Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:
> Louise Bremner wrote:
> > Kevin Wayne Williams <kww.nihongo@verizon.nut> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Louise Bremner wrote:
> >>
> >>>Declan Murphy <declan_murphy@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>I thought the "certain gentleman" was referring to actual flights?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Yeah, well, that could get confusing. I go by number of visas obtained
> >>>(not applied for, note).
> >>
> >>So the first few years of my life didn't count as being there at all?
> >
> >
> > Weren't you written into your mother's passport and hence included into
> > her visa, as soon as she registered you at your embassy? Or is the
> > registration of alien infants a relatively recent requirement?
>
> I'm not sure how recent it is, but I'm sure that I wasn't. The Americans
> were still a quasi-occupying force at the time, so they were given
> significant deference by the Japanese government. US military personnel
> didn't require passports at all.
>
> When I moved to the Antilles, there was all kinds of trouble with my
> birth certificate. The Antilleans wanted an apostilled copy of my birth
> certificate. What I have is a Foreign Service FS-240, "Report of Live
> Birth Abroad."  There are only three copies of my FS-240: one at the
> Tokyo Consulate, one at the State Department, and one in my hands. It is
> illegal to copy it, and the State Department will *not* apostille it.
> They say that you can only apostille a copy, and all three that exist
> are originals. In the 1980s the State Department came up with a new form
> that they would apostille. In order for me to emigrate, the State
> Department made me a new birth certificate using the later form, and
> then apostilled it as genuine. They weren't very good at it ... the
> first one was missing a signature and had my name spelled incorrectly.

How odd. I actually spent a whole summer in law school doing nothing
but studying the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of
Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (it's what led to my work on
the Japanese Notary Law). The Antillies is a party and it was entitled
to require an apostilled copy. The problem was the State Department's
refusal to authenticate it. The US is also a party to the Hague
Convention, and their refusal to apostille your FS-240 was not proper.
Under the Convention, the issuance of an apostille is not a
discretionary matter.

They were incorrect to say that only a copy can be apostilled. An
apostille is affixed to the document itself (or a certified copy
thereof) or an annex attached to the document called an allonge. I
prefer that the apostille be affixed to the document itself. If it's
illegal to copy the FS-240 (I do not know if that's true), then they
should have affixed the apostille to the FS-240 itself or to an
allonge.

Anyway, I am glad it all worked out for you in the end.

- Kevin