I have a Certificate of Marriage issued from NYC signed by the city clerk
How do I get it apostilled? Do I mail it to the NYC county clerk or the Department of State? Does it need a letter of exemplification?
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1There is a pretty complete explanation at dos.ny.gov/licensing/apostille.html – Nate Eldredge Jun 24 '19 at 2:15
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When I got my marriage certificate from the NYC city clerk, they gave me a sheet of paper describing the process in detail, including the addresses of the offices I had to visit. Did you not get one of those? – phoog Jun 24 '19 at 3:09
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The NYS Secretary of State would normally be the official involved, but Nate's link is more complete. – ohwilleke Jun 25 '19 at 3:05
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I read through Nate's link, it does cover everything for me except if Letter of Exemplification is needed when I send it to the county clerk? It says "Birth and death certificates issued from the New York City Department of Health will also require a Letter of Exemplification. Therefore you must request a Letter of Exemplification" That means LOE isn't needed for marriage certificate? (issued from NYC bureau of marriage, signed by City clerk/registrar, and it is the Short form rather than Long/Extended form) – Dan Jun 25 '19 at 10:29
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@phoog I haven't got that paper, do they have an online copy of it by chance? – Dan Jun 25 '19 at 10:34
You do not need a letter of exemplification. As noted at the New York Department of State link link in Nate Eldredge's comment, that is needed for birth and death certificates only.
The sheet of paper I mentioned in a comment has the same information as may be found under "fees" at https://www.cityclerk.nyc.gov/content/marriage-records. Essentially, you need a long-form certificate, which costs $35 instead of $15, and you must first visit the county clerk (to authenticate the city clerk's signature, for a fee of $3) and then the Department of State at 123 William Street (19th Floor) (for the apostille, which costs $10).
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That covers everything, then in my case the county clerk won't be able to authenticate the city clerk's signature on the Short form? Do I then have to get them the long form instead? – Dan Jun 26 '19 at 13:38
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@Dan as far as I know the reason they speak of the long form is that the short form does not meet the requirements of many (most?) foreign jurisdictions, but I don't think there's any reason why they wouldn't be able to authenticate the short form (unless it's not signed manually, perhaps). If you can confirm that the short form is acceptable in the country where you want to use it, you can try to get an apostille for it and come back to report the result (probably by asking a question at Expatriates rather than here, since the question fits better there). – phoog Jun 26 '19 at 14:04
