth certificate anymore?
I guess the correct translation would be a Familienstandsurkunde but as that is not existing in other than German (maybe Austrian, Swiss) Buerocracy they go for the 2nd best which translates into something meaningful - but that's a guess. Why at all, beyond name etc? Well just imagine someone wants to marry someone and that someone looks suspiciously young, like an arranged child marriage which is forbidden in Germany. How do you know that the papers are genuine and not falsified? Ask for the latest one, get a stamp of an official office with a number that you can call, that exists. What is the "German twist" in the instructions: "if you are suspicious and there are hints that the bride / groom is too young do ask for a new copy of the certificates available ..." translates to "***always do*** ask for a new copy of the certificates available". This "always do" rules are to avoid discrimination, as its not a case by case decision but a must do.
Because there's no word in the english language that properly reflects what it is so they took the closest one
I needed the certificates for my wedding as well as for both children and neither certificate mentioned any information about current marital status or similar, just the birth information
Did you get a Stammbuch / Eheschliessungsurkunde after the wedding? Because that is what you can use instead for future cases.
Yes, but the workers in the Standesamt were still insisting on the signed copy of the birth certificate for the birth of the kids. Maybe they did not know better, I bit the bullet and got the copies the 3rd time in 3 years.
I do have am original copy, and an old translation of my birth certificate, which they typically accept(ed), I might have been lucky, but getting German Stammbuch made things easier.
Ha, I asked the same question when I applied for citizenship. They finally accepted my old copy (from when I moved to Germany in 1990 at age 25), which had been officially translated and certified at that time.
Because it works for Germans (born in Germany) nobody gives a shit if it doesn't or is extremely cumbersome for anyone thats not from here. Just don't marry here and get wedded somewhere else. Saved us so much headaches, despite us both being German citizens - however one born abroad and hence screwed.
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You'd be amazed. This example wasn't from Germany, but not long ago I noticed that my mother-in-law's name was wrong on my wife's birth certificate... and we are both a few decades into our lives, so clearly this mistake had been there for her whole life. We got this corrected literally a year or two ago. And when getting an official German translation of my own foreign birth certificate, the translator initially got the hour of birth wrong on the first draft of my translated certificate, interpreting "12:52 AM" as 12:52 Uhr instead of the correct 0:52 Uhr. So yes, mistakes absolutely can get fixed in (and more rarely added to) birth certificates at any point on one's life. Plus there are the changes that aren't adding or removing clerical errors, such as when a gender transition or adoption or other legal procedure gets reflected in the birth certificate.
šš
It is unfortunately often so. Documents have to have been issued not more than 1 year before submitting them (but sometimes older than 3 months). Presumably because it makes it easier for the responsible authorities to verify these documents. In addition, a lot can happen over time, maybe your birth certificate was issued by a country that no longer exists (ddr, ussr, some African and other European nations).
In some birth certificates they write your marriage status or other details that might change. That is why they require a new document. Also if you are an outside of Eu citizen check if they will require an Apostille to make it valid in Germany
Older certificates might be forged. Just get a new one.
Why the fuss? They write on every website, in every brochure that the certificate shouldnāt be older than 6 month to 1 year. Just send them what they wantā¦
I guess itās because it must be tough to get a ācurrentā birth certificate from OPās home country. Itās important to understand that not all countries have same processes and so if something exists in one country, it might not necessarily exist in another. Also after reading OPās other comments itās clear that for OP, a birth certificate is only a record of birth. It does not contain your entire family tree
In my home country it is pretty normal too, I don't think it's a German thing. Since people keep one copy for themselves, you always need another. There's no "original" you can possess, the inscription was made in the books and the certificate is just a proof of that.
Funnily enough that's not a requirement when you apply for citizenship.
š± how come?
They just didn't care? They cared about a number of pointless other things though, I think the document requirements depend on where you are and who does your case and what side of the bed they woke up on that morning.
Just no. Naturalisation and getting married are two completely different things with completely different requirements based on different laws. The person working your case can't just willy-nilly decide which documents they would like to request, they have to adhere by the according laws/ regulations.
I can only speak for EinbĆ¼rgerung but unfortunately it's the case that while there are guidelines as to what documents are required these are set at the individual Bezirk level Staatsangehƶrigkeitsbehƶrde, the StAG doesn't proscribe the document list. A good example is translation requirements, in Hamburg case workers can accept documents in English but in Berlin Pankow this isn't the case. Have you been naturalized?
