just starting out

[monicatony 0]

Hello fellow lovebirds

I married my American husband in Canada and we are just waiting on the marriage certificate so we can get started on the K3. He lives in Indiana. What is step one? Even though the ceremony was up here I think we still fill out the packet and send it off to a service centre in his area. Anyone know for sure where the heck we start?

Thanks Mon

p.s. When you get a background check from your local police... do you have to be prepared to give them all your addresses since you were 16?

[Reba 2]

once you get your marriage certificate, your husband will file petition I-130 to the Nebraska service centre. When he gets the NOA from that, he can send petition I-129F to Missouri. (both petitions required G-325A bio forms to be included from both of you, as well as other supporting documents, read instructions carefully) And then you wait a few months.

No, you do NOT need to get police records from every city you've ever lived in in Canada. You only need ONE police check from the RCMP Canada wide, takes about a week. Unless you have a criminal record, then you'll need a fingerprints report, and that'll take a few months. If you have no criminal record, then wait on this until you have the petition approved tho. They're only valid about 6 months I think, so if you were to get it now, it'd be expired by the time your interview rolls around.

Congratulations, and welcome to the journey.

[cmartyn 0]

The process is somewhat designed around the American citizen marying in the foreign country. So yes, the process is the same. You have to get that marriage certificate and get yourself a few additional certified copies of it. At the same time get certified copies of your long form Canadian birth certificate and get certified copies of the USC's long form birth certificate.

You need police certificates from every country you have lived in for 6 months or longer since you were 16. The police do these checks, at least in Canada based on your name. They only want your current address. If you have ever been arrested or have anything else nasty on your police certificate, you will need a fingerprint check.

The first form you file is an I-130. It gets filed in the service center having jurisdiction over the USC's current address. After you get the receipt from the I-130 you file a K3 petition (I-129F).

[mozplay 29]

Hi and congrats on your wedding.

As for being able to deliver your life's history -- YES! lol. I think many of the K3 and K1 forms are the same and if so, then they do ask for your residential addresses, employment and education history as well as visits to the US.

Just do yourself a favour and get yourself a drink and maybe a little snack before settling down to begin filling out forms - you may be there a while!

Good luck!

Mo

[knowledge 0]

The process is somewhat designed around the American citizen marying in the foreign country. So yes, the process is the same. You have to get that marriage certificate and get yourself a few additional certified copies of it. At the same time get certified copies of your long form Canadian birth certificate and get certified copies of the USC's long form birth certificate.

You need police certificates from every country you have lived in for 6 months or longer since you were 16. The police do these checks, at least in Canada based on your name. They only want your current address. If you have ever been arrested or have anything else nasty on your police certificate, you will need a fingerprint check.

The first form you file is an I-130. It gets filed in the service center having jurisdiction over the USC's current address. After you get the receipt from the I-130 you file a K3 petition (I-129F).

Certified copies??? I just check the Guide of I-130 (again, we just send it) and nowhere it says "certified", only "copies"...now i'm really preoccupied!!...

[Marilyn. 340]

ok, Knowledge... take a deep breath and calm down

With the orignal I-130 package you only need to send copies but the NVC or the Embassy (depending on what country you are from) will ask for the certified copies of your birth certificate and marriage certificate...

Edited August 26, 2006 by MarilynP

[monicatony 0]

ok, Knowledge... take a deep breath and calm down

With the orignal I-130 package you only need to send copies but the NVC or the Embassy (depending on what country you are from) will ask for the certified copies of your birth certificate and marriage certificate...

Thanks for everyone's help! The journey begins.... We'll start filling out the I 130. I know an immigration officer at the airport can give me a certified copy of the marriage ct....wonder who certifies a birth certificate. I know I don't have the "long" form so I guess I'll get working on that too....

Thanks again!

Mon

Hi and congrats on your wedding.

As for being able to deliver your life's history -- YES! lol. I think many of the K3 and K1 forms are the same and if so, then they do ask for your residential addresses, employment and education history as well as visits to the US.

Just do yourself a favour and get yourself a drink and maybe a little snack before settling down to begin filling out forms - you may be there a while!

