Is substitution available for parents' marriage cert?

[sama 0]

Hello,

Now that my husband is a US Citizen, we are preparing the packet to petition for my husband's parents to come to the USA. We have everything for his mother but there is a requirement to submit a copy of his parents marriage certificate w/this father's petition. They were married in India and are both listed on his birth certificate. They are of the age when even a birth certificate wasn't registered properly must less a marriage certificate.

There is an entry in each of their passports listing the spouses name but I don't think we can substitute this for a marriage certificate due to the lack of marriage date printed to validate my husband's birth was after their marriage. They didn't issue a marriage certificate back then but were legally married by a Kazi.

Would we need to get record of this and register it w/Indian government before we can process their paperwork? Any other suggestions? What if the record is too old track down or a record can't be located?

Thanks

[champi 13]

Hello,

Now that my husband is a US Citizen, we are preparing the packet to petition for my husband's parents to come to the USA. We have everything for his mother but there is a requirement to submit a copy of his parents marriage certificate w/this father's petition. They were married in India and are both listed on his birth certificate. They are of the age when even a birth certificate wasn't registered properly must less a marriage certificate.

There is an entry in each of their passports listing the spouses name but I don't think we can substitute this for a marriage certificate due to the lack of marriage date printed to validate my husband's birth was after their marriage. They didn't issue a marriage certificate back then but were legally married by a Kazi.

Would we need to get record of this and register it w/Indian government before we can process their paperwork? Any other suggestions? What if the record is too old track down or a record can't be located?

Thanks

My mother-in-law was in same situation as your husband's parents. To complicate things further, my father-in-law had passed away several years ago so we could not even register the marriage). To get around this, we sent following:

1. Certificate of Non-availability of Marriage

2. Affidavits from aunt and grandmother

3. Secondary evidences such as copies of ration card, voter id card, biographic data page from passport, etc.

Here is what I would do in your situation:

1. Get them to register their marriage and get a marriage certificate

2. Get the relatives (who were present at their marriage) to write an affidavit of their marriage.

3. Collect and send secondary evidences as proof of them being husband-wife (example, name of each other in their passports, Ration card, your mom's voter ID card listing your dad's name as your mom's middle name, photos from over the years, utility bills and things that shows they both live at same addresses and obviously the above affidavits from relatives).

[sama 0]

Thank you so much. They were able to get their marriage registered which reflects they were married prior to my husband's birth. We can now process their paperwork.

Now onto our next problem. My brother n law altered his DOB so his passport reflects he was born 3 years earlier. This was so he could travel sooner to work in Saudi. If we list his actual DOB on his paperwork, then it looks like he was born out of wedlock. The priority right now is my in law's so we'll try to figure that one out later.

Sorry to hear about your father n law.

Sama