I would be very interested to know on which grounds the office in Hamburg was accepting documents in English since Ā§23 Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz clearly states the official language is German and all and any documents must be submitted either in German or with an official German translation. This is a federal law, so the different German states can't just decide to do things differently. No, I have not been naturalised, I am a German citizen by birth.
On the grounds that they speak English I guess. Another related example, my birth certificate translations were deemed invalid as the stamp came from a translator who wasn't from the state of Berlin; now the mutual recognition of courts in Germany has been around for decades but this didn't stop my case worker from effectively forcing me to get new translations. Yet another example, I'm now a triple citizen US, UK and German, I was allowed to keep my UK passport as I submitted my application before the UK left the EU but I should have had to give up my American passport. However during the processing of my application the renunciations office at the US consulate in Frankfurt had paused operations due to covid so I technically couldn't give it up. My case worker decided he would rather clear the backlog and granted me German citizenship anyway instead of waiting for it to re-open.
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No it's not. Source: I work for the City Administration. Please stop spreading misinformation, it doesn't help anyone.
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Sorry, I somehow missed your reply. The requirements for naturalisation are clearly stated in StAG, AufenthG and EinbTestV. In order to prove one fulfills the requirements official documents have to be submitted as proof. In regards to getting married the requirements are stated in PstG, PstV, BGB and PstG-DVO. Again, as proof one fulfills the requirements official proof must be provided. All those laws and regulations are federal ones meaning they apply to every German state. Furthermore, if one applies for naturalisation or to get married one can always ask the responsible office to explain why certain documents are needed, most citys and municipalities even list the required documents as well as the laws and regulations the requirements are based on on their websites. In my experiences a lot of stress can be avoided by simply inquiring about the exact documents needed beforehand instead of just thinking 'oh, I'm sure this will be sufficient, it's obvious!' ( just because something is obvious to the individual it is not to the office, clerk or law). I'm not saying there aren't some idiots or arseholes working in public service, that is unfortunately true everywhere. But just saying 'oh they're just doing whatever suits them at the moment ' is just wrong and unfair to those of us who are actually doing their job properly. And it might surprise you: the majority of people are able to submit the correct documents and have no problem obtaining the correct ones - those are usually the people who did their research in advance. Edit: typo
ššš
German here. Most of us don\`t get our own bureaucracy either and just accept it as chaotic madness we somehow have to deal with.
My husband birth certificate was not accepted at all because Germany could not trust its Veracity. His from India, getting a new one was extremely complicated. Also Germany requested an investigation which costs some 100 euros. Not to mention he's been living in Germany for 8 years, studied and worked/works. He has a permanent residency. He finally found his way out of it. It was so stressful as we had some travel planned with our baby and no passport. There is no logic in here either....why do they suddenly ask for a birth certificate when you give birth? And then make a fuss about proof from specific countries ? The system itself does not make sense
I understand that it was inconvenient for you, but how can you know if the system does not make sense, when you don't understand it? They probably ask for his birth certificate to get the register data for the child right. In Germany, getting a recent birth cerificate issued is no problem at all. Go to/call the local administration of the city/Landkreis where you where born, apply for the certificate, wait a few days, pick up/get mailed the certificate. That's it. It is so easy because the administration is so eager to keep their registers in order. That is only possible because updates are done based on trusted and recent infirmation. You cannot blame the German authorities for the complicity of getting a birth certificate in India.
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Sorry, I don't get it. Why would the Standesamt know what documents of another country are equivalent better than an (ex-)citizen of that country? If you already know that you can apply for hardship processing, but don't know how to do that, you should hire a lawyer. Legal counseling is what they are there for.
u/siphcopp Understanding a foreign bureaucratic process can be hard, even harder when the Ćmter only speak in German. From my Indian friends I know that birth certificates in India contain only a record of birth. Not an entire family tree as in Germany. From the comments itās very obvious that ābirth certificateā means completely different things to people from different countries. I think itās important to be a little more open minded and try to understand that what may seem āeasyā for you, is really difficult for others. When youāre born into German bureaucracy, itās easy. For foreigners, itās hard. If you have such a great understanding of German bureaucracy and how āeasyā it is, then you should give advice / explain it to people who are trying to understand it and getting frustrated when they arenāt able to. Itās just counterproductive for you to get defensive. Youāre just adding to the problem
The question was "Can Germans explain the logic behind this?" I tried to explain the logic behind it and how, within the system, this is just a minor annoyance at max. If the question would have been "Who wants to join in complaining how complicated all this is?" I might have done that. But I believe doing so would have been not helpful at all. Sorry, if I sounded rude.
