Question about TSA precheck and documents needed.

[jo-jo]

My passport is in my married name. In order to get that passport, I had to show the chain of name change ~ birth certificate to marriage certificate. In order to get TSA Pre Check, all I needed to show was my passport, because my chain of name change had already been shown/proven.

Went for passport today, had BC and DL. Nothing else was requested. Even mentioned about planning to use it instead of REAL ID, and lack of marriage certificate. Nothing was said. Now to wait 6 weeks.

 

[RamblingMad]

Get a passport. All of these document requests become so much easier after you have one.

 

[Imzadi]

They won't care what era your birth certificate comes from as long as it's a type issued by your local municipality/county and has the official seal.

So, you should be able to get a new copy of your birth certificate (certified copy) by contacting the local office where you were born (or by getting it through the state in which you were born.

Yes, your birth certificate has to be a valid one issued by the STATE you were born in or government issued. NOT the one issued at the hospital, even if it has a raised, imprinted seal. The hospital one is not valid as far as legal documents go. (I guess they think anyone can forge a birth certificate from, say Main St Hospital, - especially it if burned down ages ago and there are no records from it, and create a raised imprinted seal, to look legit.)

 

[bcla]

Went for passport today, had BC and DL. Nothing else was requested. Even mentioned about planning to use it instead of REAL ID, and lack of marriage certificate. Nothing was said. Now to wait 6 weeks.

Depends on who is asking. The main problem is that there are so many places that one can present the documents and not everyone receives the same training. The duty of "passport acceptance" has been farmed out to thousands of different post offices, county clerks, and even public university bookstores. I got my first US passport at the San Francisco passport agency office back at a time when they didn't require that there be proof of immediate travel. We applied for our kid's passport (must be in person) at a university recreational gym. The front desk clerk was a student and it worked out pretty well. Later on we had to renew (all child passports must be renewed in person) and we got an appointment for the passport agency because we were in a hurry. The clerk (a State Dept employee) looked at our photo and said there might be a problem with the quality. We got the photo printed at a Target which used a photo printer - not real photo paper and it did look a little washed out. But we got the passport in a couple of days and the passport card was mailed out.

Not to panic you in any way, but there are cases where the passport acceptance facility person says that everything is in order, but then some bureaucrat at the State Dept has the final say that you'll need to send in more documents.

The State Dept says that they have certain requirements - a seal/stamp of the certifying authority, signature of the registrar, the filing date (must be less than a year from the DOB), the place of birth, and the parent(s) full names. There have been all sorts of different issues with certain cities/counties/states. I recall Pennsylvania would often issue birth certificates without the name of the parents unless requested. Some had forms that didn't include a proper seal. However, they really don't care about the form or even if it looks old. They'll accept computer printouts, hand-written forms, photocopies, pixelated scans, negative images (photostat), etc. as long as their basic requirements are met. Now there are probably over 10,000 different forms used in the history of the United States, so I'm not sure what they do if they don't have a ready reference for some hand-written form from some tiny city in Massachussetts from 50 years ago. At least in my state (California) there's a standard for the current form that every city/county as well as the state itself has to follow.

 

[bcla]

Yes, your birth certificate has to be a valid one issued by the STATE you were born in. NOT the one issued at the hospital, even if it has a raised, imprinted seal. The hospital one is not valid as far as legal documents go. (I guess they think anyone can forge a birth certificate from, say Main St Hospital, - especially it if burned down ages ago and there are no records from it, and create a raised imprinted seal, to look legit.)

Not all birth certificates are state issued. I know some states only issue through state government offices. NYC is different in that they don't pass on their birth certificates to the state, while other cities in New York do where one can request from the city or state. In my state there's a prescribed format (special "bank note" paper) that counties (and some cities) need to follow.

The weirdest one I saw was Bruce Lee's birth certificate. If you ever saw the move Dragon, they showed his father presenting him his birth certificate from the Jackson Street Hospital in San Francisco. He was telling him that he could use that birth certificate to return to the United States. However, there's documentary evidence that his parents would have had a government-issued certified birth certificate as well as return documents.

