shuizhuyu

Hi folks,

I realise I'm somewhat re-treading old ground old ground here (UK Child Overseas Passport - Grandparents Birth Certificate, Passport for new baby born overseas, can't link because of lack of tenure) but I have a slightly more specific question I was hoping someone could help with.

My partner and I currently live in Paris and our daughter was born here 3 weeks ago. We're in the process of applying for the baby's first UK passport, and we've received some conflicting information.

By way of background, my partner and I are both UK citizens, born in the UK in 1987 and 1990 respectively. We're not married, but we are PACS'ed (a sort of civil partnership). Both my parents plus my partner's mum are also British-born UK citizens. Her dad was born in Guyana (then British Guiana) and was actually in Guyana waiting for his spousal visa to come through when my partner was born, although he's since naturalised as a British citizen. My parents weren't married when I was born (although they are now).

The "What you need to send" section of the online passport application form has quite a long list of documents:

• Our daughter's birth certificate
• One of our birth certificates
• For all 4 grandparents, their birth and marriage certificates

It's somewhat onerous to gather all these documents in one place, probably the easiest option would be ordering extracts of all the birth certificates from the GRO to someone in the UK, and posting our daughter's birth certificate there and having person send the lot on to HMPO. One slight wrinkle is that my partner's dad doesn't have a birth certificate registered with the GRO – he doesn't actually have a copy of his birth certificate at all, only a "deed poll" from 12 years after he was born which he's been using for official purposes.

I wanted to understand more about why these documents are necessary. I half-understand that it's probably to do with proving what sort of citizenship my partner and I have and ensuring we're eligible to pass it on (e.g. we're not British by descent). However, it seemed to me that some of these documents might not be necessary, for instance the maternal grandfather's details probably aren't helpful in supporting the application since he wasn't a British citizen at the time. Also, perhaps only one grandparent's birth certificate would suffice.

So I called HMPO and a very helpful person quickly picked up the phone and told me not to worry about all that. So long as we included our passport details on the application, the baby's birth certificate is all that's needed (it was understood that the baby was born in France), and they could look up all the other details from our passport records.

Now I'm more confused than ever! Could anyone please help me understand:

• Why does the "What you need to send" list differ so much from what I was told on the phone?
• Are they able confirm that we're not "British by descent" just from our passport records? Simply because it shows we were born in the UK?
• In another thread, regarding supplying extra supporting documentation, it's mentioned "It won’t help or hinder the issue of your children’s passports but it will mean that their claim to British citizenship through both their parents will be recorded by HMPO on their passport file. As this will likely be the only record of their claim it would be a wise precaution to ensure it's as complete as possible. It could potentially help them or their children in years to come." Since we're both named on the birth certificate, I'm not sure that applies in this case. Is there any harm likely to come from only providing the bare minimum supporting documentation?

Thanks a lot in advance.

mrken30

All I sent was a originals of the birth certificate, both my daughter's and mine. Sent copies of both mine and my daughter's US passports and my passport details. For my son, something was missing and they just emailed me and I sent that document without any issues.

shuizhuyu

Hi again, folks. I thought it might be helpful to share my experience now that we've received the passport.

Since we weren't in a big rush to get the passport (currently no travel plans), and since we'd heard different things when speaking to HMPO on the phone, we thought we'd try our chances and just send off our documents, without any of the grandparents' documents.

In the end, they checked the application and then got back to us asking for one grandmother's birth certificate, which we were able to send as an additional document. This was much easier for us and quite probably quicker than collecting all the documents first and then sending them together, even if we'd decided to just go with a grandmother's birth certificate.

I still don't fully understand why my mother's birth certificate was necessary. Given that I'm a UK citizen and I was born in the UK, I must be British "other than by descent". I'm not sure what more is proved by showing where and when my mum was born.

Anyway, for the sake of completeness, here's a timeline of the events: (note that the signed-for mail with my mum's birth certificate in was possibly caught up in the industrial action in the UK and the tracking information was never updated so I'm not sure when it was delivered)

• Monday, 14th November: Mine, my partner's and our baby's birth certificates, plus a "multilingual extract" of the baby's which was provided by the town hall, sent by tracked mail from France.
• Wednesday, 16th November: Signed for at HMPO
• Friday, 18th November: Documents acknowledged as received by HMPO in their www.passport.service.gov.uk/track system.
• Wednesday, 23rd November: Received the following update from HMPO
  
  Quote:

  Thank you for submitting a passport application for Shuizhuyu Jr. Unfortunately you did not enclose all necessary supporting documents.
  What you need to do
  Please send the following documents: Maternal or Paternal Grandmothers full birth certificate.
• Thursday, 24th November: My mum sent off her birth certificate from the UK by first class, signed-for.
• Monday, 5th December: Application approved
• Tuesday, 6th December: Passport printed
• Wednesday, 7th December: Passport picked up by DHL
• Thursday, 8th December: Passport delivered by DHL
• Monday, 12th December: Supporting documents delivered by DHL

Hope someone finds this useful one day!

MG2023

Hello! Quick question:
In your second post, you wrote:

• Thursday, 24th November: My mum sent off her birth certificate from the UK by first class, signed-for

Does this mean that your mother was able to send her birth certificate to the HMPO office directly? Because I'm living in the US with American husband and child (child is dual UK/USA citizen) and I've seen that I should provide ALL grandparents birth certificates. . . So my mother and father (both born in the UK; are UK citizens) would mail me their birth certificates from the UK to me here in the USA only for me to mail them back for my child's application.

It's all so confusing!

Thanks in advance
-M

shuizhuyu

In my case, they reviewed my application and decided that although what I'd initially sent (just mine and my partner's birth certificates) was not enough, one grandmother's birth certificate was all that was additionally required. This as opposed to all four grandparents plus two marriage certificates that they had originally requested.

They emailed me asking me to send the additional document. They specified a slightly different address – INT-DOCS rather than INT-EDP-FTA – not sure the significance of that. So my mum in the UK was able to send her birth certificate directly and it was added to the other documents supporting the application.

Presumably during the initial automated process they cast the net wide and ask for everything that could possibly support the application. But once someone had the application and initial documents in hand, they were able to be more specific in their request.

I'm sure the passport office would prefer to receive everything in one go. Also, this method does involve some additional back and forth with them so presumably more chance for stuff to go wrong. But for me it worked well, it was much more convenient than gathering everything together, let alone hunting down all those extra documents.

chipheothino

Did you get a result from this? I'm about to apply for my son's UK passport but my parents never married, so cannot send them the marriage certificate requested.

shuizhuyu

Yes, we got the passport. I believe the timeline I shared above is comprehensive, happy to answer any specific questions you might have though.

chipheothino

Thanks for the reply - that's quite the relief for me. You made it clear but I had been reading MG2023's posts so was unsure if your situation was the same as mine.

Cheers!