bullettoothtony

Hi,
I am a British citizen and have dual citizenship (USA). I have recently had a child that was born in the USA with a US citizen. I want to register my child's birth in the UK. While i recognize delays etc imposed by COVID-19 related shutdowns I have begun looking at the list of documents I need to send along with the application to register the birth. The list of required documents is extensive and seems excessive. In particular, I see that medical, hospital or insurance records that name both parents are required...I am not sure I have any of these. Has anyone applied recently and if so, did you have to make a request from the hospital, for example, for these records?
Thanks

tht

I did this twice now, I think all that is only if you don’t have the long form birth certificate within 3 months of the birth. I am in CT and did not need it.

https://www.gov.uk/register-a-birth/y/usa/father/yes/same_country


Also to pass your UK Citizenship your need to be a UK Citizen other than by decent, assuming your were born and lived in the UK before you moved to the US, you are likely OK, but if you were born abroad to a UKC and never lived there it may not be as straight forward.

steph0scope

You don't need to register the birth to get a British passport for the baby. It's optional but not a requirement:

https://www.gov.uk/register-a-birth

You do not need to register with the UK authorities but it means:

• the birth will be recorded with the General Register Offices or at the National Records Office of Scotland
• you can order a consular birth registration certificate

bullettoothtony

OK, thanks. Assuming the office opens up for processing within 2 1/2 months i will be within 3 months too.

Yes, I was born in the UK to british born parents and lived there continuously until i was 27.

tht

Which office? I think as long as you get the long form birth certificate within 3 months you will be OK. The person from the town/state came to the hospital before we left to register the birth, did they not do that?

BritInParis

As tht says you only need that extensive list if the birth was registered more then three months after the birth.

More general information here: https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Briti...h_Registration

tht

And by that I think they mean registered in the USA not the UK. I seem to recall it has something to do with foreign adoptions being registered as births in the US or something like that, which is why they want medical records if it was registered after more than 3 months.

Also I know there is a cheaper way to get a copy of the certificate but for ease I juts ordered 2 when I did it so I would have them to hand. The registration does not automatically include the certificate. That way when the kids are old enough they can get their copy and I will have a backup.

I only have US passports for my kids and wife, we have up to 3 citizenships each so especially for the kids 3 new passports every 5 years would get expensive fast. Not had any issues taking them to visit the UK on their US passports and I still used the UK Citizen line for them as they are UK Citizens.

MarylandNed

It's the ISSUE date of the birth cert that is important. So even if you registered the birth within 3 months, you can still have problems if the birth cert is ISSUED more than 3 months after the birth e.g. you lost the original birth cert and had a replacement issued more than 3 months after the birth.

UK consular birth registration is optional but it is probably a good idea for children born in the US. This is because birth cert standards vary widely across the US. Also, US birth records may be amended in adoption cases which means the biological parents may not even appear on the birth cert. Because of this, the UK is particularly suspicious of US birth certs issued more than 3 months after birth. If you try to use such a birth cert for a UK passport application, you may be asked to provide additional documentation proving who the biological parents are (e.g. hospital records). UK consular birth registration solves these issues and will make it much easier for the child to prove UK citizenship later in life.

BritInParis

It’s the date of registration rather than the date of issue for the reasons you mention.

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...h-certificates

MarylandNed

Yeah - it says registration date but that wasn't my experience. I had an issue (pardon the pun) because of the issue date. My daughter's Maryland birth cert was short form (that's the default in Maryland) which wasn't acceptable as it only included name and age (in years - not DOB) of both parents. I had to order the long form birth cert which includes full details of both parents (name, DOB, age in years, place of birth and address). But this wasn't acceptable because, although the registration date was the same as the short form birth cert, it had an issue date 5 years later. I then had to get documentation from the hospital stating who the biological parents were. This was in the form of a letter along with a copy of the original birth registration notice.

BritInParis

Hmm, that’s not what they should’ve been asking. Was this when processing had just been handed back to the UK by any chance?

MarylandNed

No - this was before - probably just before. The consular birth registration was handled by the British Embassy in Washington, DC in 2015.

BritInParis

All the Regional Passport Processing Centres had closed by April 2014. There were a lot of delays and difficulties for about a year afterwards so that might explain it.

scot47

There are great benefits to registering the birth so there is a permanent record in the GRO. In 50 years time when the individual loses their passport in Uzbekistan, they can get a duplicate of the birth cert from GRO. My two daughters were both born in foreign jurisdictions. In both cases I took the rouble to register at the Consular Section of the BritEmbassy and hence at GRO

MarylandNed

Agreed but get multiple copies of the GRO birth cert now - don't even wait. Also get multiple copies of the US birth cert as well (long form that gives full details of the parents) within 3 months of birth.