 

[jo-jo]

Depends on who is asking. The main problem is that there are so many places that one can present the documents and not everyone receives the same training. The duty of "passport acceptance" has been farmed out to thousands of different post offices, county clerks, and even public university bookstores. I got my first US passport at the San Francisco passport agency office back at a time when they didn't require that there be proof of immediate travel. We applied for our kid's passport (must be in person) at a university recreational gym. The front desk clerk was a student and it worked out pretty well. Later on we had to renew (all child passports must be renewed in person) and we got an appointment for the passport agency because we were in a hurry. The clerk (a State Dept employee) looked at our photo and said there might be a problem with the quality. We got the photo printed at a Target which used a photo printer - not real photo paper and it did look a little washed out. But we got the passport in a couple of days and the passport card was mailed out.

Not to panic you in any way, but there are cases where the passport acceptance facility person says that everything is in order, but then some bureaucrat at the State Dept has the final say that you'll need to send in more documents.

The State Dept says that they have certain requirements - a seal/stamp of the certifying authority, signature of the registrar, the filing date (must be less than a year from the DOB), the place of birth, and the parent(s) full names. There have been all sorts of different issues with certain cities/counties/states. I recall Pennsylvania would often issue birth certificates without the name of the parents unless requested. Some had forms that didn't include a proper seal. However, they really don't care about the form or even if it looks old. They'll accept computer printouts, hand-written forms, photocopies, pixelated scans, negative images (photostat), etc. as long as their basic requirements are met. Now there are probably over 10,000 different forms used in the history of the United States, so I'm not sure what they do if they don't have a ready reference for some hand-written form from some tiny city in Massachussetts from 50 years ago. At least in my state (California) there's a standard for the current form that every city/county as well as the state itself has to follow.

This was done at a post office. Are you saying the United States Post Office could be in error???? Just because a package that was being sent to me within the state ended up 3 states away, I will not lose faith. I'm not going to panic, just never going to fly again . LOL

But really there has to be other people that have lost documents. There must be situations where some city hall someplace had a fire or flood and papers were ruined. It's not like only a few states are doing this REAL ID thing.

So stay tuned, in 6 -8 weeks, I'll bring this thread back to life. I am hoping with passport in hand to try for TSA precheck.

 

[bcla]

This was done at a post office. Are you saying the United States Post Office could be in error???? Just because a package that was being sent to me within the state ended up 3 states away, I will not lose faith. I'm not going to panic, just never going to fly again . LOL

But really there has to be other people that have lost documents. There must be situations where some city hall someplace had a fire or flood and papers were ruined. It's not like only a few states are doing this REAL ID thing.

So stay tuned, in 6 -8 weeks, I'll bring this thread back to life. I am hoping with passport in hand to try for TSA precheck.

I'll just say that these aren't employees of the State Dept Bureau of Consular Affairs. I've heard people handling "passport acceptance" giving incorrect information before and the application requiring either more documents or where the documents were rejected by the State Department. There are actually a few select cases where birth certificates are considered suspect unless they were issued after a certain date or if they were specific forms. One is Texas where there were cases of midwives fraudulently signing off on births in the US that actually occurred in Mexico. Another is Puerto Rico, which was a total mess because of how people typically used birth certificates for everything such that schools and other places had them where they were stolen and made for easy identity theft. I think there was at least one other case where county clerks were bribed to create fake birth certificates forms, and now the State Dept will only accept the state-issued version and not the county's.

I don't know how it's supposed to be done since my wife doesn't use a married name. However, I looked it up and there's nothing that says that married women need to present marriage license for a new passport application with a married name.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-passport/apply-in-person.html
It does ask for a marriage certificate as one way to document a request for a name change on an existing passport.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/have-passport/change-correct.html

 

[Searc]

Went for passport today, had BC and DL. Nothing else was requested. Even mentioned about planning to use it instead of REAL ID, and lack of marriage certificate. Nothing was said. Now to wait 6 weeks.

Expect to have your passport held up until they have proof of your name change.

