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Unabridged Birth or Marriage Certificate in 48 hrs

06th December 2010
By Ell Express in Legal
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An Abridged birth certificate is a document containing only the details of the individual’s birth (identity number, names in full, city/ town of birth and the citizenship) and is computer printout which is issued in the respective Regional or District Offices of the Department Of Home Affairs within an hour. While the Unabridged Birth Certificates is a document that contains in addition to the above the parents particulars in full (identity number, names in full, city/ town of birth and their citizenship at the time of the individuals’ birth.

The Unabridged birth certificate is required for overseas travel purposes or for claiming of citizenship by descent, or applying of permanent residence or even nationally for insurance claims or any other purpose where they have to prove who the individuals parents are.

Other countries require the unabridged birth certificate to be authenticated (apostilled) by The Department of International Affairs and Co-operation as to confirm to them that it is not a fake document.


Unabridged Marriage Certificate differs from the Abridged marriage certificate as it is not a computer printout, and it contains full details of the individuals to the marriage as well as their marital status prior to the marriage (spinster/ bachelor, divorced, widow or widower). It further contains details of the marriage officer, place and date of marriage.

Vault copy of birth certificate is the photocopy of the original birth register form that was completed during the registration of the individuals’ birth. This is required by some countries that do not fully trust the Department Of Home Affairs unabridged Birth Certificate authenticity. So when you request the vault document, what the Department Of Home Affairs does is to go to their archives and get the original birth register form and that your parents completed and make a plain simple photocopy of it and certify it true and correct.

The vault copy of the marriage is a Photostat copy of the original BI-30 (marriage register that you completed with your marriage officer when you get married. It is advisable that when you need to request the vault copy of your marriage, and your marriage is within the last ten years, please contact your marriage officer if you can to get a copy of the BI-30 as it is difficult in some cases for the Department to obtain records in their archives as some marriage officer do not submit their register to the Department.


The main concern when you need the unabridged birth certificate or the vault copy of birth is that you need to apply on time as it takes the Department of Home Affairs anything from 8 to 12 weeks to finalize the processing of the documents. So you definitely need to be patient or else you will need to request services of unabridged birth certificates or passport services people like http://www.ell-express.co.za as they normally get them in under 10 working days for whatever reason. However they charge extra for this purpose, but is is worth it as you do not have to wait very long for your document.

To obtain this documents you will need to complete the BI-154 for the Abridged Birth or unabridged birth certificate or the BI-130 for the abridged or Unabridged Marriage Certificate. Both forms are available on the internet.
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