Name change problems

Dear Mrs Macaulay,

My mother was given her mother’s last name by error on her birth certificate and it was somehow automatically adjusted by the registrar’s office to her correct last name. But by then she had gone through school with the incorrect name, which landed on my birth certificate because I was the firstborn. I am now in the process of petitioning for her to come to the United States and she was told by the National Visa Centre (NVC) that she has to do a deed poll and demonstrate why her name was changed from one to the next. However, she went to the registrar’s office and they told her it was an error, but a deed poll would only allow her to revert to the original name issued and what she would need is a declaration of maternity through the court system. She was told by the family court in St Ann that they do not do that there and she needs to go to Kingston. However, when she called Kingston they told her that they would not be able to do it in Kingston because she is from St Ann and they would not know who she is. The NVC gave her a short period to submit this document, but she does not know where else to turn for assistance. Please help us.

Thank you for writing about this issue. I understand how confused and worried you must feel after going here, there and everywhere without any resolution. I must admit though that I am not sure what certain things mean in your letter.

You say that your mother was erroneously given her mother’s last name in her birth registration and certificate, then you say that this was by some means “automatically adjusted”. Do you mean that while she was still a baby the registrar general’s office realised the error which had been made and corrected it? And do you further mean that having done so, the office failed to contact your mother’s parents or whoever reported her birth about the rectification? Do you also mean that they were then never asked to return the certificate in their possession and collect the rectified one? Or were they contacted but they ignored the request? Or was the rectification done when she was an adult? Did she only receive a rectified certificate after your birth?

What I think I have clearly understood is that you and your mother have different surnames as a result of the initial erroneous registration of her birth. That is to say that on your birth certificate, your have her maternal surname, while on her amended certificate her surname is that of her father.

Let me try to say what ought to be done by clearing up the impossible first. A deed poll cannot straighten the problem you have related, as it cannot explain the mix-up but merely changes a person’s name from what is in their birth certificate to that which they wish to be known by, or to that with they have always used. This process is definitely out.

It is my opinion that it is either your certificate which must be rectified, or she needs an authoritative reconciliation of her divergent identities based on the fact that it was based on an error on the part of the registrar general’s office. This, from my knowledge, cannot be done in the family court. When she was told to go to Kingston, they meant the Supreme Court in Kingston.

The application must be made by way of an Ex Parte Fixed Date Claim Form, supported by affidavits from your mother, yourself, and any other person in her family who personally knows what happened and possibly from an officer of the registrar general’s office. This will have to be done by a lawyer on her behalf and so you will have to pay legal fees in order to obtain the appropriate orders from the court. It is so strange but it so happens that I know of such an application which was successfully concluded recently. It would not be proper for me to give you a name and number here but this can be done otherwise. So, if you can, through the editor of this column, contact my office and the lawyer can be identified to you.

It is not an insurmountable problem. You may, however, have to request further time in order to conclude the process and be in a position to achieve your objective. Good luck.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law and a 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. We cannot provide personal responses.