DEAR MRS MACAULAY,

I am kindly requesting your help with information on how to add my husband’s last name to my daughter’s.

I saw an article with the same issue except that my daughter’s father left us when she was two years old and has not supported her either emotionally or financially since then. I don’t even know where he is, except that he left us to migrate to the United States.

She has been making the request for a long while now, but I took the time to think about it and have her think about it too. She has made up her mind.

I am therefore asking you to inform me of the processes involved in doing this.

I surmise from the contents of your letter that following the birth of your daughter, in making the report of her birth, you gave her father’s name to the registrar at the hospital (assuming the birth occurred in a hospital) who had the obligation to fill in the particulars for your daughter’s birth records, and so your daughter has his surname. You did not say how old your daughter is now. This information would have assisted me to give you a specific answer to your request about the process to follow in order to add your husband’s surname to your daughter’s surname.

I will do my best to give you the information you and your daughter need so that you can decide which process would best suit her and achieve her wish.

If your daughter is young enough to be adopted by your husband, then I would advise you to take this route. This would mean that she is below 18 years of age and with time enough for the whole of the adoption process to commence and be completed before her 18th birthday. This can be achieved with the full agreement and participation of your husband, as he would have to do the application within the years left before your daughter becomes 18 years of age. If this process is appropriate for you all, you can make contact with the relevant government agency, the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), and obtain copies of the Guidelines for Adoption and the relevant forms for an application. The guidelines will give you the information you need to advise yourself if this is the appropriate means for you to achieve your daughter’s wish. If this process is pursued then your daughter can have your husband’s surname legally become hers, and the court, in granting the adoption order, can order the registrar to add the name as she wishes them to be to her records and which can thereafter appear on her certificate.

If the above is not appropriate, because your daughter’s age is too close to 18 years of age or passed it, then you must consider another process. This is that your daughter can by a deed poll change her current legal name to what she wishes it to be, also legally. You would need to retain an attorney-at-law to draw up the deed poll to ensure that it is done as the law requires and can be stamped and recorded in the registrar general’s office and there be advised how you can assist her to effect the necessary changes in all her identity documents. You must therefore ensure that your lawyer prepares enough copies of the deed so that you have sufficient certified copies of it to use for the relevant changes and to have it in hand to always be able to prove that it was legally executed and processed and certified.

These are the two processes which in my view apply to your daughter’s circumstances.

I hope that I have clarified the position for you and wish you and your daughter and husband success in the endeavour, and all happiness.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.

DISCLAIMER:

The contents of this article are for informational purposes only and must not be relied upon as an alternative to legal advice from your own attorney.