Category Archives: Sworn translation

Working from Home during Lockdown

Print pagePDF pageEmail page

Having worked as a translator full-time at home since 1979, even during my children’s very long French school holidays, I am probably not suffering from the constraints of lockdown as much as other people.

These are my basic rules:

 

1/ Get dressed immediately when you get up (this became a rule right at the beginning when I had a client turn up unexpectedly at my doorstep and I was still in my nightgear).

2/ Set up a dedicated work space, even if you do not have a lot of room. Avoid working in the bedroom if you possibly can (you’ll sleep better at night!).

3/ Make yourself work for an hour at a time WITHOUT ANY DISTRACTION and then allow 10 to 15 minutes break (I have software called WorkPace that locks my keyboard every hour and gives me exercises to do but you can override it if necessary).

4/ If you’re having trouble getting started, begin with the easiest task. Break tasks into doable segments if necessary.

5/ Take a morning tea/coffee break, a proper lunchbreak and an afternoon tea break and NEVER EVER eat at the computer. If you want a snack, run up and down the steps, skip rope or clean the bath first. You probably won’t feel like it any more. The idea is to dissociate eating from working.

6/ Do at least ½ hour of exercise inside or outside each day. During our miserable winter, I do the “Happy Walk”.

7/ If you are used to a lot of light as I am (I lived in tropical North Queensland for 22 years), use a daylight lamp for 4 hours a day. You would be surprised how effective it is.

8/ Make sure you talk to someone at least once a day if you are living alone. If you are used to having a lot of people around you at work, you should talk to at least three people a day! Texting is not a substitute. Maybe you can call someone during your lunch break. That’s what my daughter does because she hates eating by herself. Use headphones to make it easier. There are lots of home tasks you can do while talking on the phone such as cooking, hanging out the washing, ironing and gardening.

9/ Take the evening off if you can but sometimes it may be better to take time off during the day and work after dinner instead. However, you will need to leave at least an hour between working and sleeping if you want a restful night.

10/ Take off at least one full day a week – it doesn’t have to be Sunday!

Lockdown won’t last forever and we need to preserve our resources to deal with the aftermath!

Do you have any suggestions about working at home?

Why must birth certificates in France be less than 3 months old?

Print pagePDF pageEmail page

Most foreigners living in France are asked at some stage to deliver a full birth certificate that is less than 3 months old. Why three months?

If you’ve even seen a French birth certificate of someone who has been married, you will understand why.

French birth certificates are “annotés” which means that any change in civil status is recorded on the birth certificate itself – marriage, civil union, separation, divorce, remarriage, death … It’s like a personal history rather than a record of a single event. This is also the purpose of the livret de famille*.

As a result, the French authorities always ask for a recent certificate, which is defined as less than 3 months old. Birth certificates are obtained from the town hall of the place of birth and are free of charge. You simply send a photocopy of your identity card and a stamped addressed envelope with a cover letter saying who you are and what you want and they usually arrive in a few days. You can also go to the town hall in person. Since February 15th 2019, birth certificates can also be obtained in multilingual versions (i.e. all the languages of the European Union).

In most countries other than France, birth certificates are not annotated. As a result, there is no reason to submit a certificate of less than 3 months, nor a translation of less than 3 months. Unfortunately, a lot of authorities are not aware of this. I am a sworn translator (Orléans Appeal Court) and have just translated a UK birth certificate for a British citizen who is getting married in a neighbouring town in the Loire Valley because the local town hall simply knows nothing about the regulations and my client doesn’t want to mess around.

I have personally used the same Australian birth certificate for countless cartes de séjour, two marriages, one divorce and a successful application for French citizenship. Each time, I explained that “les actes de naissance en Australie ne sont pas annotés.”

On the French official website service-public.fr, it says:

“Un acte de naissance, de mariage ou de décès demeure valable tant que les éléments qui y figurent n’ont pas été modifiés.”  https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F10449. i.e. a birth, marriage or death certificate remains valid as long as the information given in the certificate has not been modified.

This means that, unless your name has changed (for a reason other than marriage) or there was an error in your initial certificate, you can use any full birth certificate issued since you were born. If questioned (which I very much doubt), all you have to do is quote the above sentence if an authority insists on a certificate less than 3 months old. Good luck!

*livret de famille: this is a little booklet you are given when you marry. It is added to each time you have a child. It also records divorces and deaths.

Friday’s French – acte de naissance, extrait d’acte de naissance, copie intégrale, birth certificate, entry of births

Print pagePDF pageEmail page

In my work as a sworn translator in France, the document I am asked to translate and certify the most often is the birth certificate.

In France, it comes by various names: acte de naissance, extrait d’acte de naissance, copie intégrale, extrait avec filiation, extrait sans filiation.

So first, what is an acte de naissance and why is it called an acte? An acte in French is a written document established according to certain rules. In this case, it is the official document written up by the officier de l’état civil (registration officer) in a register kept for this purpose following a declaration of birth. It corresponds to the British “entry of birth”.

Acte de naissance

An acte de naissance is thus called an “entry of birth” in the UK.

So an acte de naissance is an entry in a register. When you ask for a copy of what is written in a birth register in France, i.e. a birth certificate, you have three choices:

Acte de Naissance Copie Intégrale (or copie intégrale avec filiation) reproduces all the information in the birth register, including the following:
– surname, given names, sex, date and place of birth of the person concerned
– surname, given names, date and place of birth of the parents

THIS IS THE INFORMATION REQUIRED ON BIRTH CERTIFICATES USED TO APPLY FOR FRENCH NATIONALITY.

