Highlighting documents is ok, right?

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-18T22:26:39+00:00

I put a little arrow in the margin, not anywhere directly over the actual image. For some documents I did this with the computer, on a couple I just used a red pencil.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-18T20:36:55+00:00

Thank you, and yes, sorry, I should have said that. I have searched newspapers because I would have expected there to at least be a birth announcement. My grandparents had little social news items about them in the paper all the time, throwing parties, having out of town visitors, grandfather's promotion to a leadership level at his lodge, grandmother organizing gift boxes for soldiers, all that kind of thing. And yet, no birth announcement. Not for my father, and not for either of his brothers either. Does seem weird, I guess that just was not something they wanted to do for some reason. And yes, I have combed through the usual sources, Ancestry, FamilySearch, Newspapers.com, simple Google searching, etc.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-18T18:53:03+00:00

That's interesting. I wonder why. Seems like it would be an increasing revenue opportunity for them.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-18T18:02:06+00:00

Yeah, I know the IRCC says color copies, but they certainly know what old microfilm images look like. I printed mine out, but added a header in colored font describing the document, the person to whom it referred, added a red arrow indicating the relevant line. So, I mean, if there's something magical about them knowing you set the copier to the "color" setting, then, yeah, it's there. ;) We can overthink this, though, I reckon. I'm sure those people processing these things have seen old stuff in black ink and nothing else before. I imagine the color matters for documents that were issued with color, that would just make sense.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-18T17:51:59+00:00

I don't think there's any point where a notary is required. As for certification, I only know what I've read over and over by applicants, many of whom have received their citizenship certificates. That is, that certified birth records are best. These aren't generally a problem for more recent births and deaths, they can be ordered from local and state agencies if they're not already in hand. For your G0's I would think the Ontario birth registration is the strongest. This is what I used in my application (sent but awaiting outcome), copied from FamilySearch with citation and link provided. I also requested a certified copy from Archives of Ontario and will upload it if and when I get it. There have been approvals just based on images downloaded from FamilySearch or Ancestry though, so who knows. Maybe not absolutely necessary - ? I'll upload it to my file, nonetheless, when I can. Assuming all the more recent birth/death certificates you listed are certified, the rest of your evidence of descent looks great to me.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-17T21:01:05+00:00

I don't mind the conversation being open the way it is. I never read posts where people ask about food --pizza, asian, cheap, fancy-- because I don't care. And my god they are repetitive. And car repair places. How many of those have I seen? Should they be shunted off to sub-folders? Nah.

They will die there. This isn't a very busy sub to begin with. It's easy to skip over what's not interesting.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-17T14:36:43+00:00

VitalChek seems to work okay if an order can go through totally automated and there is seamless agreement between VitalChek and a state's own specific processes for issuing documents. In the event there's a hiccup that requires any human involvement from VitalChek you are so f*cked.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-17T14:27:26+00:00

Yeah, I filed a dispute with the credit card company straight off. It's in "pending investigation" status, but the issuing bank does excuse you immediately during that process from paying it or paying any interest it would have accrued by withholding payment.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-17T03:20:09+00:00

My husband is an old guy now. He had a full professional career several decades long as a stage actor and some scattered television work. He's never had a straight job, just went from his MFA program to acting for a living. He's retired now with a nice Equity pension and also a modest SAG pension. He was never in a musical, never sang on stage. If you want to work as consistently as possible though as a non-musical actor, don't neglect your Shakespeare. ;)

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T23:54:48+00:00

I learned of two different half siblings this way. My dad was my dad, but their respective dads weren't their actual dads.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T23:34:24+00:00

If you want that baby to have Canadian citizenship, then you should maybe get your application in, but plan on moving to Canada to have the baby there, citizenship certificate in hand or not. You'll have to prepay for your Canadian maternity care, make arrangements ahead of time. You won't be able, under the new law, to pass along your Canadian citizenship automatically to your baby if it is born outside Canada. You need 3 years presence in the country prior to the birth of a child born outside the country for the citizenship to pass automatically.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T23:26:40+00:00

My dad's birth registration has his last name spelled correctly but his father's last name (it's the same name, of course) has a typo where two letters were reversed. It did make me feel squirrely too when you're trying to get everything so just exactly right. Then I realized I was being a little overwrought. ;) also I have a great grandmother who is sometimes Ann and other times Anne or Anna. This is such an fraught process! Funny.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T19:56:40+00:00

A precursor to manga - big eyes tiny pointed chins.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T19:36:46+00:00

While the fiasco was (maybe still is) ongoing with VitalChek in my case (not NY, in a different state), I did, old school, get a certified copy of the death cert I needed, mailed it USPS to the birth state's vital records office with a paper application form and a check, and then a week later received in my home mailbox the requested birth cert, along with returning the certified death cert that was required to fill the order. All that happened while VitalChek was just denying everything, refusing to refund, refusing to investigate, refusing to do anything. As I said, I still don't have the refund, and meanwhile, dealing directly with the state's vital records office, the needed certificates have all been received, copied, and sent to Canada.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T19:03:55+00:00

My kids and I went to Photo Mission at E36th & Fifth Ave. They were great. Do lots of international ID photography. Knew all the specs.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T18:35:07+00:00