Good luck!

Mo

Thanks Mo!

I visited the US almost every 2 weeks for the last 1 1/2 years so THAT will require a large space to document. May require more than one bottle of wine while filling out forms...... don't want to mess up anything though. According to the K3 guide... we send the forms and copies of documents and both of our passport pictures in the first step....sound right to you?

Cheers

Mon

once you get your marriage certificate, your husband will file petition I-130 to the Nebraska service centre. When he gets the NOA from that, he can send petition I-129F to Missouri. (both petitions required G-325A bio forms to be included from both of you, as well as other supporting documents, read instructions carefully) And then you wait a few months.

No, you do NOT need to get police records from every city you've ever lived in in Canada. You only need ONE police check from the RCMP Canada wide, takes about a week. Unless you have a criminal record, then you'll need a fingerprints report, and that'll take a few months. If you have no criminal record, then wait on this until you have the petition approved tho. They're only valid about 6 months I think, so if you were to get it now, it'd be expired by the time your interview rolls around.

Congratulations, and welcome to the journey.

Thanks for the good info. Wish me luck!

Cheers

Mon

[Marilyn. 340]

Do get the long form birth certificate take a look here to see what you need to do to get it for the province you were born in... you might want to send for it now because sometimes it can take awhile to receive it...

http://canadaonline.about.com/od/birthcertificates/

this is what a long form Birth certifcate should have on it.. "Long Form (Certified) - This contains all registered information, including parents' information, and signatures and is a copy of the original record. It is provided in the form of a certified copy."

As for the certified marriage certificate ,the one you are waiting for is the certified one.... you don't need to go out and get it certified

As for listing all the times you have visited the US, you can be a bit general about it.... They are aware that because Canada is so close to the US that we Canadians might visit the US alot... I would put the major trips and then just generalize the other trips... like put "from such and such a date I made frequent trips to the United States"... This is what I did and I had no problems.... I wouldn't even have been able to remember all the trips I made to the US.... For 15 years I lived only 40 minutes from the border and we would frequently pop over to the US for a day trip....

Edited August 27, 2006 by MarilynP

[Reba 2]

by "certified" they mean the actual certificate you get from the appropriate government office, that's all. the only office that can "certify" a document as original is the office it comes from. For birth and marriage certificates, that's the provincial or county registrar.

In Ontario, they'll only allow you one copy of your long form birth certificate, no idea about other provinces. You send a photocopy of it with your petitions, and then take the "original certified" with you to your interview. Same with the marriage certificate. We got 2 certified copies from the county court house when we were married, but only ever had to pull one out once at my consular interview.

[Buttons 0]

by "certified" they mean the actual certificate you get from the appropriate government office, that's all. the only office that can "certify" a document as original is the office it comes from. For birth and marriage certificates, that's the provincial or county registrar.

In Ontario, they'll only allow you one copy of your long form birth certificate, no idea about other provinces. You send a photocopy of it with your petitions, and then take the "original certified" with you to your interview. Same with the marriage certificate. We got 2 certified copies from the county court house when we were married, but only ever had to pull one out once at my consular interview.

You can get more copies of the Long Form Birth Certifcate but after the first one it costs more. I got three. Just to be safe but at the interview the returned the orignal and only kept the copy. And order it online it is ALOT faster. 15 days I think. Otherwise the first one I ordered took months.

Edited August 27, 2006 by Buttons

[knowledge 0]

ok, Knowledge... take a deep breath and calm down

With the orignal I-130 package you only need to send copies but the NVC or the Embassy (depending on what country you are from) will ask for the certified copies of your birth certificate and marriage certificate...

Thank you very much Marilyn, i'm in Canada. I'm learning something today...i have looked at your timeline, noticed the rule is to send them the certified copies..So we are then going to prepare...i believe it's at the DS-230 moment...right?..

And also would like to congragulate you for your baby!!!! wow!!!

by "certified" they mean the actual certificate you get from the appropriate government office, that's all. the only office that can "certify" a document as original is the office it comes from. For birth and marriage certificates, that's the provincial or county registrar.