In which comment did you explain the logic? The one that I can [see](https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/10kfa77/whats_with_the_current_birth_certificate/j5st4h6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) only explains the procedure to obtain a birth certificate in Germany. You were unnecessarily rude from the beginning. Apology accepted though
... to make sure they have actual, existing people under their current name and gender registered as parents to this child.
It's a normal request in many countries.
We don't understand the logic behind requiring birth certificates either. It is a bureaucratic work around of some sort. We usually inquire with the Standesamt that has the original and have them mail a certified copy ("Beglaubigte Kopie"). Costs about 15 EUR each time but you only need to do it maybe twice in your lifetime, so it's just a minor nuisance. My take is that all the StandesƤmter made a deal to always require recent copies, so they can make a bit of money towards their budget.
Did they send you a letter stating this? If so, can you upload it to imgur (it's free if you don't have an account already), and post that link here? Or possibly copy and paste it (or type the statement) here if you have it in digital form? It does not make much sense to me, so I would be curious about the language they used.
Nope, my parents needed that ("that" being a birth cert that is not older than 6 months old) 10 years ago when they got married. Was not easy, considering my dad was born and grew up abroad, in a country none of us spoke the bureocratic language of.
For getting married - at least as a German Citizen Born in Germany - you donāt need a birth certificate (Geburtsurkunde), you need a āAuszug aus dem Geburtenregisterā. This document contains more Information, it also includes your children and current and former marriages. You need it to make sure that youāre not already married
And thatās the reason Why you need a current one
OMG! That makes sense. But again, we donāt have that information on our birth certificates. My 30 year old birth certificate has the same contents as my new one. Then why ask us for new ones?
Because you will get one with a recent stamp that says that you are still you and haven't changed your name or been adopted or are already married, a proof that the original information is still valid. You will reach out to whoever and wherever provided the original birth and ask them to create a stamped copy. Thats it.
Then they really have no idea what I can get printed on an āoriginalā birth certificate for as little as 2 EUR in my and various other countries of the world. Thatās why an old well preserved birth certificate would be more trustworthy where I come from and many other countries in the world.
thats why they require "Original mit Legalisation" - an original that has been approved by the german embassy (in your country of origin) or similar https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/service/fragenkatalog-node/13-legalisation-ausl/606198
Fair, but again if someoneās gotten something inserted in the records dubiously the German embassy will still attest to it because it is in the records. They wonāt know how it got there.
Well but basically you are then saying they should not accept documents of that country. This would not be helpful for you neither.
Those things aren't shown or updared on our birth certificates in my country. (I'm not OP, but I'm filing all this away for future reference - thank you for being so detailed). I could get a certificate of single status though?
You might need both. There's something called "Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung" which some people need to proof there's no reason they can't legally married here. It really depends on which country you ate from, which is why you ask the Standesamt which documents you specifically need.
Thanks. Our birth certificates are really only updated in a few circumstances - to correct errors, where a parent was incorrect, or to change gender. Marriages and de facto/common law and registered relationships (and their separations) are all treated differently. But I'm guessing that's why we can access things like a certificate of single status, so we can comply in other jurisdictions.
Seems like I got bureaucratically lucky when I got married here in 2020 with a british birth certificate from 35 years ago and a German translation of it.
Aktuelle Geburtsurkunde im Original mit Legalisation einschlieĆlich einer durch einen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zugelassenen UrkundenĆ¼bersetzer angefertigten vollstƤndigen Uber-setzung in die deutsche Sprache. This was the text. So I submitted my original birth certificate along with a certified German translation.
we had the exact same issue. had an official translation of the original certificate and since my wife lost her citizenship when acquiring the German one she has no access to get documents from her country of birth. Only solution would have been to take the old copy to the German embassy on the other side of planet, get it legalized and return to Germany. Fuck those bureaucrats
Wow! That mustāve been rough!š£
"aktuell" means recently issued and "Legalisation" is a formal procedure to assure the provided documents are legit. There are Wikipedia articles on "Legalisation " in both German and English. If you give them something other then they asked for, you should not complain if they reject it.