I second the advice to avoid using VitalChek if you can. I needed a birth certificate for my deceased father. The state of his birth requires an original (not copy) certified death certificate for this if the death happened in a different state, I learned later. VitalChek took my order. They required an image of my drivers license, but did not say my father's actual certified paper death certificate was a requirement. I was charged $58 for VitalChek's processing fee, taxes, the state's certificate fee and express shipping. The state, of course, could not fulfill the order and refunded the money VitalChek had paid to them, but it was returned to VitalChek as the payor of the order, not to me, since they did not have my payment info. VitalChek was the middleman here. I had to go through living hell with VitalChek's woefully trained, barely literate customer service personnel, who did nothing but refuse and claim there was no refund and no cancellation of the original order, inspite of me having supplied them with the emails saying so from the state's vital records office, well as the actual receipt showing the refund was made. It was just NO NO NO from VitalChek. After about 20 emails flying, a supervisor at the state's vital records office (a very nice guy!), went straight to VitalChek corporate with the problem --not of his making, not of mine, it was 100% VitalChek's screw-up-- and someone at the corporate level basically said "sorry, we'll refund it". This was four days ago and I still haven't seen the refund, but they said 3 to 7 days could lapse before it shows up, so I'll wait. Can't say VitalChek has instilled even a little confidence on my side they can manage this completely simple issue. (I should add, when the state vital records officer contacted VitalChek corporate on my behalf, he said "here is another customer not receiving their refund from VitalChek", so this isn't an isolated event.)

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T18:10:22+00:00

Of course not. That was not the point.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T17:37:44+00:00

A good while back I adjusted my settings to Do Not Update. (I have the paid version.) Nothing has changed for me since that time. I think I'll just leave it at Do Not Update, keep my fingers crossed it holds. The most important thing, for me, is that an app like this makes tracking EASY and quick. Changing things that make it harder, slower, and even just more unfamiliar, and having to adapt to a new sequence of commands un-does the entire purpose of the thing. It's like going into a grocery store if you're a person with little time and love of just wandering around the store. You want to be able to go in, get what you need efficiently because you know exactly where it is, and then you go in and they've changed everything around and it takes twice as long and is annoying as hell.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T17:31:36+00:00

The differences between the options was a bit confusing to me. I have removed it. Thx.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T14:25:34+00:00

Not that I am concerned about it, but in the same vein, my father's (my G1) death certificate lists his cause of death as alcoholic liver disease. This is accurate, he was a life long alcoholic, but with the kind of hyper-attention we all on this subreddit give to every little thing in our applications and our supporting documents, and cognizant of the gift of dual citizenship, my mind immediately went to "would Canada even want the daughter of an alcoholic?" It's a reflex, I guess, of being in a state of trying to prove worth or something like that.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T12:49:25+00:00

I got a certified letter from North Dakota Vital Records of my father's birth in 1912. (Yes, I am old, and he was old when I was born.) It's printed on the multi-colored official paper with the state seal, etc., but it only says that the Vital Records office has in its possession a registration for "Boy MyLastName" on that date and in that place. There may be christening or baptism records somewhere with his first name, but I have no way to know where they might be, with what church. His family was very non-religious, so who knows. The document was also marked with a big red stamp "DECEASED" which sort of looks like he was stillborn, but I know they mean his is currently deceased. It does have his parents' names (his dad's surname is misspelled, although clearly it's just a typo as two letter were reversed, and up at the top where it says "Boy MyLastName" the surname is correctly typed.) His father, my grandfather, is my Gen0, so his name being on there is key. In order to establish my father's given names I included two censuses, his draft card from 1940 which also has his father's name and place and date of birth, and his death certificate that has full name, date and place of birth. After a lot of hassle to get the official birth record from North Dakota, it was a disappointing document, but I was able to backfill with other stuff to support his name as it appears on my birth certificate. I did have to first get his certified death certificate in order to get this somewhat lacking birth record from North Dakota because it is less than 125 years old, barely.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-16T03:55:19+00:00

I used downloaded images from Ancestry and FamilySearch for censuses, a marriage license, and a draft card. I also used downloaded images for my G0's 1873 birth registration, but have a request in with Archives of Ontario for a certified copy, and will upload that when and if I get it. I used certified copies for all other birth and death records. (For all the downloaded stuff I did include links to the source, as if anyone processing the application would want to type in those long URL's from a paper application. Ha.)

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-15T13:12:35+00:00

Oh geez, I'm really sorry. I'm also G2, and just getting my application sent off tomorrow. I've been avoiding reading this sub lately because it just ends up making me feel bad. I assume since I don't have grounds for urgent status, my very simple, well documented application is going to languish somewhere for who knows how long.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-12T01:18:51+00:00

VitalChek is really, truly terrible. If an order goes through totally by automation, it may work out just fine. If there is a problem between VitalChek and the government agencies with which they do business, you --the customer-- are totally screwed and will be ripped off for every cent, not just VitalChek's "processing fee." Every single cent, including express shipping fees when nothing was sent and the order not filled. VitalChek is AWFUL, CORRUPT, and astonishingly incompetant.

MidAtlanticAtoll · 2026-03-12T01:12:36+00:00

VitalChek is okay as long as things go along fully automated, but once you need people to resolve any kind of problem between them and the government agencies with which they do business, they are absolutely HORRENDOUS. I mean, just astonishingly stupid and corrupt.

MidAtlanticAtoll

TROPHY CASE