In Ontario, they'll only allow you one copy of your long form birth certificate, no idea about other provinces. You send a photocopy of it with your petitions, and then take the "original certified" with you to your interview. Same with the marriage certificate. We got 2 certified copies from the county court house when we were married, but only ever had to pull one out once at my consular interview.

You can get more copies of the Long Form Birth Certifcate but after the first one it costs more. I got three. Just to be safe but at the interview the returned the orignal and only kept the copy. And order it online it is ALOT faster. 15 days I think. Otherwise the first one I ordered took months.

Thanks for the valuable info!!!

[Marilyn. 340]

ok, Knowledge... take a deep breath and calm down

With the orignal I-130 package you only need to send copies but the NVC or the Embassy (depending on what country you are from) will ask for the certified copies of your birth certificate and marriage certificate...

Thank you very much Marilyn, i'm in Canada. I'm learning something today...i have looked at your timeline, noticed the rule is to send them the certified copies..So we are then going to prepare...i believe it's at the DS-230 moment...right?..

And also would like to congragulate you for your baby!!!! wow!!!

Thanks for the valuable info!!!

Yeah when you get the DS-230 send in the certified copies with that form.... Our lawyer sent in photocopies ..... that is why we got the RFE.... I had to explain to him that the NVC wanted the certified copies...

Edited August 29, 2006 by MarilynP

[knowledge 0]

ok, Knowledge... take a deep breath and calm down

With the orignal I-130 package you only need to send copies but the NVC or the Embassy (depending on what country you are from) will ask for the certified copies of your birth certificate and marriage certificate...

Thank you very much Marilyn, i'm in Canada. I'm learning something today...i have looked at your timeline, noticed the rule is to send them the certified copies..So we are then going to prepare...i believe it's at the DS-230 moment...right?..

And also would like to congragulate you for your baby!!!! wow!!!

Thanks for the valuable info!!!

Yeah when you get the DS-230 send in the certified copies with that form.... Our lawyer sent in photocopies ..... that is why we got the RFE.... I had to explain to him that the NVC wanted the certified copies...

Thank you very much!...i hope you fired him!

[Davin and Rachel 0]

Congradulations on the wedding! sounds like your on the same step of the same journey as us.

Very recently, ordering your marrage certificate is available online in ont. Make sure you order it online! we applied by mail in early may... decided they lost it in late july, and ordered online. Both of them arrived within a week of eachother.

I wasnt expecting a 4 month wait for the marriage cert, in the states its a week at most (and calling the Office of the Registar is a joke.... only take calls from 1:00 to 4:00 on tuesdays or somethign stupid) It really threw off our plans, so be certain to plan for it =)

[Marilyn. 340]

ok, Knowledge... take a deep breath and calm down

With the orignal I-130 package you only need to send copies but the NVC or the Embassy (depending on what country you are from) will ask for the certified copies of your birth certificate and marriage certificate...

Thank you very much Marilyn, i'm in Canada. I'm learning something today...i have looked at your timeline, noticed the rule is to send them the certified copies..So we are then going to prepare...i believe it's at the DS-230 moment...right?..

And also would like to congragulate you for your baby!!!! wow!!!

Thanks for the valuable info!!!

Yeah when you get the DS-230 send in the certified copies with that form.... Our lawyer sent in photocopies ..... that is why we got the RFE.... I had to explain to him that the NVC wanted the certified copies...

Thank you very much!...i hope you fired him!

we should have I guess but we were close to the end of our journey and we had paid him quite a bit of money already so we didn't

Congradulations on the wedding! sounds like your on the same step of the same journey as us.

Very recently, ordering your marrage certificate is available online in ont. Make sure you order it online! we applied by mail in early may... decided they lost it in late july, and ordered online. Both of them arrived within a week of eachother.

I wasnt expecting a 4 month wait for the marriage cert, in the states its a week at most (and calling the Office of the Registar is a joke.... only take calls from 1:00 to 4:00 on tuesdays or somethign stupid) It really threw off our plans, so be certain to plan for it =)

I got mine sent to me a couple of months after our wedding... I didn't have to apply for it or anything.... This was in BC, so maybe it works different there...