The language of the law. Part Latin, part Anglo-Saxon, all confusing.
It’s one of those words even The Legal Genealogist can look at… and be led astray by.
The term apostille just plain flat out looks like it ought to involve something to do with the Postal Service, doesn’t it?
And, I suppose, since it’s something that really is used when an item is sent from place A to place B, it’s not an entirely unreasonable thought.
But it honestly doesn’t have anything to do with postage stamps or mail and you can’t get one at the Post Office.
Nor, I regret to say, can you realistically hope for any help in figuring it out by going to my usual go-to source for legal definitions. Black’s Law Dictionary simply defines an apostille as an “addition; a marginal note or observation.”1
Um… not exactly.
You see, an apostille is “a government-issued certification that authenticates a public document for use in a foreign country.”2
You’ll see the term used today by various state and national governments to mean “a form of authentication issued to documents for use in countries that participate in the Hague Convention of 1961.”3
But it’s also the type of document you’ll find in older cases whenever there was an international issue. You’ll see it, for example, in a probate file where one of the heirs was not from the United States. Documents sent from, say, Germany to Illinois for use in distributing an estate need to be proved to be authentic, and the method used is and has long been the apostille.
It’s generally a stamp (under both the 1961 Hague treaty and under prior practice between the United States and other countries) attached to the document where the official role of everybody in the document’s chain gets verified.4 The local clerk might swear to the claimant’s signature, then a local judge verifies that the local clerk is the local clerk, and a higher judge verifies that the local judge is the local judge and so on up the governmental food chain.
If this sounds familiar, think about the times you’ve seen something like this in, for example, pension files, where the county clerk certifies a document, then the county judge verifies that the county clerk was the county clerk and so on.
Where will you find the apostille in any given case? It should be attached to the document or documents at issue. If the document came from a foreign country for use in an American proceeding, it should be in the court file here. And if it was issued in the United States for use in a foreign proceeding, it should be in the court file there.
Apostille
Enough to make you go postal, maybe…
SOURCES
Image: User Johnny Automatic, OpenClipArt.org
- Henry Campbell Black, A Dictionary of Law (St. Paul, Minn. : West, 1891), 77, “apostille.” ↩
- Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com : accessed 6 Oct 2014), “apostille.” ↩
- See, e.g., “What is an Apostille?” Corporations, Washington State Secretary of State (https://www.sos.wa.gov/ : accessed 6 Oct 2014). ↩
- See Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “Apostille Convention,” rev. 18 Sep 2014. ↩
Postal Service? Not exactly for me. The first thing to come to my mind was Aeropostale.
“Aéropostale, Inc. is a mall-based, specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories, principally targeting 14 to 17 year-old young women and men through its Aéropostale® stores and 4 to 12 year-old kids through its P.S. from Aéropostale™ stores.” (http://www.aeropostale.com/corp/index.jsp, October 6, 2014).
Never shopped there myself, but I have four grandchildren…
I will chuckle to myself over all of this next time I see apostille for real though.
And I’m sure your four grandchildren keep you up to date on fashion!
Americans don’t know what an apostille, but many people in other countries do. It’s their way of saying “We don’t know your notary, nor do we care.”
Just a few months ago, I supplied a British will and probate (about half a page each) to an Israeli court in an inheritance case. The court didn’t think these informal-looking documents were serious, so they demanded an apostille.
An expensive bit of bureaucracy, especially since it often requires showing up in person. A few years ago, I needed one to verify an SS-5 and it almost required having to get someone in Springfield Illinois to do it.
I’ve been advised that trying to get an apostille in most American states is like the absolute worst of a motor vehicle office — and that’s a pretty awful example of bureaucracy at its worst!
I really didn’t know what this meant. I knew it didn’t have anything to do with “postal”, but to me, it looks similar to “apostle.” I knew it didn’t have anything to do with the twelve or any other apostles, but never investigated what it *did* have to do with! Once again, thanks for you excellent explanation!
Glad to help, Kim!
Bane of my existence when I worked in the legal department of a global business, especially when needed for a transaction in a country which was not a member of the Hague Convention. Then, in addition to all the other certifications required by the Hague Convention, we would also have to obtain certifications from the Secretary of State of the United States of America in Washington, DC, plus the resident Ambassador of the foreign country. A thing of beauty, a wonder to behold — pages of certifications, dripping with ribbons, covered with embossed seals, all attached by sturdy rivets to a single sheet of flimsy office paper with no more than a few lines of text, plus a notarized signature.
I hope you made lots of copies of those beautiful pages!
Oh! Oh! I actually know what this means! (for the same reason as GG)
Good for you both! (Now we know who to ask when WE have questions…)
Apostille’s are really not that hard to get. Just fill out the form, send the document, request, and fee to the appropriate office…and voila!!!
I order them all the time in my dual citizenship work. Most U.S. documents need an apostille to make them acceptable in Italian courts and therefore to their consulates.
Most other countries are members of the Hague convention on apostilles, so they’re needed any time Americans try to do business — including legal business — overseas