As a legal translator, you come across
various types of Birth and Death Certificates from different countries. Living
in Aberdeen, the Oil Capital of Europe, I tend to translate an average of 2
Birth Certificates per week and hundreds of Academic Certificates for Latin-American
citizens residing in Aberdeen who want to gain access to a British university for
which they need a certified translation from Spanish into English of all their
academic work done overseas, to be able to prove their degree and
qualifications. Spanish and Latin-American citizens who wish to get married in
the United Kingdom also need a certified translation of their Birth Certificate
and, if they have been living in the UK for less than two years they also need
a Certificate of Non-Impediment (Fe de
vida y estado in Spanish), which can be obtained from the Spanish Consulate
in Edinburgh.
I have recently come across the
oldest Birth Certificate I’ve ever had to translate. It belongs to a lady from
the Canary Islands who was born in 1897!
It is a beautiful story of a
great-great-great grandson (I am not sure how many “greats” to add) who is looking
for his predecessors. Unfortunately,
client’s confidentiality doesn’t allow me to give you any more details about
this astounding story.
But what I would like to do is to share with you the
differences I found between a Birth Certificate from that century and the ones
I encounter nowadays.
Most of the Birth Certificates which I translate tend to have the following layout and information:
- BIRTH registered in the district of ________________
- Forename and surname / Sex / When born / Where born
- Information about the FATHER: Name / Son of _______ / and of ______ / Address / Profession / Marital Status
- Information about the MOTHER: Name / Daughter of ______ / and of ______ / Address / Profession / Marital Status
- Information about the witnesses and certification of the Registrar.
However, I
was surprised to see the layout of the Birth Certificate from 1897.
It starts off
with information of the place where the birth is being registered, the time of
the Registration, and who the attendees are: the Judge (Juez Municipal) and the
Declarant: the FATHER.
The father
is, without any doubt, the predominant figure of the Birth Certificate. Most of
the first page gives out personal details of the father (age / marital status
/ profession/ address) and his “long” statement. It also mentions the fact that
he does not show a valid Identity Card because he does not have one: “no exhibe su cédula personal, por no tenerla”. I believe this would be unthinkable nowadays!
There is
only one sentence about the mother at the end of page 1 which is still the
declaration of the father and he states that the new born is a legitimate daughter,
whose mother is his wife: X Y Z, (nationality, of legal age, housewife and who
lives with her husband). That is all the information given about the mother.
There is
also one paragraph about the grandparents, which doesn't usually appear in the
current Birth Certificates. As I mentioned before, this information is usually
given when they speak about the parents:
Father: X
Y Z, son of ________ and of ____________(name of grandparents and their
occupation).
However,
in this old Birth Certificate, there is a separate paragraph about the
grandparents on both sides (on the father’s side and on the mother’s side).
Something
along these lines:
“She is
the granddaughter of __________ (nationality / address / profession / deceased)
and of ____________ (nationality / address / profession / deceased) ,...”
In the last paragraph (on the second page of
the Certificate), we are given the name of the new born:
“Y que a la expresada niña se le
pondrá por nombre _______________” (Literal translation: And that the above
mentioned girl will be given the name of____).
Like in the current certificates,
this Birth Certificate also ends with the signatures of the father and the
Judge. There is also a third signature, just a name, but we are not told who
this person is, he has not been introduced before. I am guessing he is either a
Secretary of the Civil Registry Office or a witness, but this information is
not given to the reader.
One last thing I would like to add about
old certificates is that I found numerous spelling mistakes (in Spanish) in the
original versions. I also had to translate the Death Certificate of this same
lady, who died in Buenos Aires in 1951.
These are just a few of the spelling
mistakes I found in her Death Certificate, issued by the Civil Registry of
Buenos Aires (correct spelling on the right):
- Diez y seis: dieciséis (16)
- Setiembre: septiembre
- Siudad de Buenos Aires: Ciudad
- curenta: cuarenta (40)
- de nacionalidad Española:
de nacionalidad española
(no capital letter required for nationalities in Spanish)
Lastly, I would like to apologise
for not being able to update my blog more often: life has been hectic with work
(which is always a good thing) and I am in the process of writing my Dissertation
for the MA in Legal Translation which I am about to finish.
Thank you for reading and sharing my
blog :0)
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