 

[NYCgrrl]

This was done at a post office. Are you saying the United States Post Office could be in error???? Just because a package that was being sent to me within the state ended up 3 states away, I will not lose faith. I'm not going to panic, just never going to fly again . LOL

But really there has to be other people that have lost documents. There must be situations where some city hall someplace had a fire or flood and papers were ruined. It's not like only a few states are doing this REAL ID thing.

So stay tuned, in 6 -8 weeks, I'll bring this thread back to life. I am hoping with passport in hand to try for TSA precheck.

There are and yes you can overcome. Liking your positive attitude.

 

[RamblingMad]

Expect to have your passport held up until they have proof of your name change.

Save yourself a lot of trouble and don’t change your name.

 

[bcla]

There are and yes you can overcome. Liking your positive attitude.

Records have been backed up for years. Maybe there's an original form stored somewhere, but I've seen copies of birth certificates that were generated from microfilm, photocopied directly from the original birth certificate, or scanned. A lot of them these days are strictly electronic records. My kid's birth certificates were generated from a scanned copy from the county even though the state has final custody of the original. Everything these days can exist in some sort of electronic record/facsimile that can be backed up offsite. A lot of companies provide electronic records back-ups.

 

[Searc]

Save yourself a lot of trouble and don’t change your name.

LOL 24 years too late...and I'd still change my name.

 

[jo-jo]

Records have been backed up for years. Maybe there's an original form stored somewhere, but I've seen copies of birth certificates that were generated from microfilm, photocopied directly from the original birth certificate, or scanned. A lot of them these days are strictly electronic records. My kid's birth certificates were generated from a scanned copy from the county even though the state has final custody of the original. Everything these days can exist in some sort of electronic record/facsimile that can be backed up offsite. A lot of companies provide electronic records back-ups.

We are talking about a document from 45 years ago being lost.

 

[jo-jo]

Expect to have your passport held up until they have proof of your name change.

Well if I knew they would ask for that, I wouldn't have spent the money. Only 6-8 weeks minus 6 hours to wait.

 

[bcla]

We are talking about a document from 45 years ago being lost.

You mentioned a hypothetical of a city hall being flooded or on fire, so I thought you were referring to original documents being lost. I'm kind of a geek about this. I've been in a situation where the computer system was kind of wonky when I was requested a certified copy of our marriage certificate. The clerk said if I could wait around I could get a copy made from their onsite microfilm archive, or they could request a copy of the backup image from their offsite IT provider.

 

[bcla]

Well if I knew they would ask for that, I wouldn't have spent the money. Only 6-8 weeks minus 6 hours to wait.

You waited six hours? Wow. There are some not terribly secret places to do this that are faster - especially ones that aren't post offices. The last time I did it (outside of the passport agency where the wait was less than an hour) I found that univeristy rec gym that didn't take appointments, had Saturday hours, and we waited 10 minutes. And the only reason we needed to wait was because there was another guy filling out a paper passport application. We printed ours from their online application before coming in.

If they reject your documents, I'm pretty sure they don't cash the check until they're ready to issue the passport. I'm not even sure you'd be out the acceptance fee. From this it seems that they would ask for more info to be sent to the State Dept via mail.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-passport/letter-email.html​

Common reasons we may have contacted you:​

​

You changed your name, but the document you submitted was insufficient. ​

​

If…​	Please submit…​
Your name has been legally changed​	A certified copy of the court order or marriage certificate.​
Your name has not been legally changed​	At least three certified or original public records, which show use of this name for at least five years.​ These must include your date and place of birth or your Social Security number (school, military, insurance, medical, etc.). Notarized affidavits completed by two people who have known you by both names may be substituted in place of one public record.

However, they could respond quickly. I've done a regular passport renewal and had it within 2 weeks. My kid's first passport was a routine application and it was mailed in about a week. It really depends on the backup of routine applications and perhaps how many expedited applications they're doing. All routine passport applications done through acceptance facilities are done at one of the regional passport agencies. Our kid's routine one was mailed in from the San Francisco Passport Agency.