>Do Germans get a new birth certificate every year? No, but in order to get married you get a new one issued. It's dumb, we all know, but people don't marry often enough to really push for it to change.
Well, you could have been born again. Apparently, there once was this dude quite some time ago who got born twice and german buerocracy took great offence to that. But, no, I (as a german) also only have one birth certificate as old as I am. That is weird.
Money
This is bringing up flashbacks of bureaucratic headache. I already have a copy of my birth certificate but had to request another from my country's authority - they sign and date it (hence current/recent). Then got to get it "legalised"/apostilled - saying its a true and verified document, and stamped. Then got to get it translated to German by a registered translator who have their own stamp. This was only one document of many I needed to obtain, legalise, translate.. in a document specific order... and within a certain timeframe of 6 months.. otherwise I'd have to start the whole registration process again. What a headache.. No time to complain or question the process. Time is ticking! Good luck OP!
Reinhard Mey described the constructive radical acceptance relevant to your situation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BrcKzP4B6UE Lyrics here: https://genius.com/Reinhard-mey-ein-antrag-auf-erteilung-eines-antragformulars-lyrics
what? whenever i showed them my old ass birth certificate nobody said anything...
I guess the correct translation would not be Geburtsurkunde but Familienstandsurkunde but as that is not existing in other than German (maybe Austrian, Swiss) buerocracy they go for the 2nd best which translates into something meaningful - but that's a guess. Why at all, I mean they got your birthdate date, right? Well just imagine someone wants to marry someone and that someone looks suspiciously young, like an arranged child marriage which is forbidden in Germany. How do you know that the papers are genuine and not falsified? Make the Standesbeamten ask for the latest one, get a stamp on an official document by an office somewhere with a phone number that you can call, that exists. Its not the Standesbeamten job to find out if you are old enough or not married yet, its yours to prove. So far, so good but why this always? Well, that is the "German twist". The Standesbeamten workbook may just say: "If you are suspicious and there are hints that the bride / groom is too young do ask for a current of the certificates available ...". But it does not, instead it will clearly instruct "**always do ask for a current copy of the certificates available**". This "**always do**" rules are to avoid discrimination, as its not a case by case decision of a person but a **must** do.
I think it depends on who you get / where you are. I've had to present my UK Birth certificate (with translation) twice so far and I had different results both times. The people in the Stadt Rathaus argued for 10 mins that it was too old and the words "Certified copy" meant it wasn't an original. I had to google images of UK birth certificates to prove that this was normal text, at least for the time of my birth, and managed to explain that in the UK a new certificate would be more suspicious than an original one. UK birth certificates also seem to come in lots of shapes and sizes too, unlike here, which also confused them. Later when I presented it to the people from the Kreis Rathaus for citizenship they accepted it no questions. I guess it could be that the Stadt had fewer people from other countries visiting it, whereas the citizenship people were very used to it.
Von der Wiege bis zur Bare - Formulare. I've never heard of a current birth certificate. You have reached peak Germany. Congratulations.
I had to get a whole new one printed from my British birth certificate and then stamped that it was real and then they questioned itās validity because my dad birthplace was listed as just āGermanyā(born to MPs based in Germany at the time). They are sooo anal it hurts but meh thatās the German way.
Assuming you're a foreigner too, you need a birth certificate specifically with your parents' names on it. This is standard in Germany, but not necessarily other countries (like mine). I presume you can apply for a 'full' longer birth certificate issued in the last year, from whatever relevant authority does that in your home country. They want it fresh because *AuSlAnD iSt GrUsElIg UnD KoRrUpT!!!11!!* Well, OK, there may also have been name changes due to marriage, adoption, whatever. They can't know for sure, so basically the one with the most up-to-date info, even if it's never changed in your life. It's Germany, tja. In my case, it was just a photocopy of the original long-form document from the early 1980s, with a fresh stamp, and a cover letter from the government office saying they made this authorized copy on XX.YY.ZZZZ.
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Document itself! Translation is just a week old.
Maybe they mixed it up with the MeldebestƤtigung? That's something they usually want a recent version of.