Has anybody had to get a legalised birth cert for a child born abroad?

[consideringchina]

It's a bit of a long shot. But I need legalised birth certs for all my children to apply for Chinese visas - which means going first to the FOC to get a legalised certificate and then taking that to the Chinese consulate to get them to also legalise it. Convoluted but straightforward apart from DD1, who was born in Japan. Her British birth cert was issued by the British embassy in Tokyo. The FOC cannot legalise it because it is not a UK document. The embassy will not legalise it because they do not provide that service. The General Register Office can issue a new copy (which is what the FOC thought we had to do) but are very clear that it will be precisely the same as the one I have currently and won't be any more British. Has anybody been through this? I could do with some words of wise advice.

[amyboo]

I guess the problem is that you have a consular birth certificate for her, not a standard UK birth certificate? Maybe you need to get her Japanese birth certificate legalised instead, as I suppose this is her "real" birth certificate? The consular birth certificate is just to register a foreign born child in the General Register....

[Cantseethewoods]

Yes- get the original birth certificate, in Japanese. You'll need to get a translation though as it's in neither English or Chinese.

[consideringchina]

Thanks, both. So get her Japanese birth certificate legalised (presumably without actually having to go to Japan! I hope), plus a legalised translation, then we should be good to go.
Wish me luck :)

[Archfarchnad]

Best of luck! I agree with the others. Both my dc were born in Germany and we didn't bother getting it documented by the British embassy (precisely because it wouldn't have had any legal clout) so we just have their German birth certificate. Admittedly it's much less 'foreign' than Japanese, but accompanied by acertified translation you'll be fine. We had no problem getting their British and Irish passports on the basis of the German docs.

[Archfarchnad]

I can't imagine you'll need to go to Japan for the certified docs, but do contact the Japanese embassy in the U.K. To ask the best way of going about it. In Germany for instance certain translators have a particular qualification which allows them to certify translations themselves, but each country will have its own system. You could also contact the Institute of Linguists for info, and they will have a list of Japanese to English translators.

[chocolateavocado99]

We moved to Shanghai a few years ago and has the same problem. It was incredibly stressful and we couldn't figure out how to move forward.
In the end, our employers just gave up and accepted all the paperwork we had previously submitted. I dont know how common it is, but they just stopped asking. We left China last year and it wasn't an issue then either. Sending you positive vibes that you have the same experience.

[cannotseeanend]

A consular registration certificate of GBR national born outside the UK is NOT a birth certificate. It cannot be used as an identity document.

[bigbadbarry]

Just For info, if anybody else finds themselves in this situation, the consular birth certificate was perfectly adequate for her visa. We are now in China :)

[Laptopwieldingharpy]

Doing this just now for thailand.
We got new copy of the Singapore issued birth certificate through the online portal of the national registry then got that legalized at the Thai embassy in London.