It can also have the following information, called mentions marginales (or endorsements) which makes it different from a regular British, American, or Australian birth certificate:

– Mention of marriage, divorce, legal separation, decease,
– Mention of French nationality (registered declaration, loss, reinstatement, naturalisation)
– Mention of the first issue of a French nationality certificate.

It is because of these endorsements that the French authorities always ask for a birth certificate of less than three months as it provides a record of a person’s civil status throughout their life. Since most of the English-speaking countries do not endorse their certificates, the date of issue of the certificate makes no difference. I used exactly the same birth certificate and its translation for all my resident visas, 2 marriages, 1 divorce and 1 naturalisation.

Extrait d’acte de naissance avec filiation

This is a summary of the information in the birth register:

– surname, given names, sex, date and place of birth of the person concerned
– surname, given names, date and place of birth of the parents
– mentions marginales if they exist

Extrait d’acte de naissance sans filiation

This is a summary of the information in the birth register:

– surname, given names, sex, date and place of birth of the person concerned
– mentions marginales if they exist

In Great Britain, the most common type of birth certificate is called “Certified copy of an entry” and provides the following information:

– NHS number (in the more recent ones)
– name, surname and sex of the person concerned
– year, date and place of birth
– names, surnames, dates and places of birth and occupation of the mother and father
– name of the informant

Its format and other details, however, vary according to the place and year of birth.

There is also a shorter version called a “Certificate of Birth” which only has the person’s given names and surname, sex, date and place of birth, corresponding to the French “extrait d’acte de naissance sans filiation”. IT IS NOT VALID WHEN APPLYING FOR FRENCH NATIONALITY, for example.

In the United States, birth certificates are county-issued documents and not standardised within a state.

In North Carolina and Utah, there is a “Certificate of Live Birth” and a “Standard Certificate of Birth” both containing the following information, with the Certificate of Live Birth being more complete:

– name, surname and sex of the person concerned
– year, date and place of birth
– names, surnames, dates and places of birth and occupation of the mother and father

Florida has a “Certification of Birth” with

– child’s name, date and county of birth and sex
– names of mother and father (but not their birth dates)

South Africa issues a document called a “Birth Certificate

– ID number
– name, surname and gender of the person concerned
– year, dates and places of birth and ID n° of the mother and father
– endorsements

Australia has different certificates for different states and years of birth, although the information is more or less the same. The document is usually called a birth certificate (sometimes just “Birth”).

– Child (given names, surname/family name, sex, year, date and place of birth)
– Mother and Father (given names, surname/family name, age, birthplace and occupation)
– Name of informant
– Witnesses at birth
– Previous Children of Relationship; Informant/s (name, address);
– Registration Officer (name, date)

Shorter versions exist which do not include the parents’ place and date of birth. THEY ARE NOT VALID WHEN APPLYING FOR FRENCH NATIONALITY.

There are a few idiosyncrasies. More recent ACT birth certificates use the term “Person furnishing particulars” to describe what previously concerned the informant. In Victoria, there is a section called “Endorsements” which is Queensland is called “Notes”. Both the ACT and Victoria include the marriage of the parents. Examples per state can be found on https://www.usi.gov.au/about/forms-id/birth-certificate-australian.

In Canada, it is called a Birth Certificate or Certificate of Birth and comes in two forms: short or long.

The short form gives the following information:

  • last name
  • given name(s)
  • date of birth
  • certificate number
  • birthplace
  • sex
  • date of registration
  • registration number, and
  • date issued

The long form  is a certified copy of the birth registration so contains details about
the parents, informants, witnesses, etc. depending on the state.

In Ontario it comes in a bilingual version called Birth Certificate/Certificat de Naissance.

In Quebec, it is called a certificat, copie d’acte ou attestation de naissance (birth certificate or a copy of an act of birth in English) and can be obtained in either English or French but not a bilingual version. The birth certificate is the short form and the copy of an act of birth is the long form.

So, to answer the question “What is a copie intégrale”?, it is a birth certificate that provides the following minimum information:

– given names, surname and sex of the person concerned
– year, date, hour and place of birth
– names, surnames, dates and places of birth of the parents

In the UK, it is called a “Certified copy of an entry of birth”.

In Australia and Africa, it is called a “Birth Certificate” or “Certificate of Birth”.

In the US, it goes by various names, usually containing the expression “Certificate of Birth”.

In English-speaking Canada, it is a long form birth certificate and in Quebec, a copy of an act of birth.

In France, birth certificates are issued free of charge (in a multilingual version* if requested) to:

– The person concerned by the certificate, their legal representative or spouse,
– An ascendant of the person concerned (parent, grandparent),
– A descendant of the person concerned (child, grandchild),
– Or a professional authorised to do so by law (lawyer for their client, for example).
– To any person provided the entry is more than 75 years old or the person has been dead for more than 25 years.

They are obtained from the townhall of the person’s birth, either in person, by post (include a stamped addressed envelope) or on-line.

*The multilingual version is never a “copie intégrale” but only an “extrait d’acte de naissance” and does not have the parents’ birth date or age, nor their profession. They are usually used within the European Union and not accepted by the US government, for example. 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...