 

[jo-jo]

You mentioned a hypothetical of a city hall being flooded or on fire, so I thought you were referring to original documents being lost. I'm kind of a geek about this. I've been in a situation where the computer system was kind of wonky when I was requested a certified copy of our marriage certificate. The clerk said if I could wait around I could get a copy made from their onsite microfilm archive, or they could request a copy of the backup image from their offsite IT provider.

City hall says they have no record. At that time it was recorded in books, they don't see anything. Don't know how that could happen. I must have had one to change name on other documents at the time.

You waited six hours? Wow. There are some not terribly secret places to do this that are faster - especially ones that aren't post offices. The last time I did it (outside of the passport agency where the wait was less than an hour) I found that univeristy rec gym that didn't take appointments, had Saturday hours, and we waited 10 minutes. And the only reason we needed to wait was because there was another guy filling out a paper passport application. We printed ours from their online application before coming in.

If they reject your documents, I'm pretty sure they don't cash the check until they're ready to issue the passport. I'm not even sure you'd be out the acceptance fee. From this it seems that they would ask for more info to be sent to the State Dept via mail.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-passport/letter-email.html​

Common reasons we may have contacted you:​

​

You changed your name, but the document you submitted was insufficient. ​

​

If…​	Please submit…​
Your name has been legally changed​	A certified copy of the court order or marriage certificate.​
Your name has not been legally changed​	At least three certified or original public records, which show use of this name for at least five years.​ These must include your date and place of birth or your Social Security number (school, military, insurance, medical, etc.). Notarized affidavits completed by two people who have known you by both names may be substituted in place of one public record.

However, they could respond quickly. I've done a regular passport renewal and had it within 2 weeks. My kid's first passport was a routine application and it was mailed in about a week. It really depends on the backup of routine applications and perhaps how many expedited applications they're doing. All routine passport applications done through acceptance facilities are done at one of the regional passport agencies. Our kid's routine one was mailed in from the San Francisco Passport Agency.

No, it didn't take 6 hours, It's been about 6 hours since it was filed. Took about 25 mins all together including waiting. I was only saying minus the 6 hours since I files the forms, I only have to wait another 6 weeks.

 

[bcla]

City hall says they have no record. At that time it was recorded in books, they don't see anything. Don't know how that could happen. I must have had one to change name on other documents at the time.



No, it didn't take 6 hours, It's been about 6 hours since it was filed. Took about 25 mins all together including waiting. I was only saying minus the 6 hours since I files the forms, I only have to wait another 6 weeks.

Hopefully it's less than that. 6 weeks is worst case. Once an application is accepted it only takes a few minutes to actually print everything into a blank passport. I've heard of people who needed emergency same-day passports and managed to get them within a couple of hours. If they come back with a request for more info, it could be faster than that and everything should be done via mail without any additional costs other than maybe postage.

Not sure what would be up with a no record. However, there aren't too many cities in the US (with NYC being the only one I can think of) that doesn't pass on birth records to the county and/or state.

 

[jo-jo]

Hopefully it's less than that. 6 weeks is worst case. Once an application is accepted it only takes a few minutes to actually print everything into a blank passport. I've heard of people who needed emergency same-day passports and managed to get them within a couple of hours. If they come back with a request for more info, it could be faster than that and everything should be done via mail without any additional costs other than maybe postage.

Not sure what would be up with a no record. However, there aren't too many cities in the US (with NYC being the only one I can think of) that doesn't pass on birth records to the county and/or state.

It's a marriage certificate that's missing , not birth certificate. I was able to get a new BC a few months ago.

I hope you're right with the shorter time frame.

 

[Searc]

Hopefully it's less than that. 6 weeks is worst case. Once an application is accepted it only takes a few minutes to actually print everything into a blank passport. I've heard of people who needed emergency same-day passports and managed to get them within a couple of hours. If they come back with a request for more info, it could be faster than that and everything should be done via mail without any additional costs other than maybe postage.

Not sure what would be up with a no record. However, there aren't too many cities in the US (with NYC being the only one I can think of) that doesn't pass on birth records to the county and/or state.

Passports are currently taking 6-8 weeks to process. I'm waiting on a renewed passport to be processed.