If you were born in the ocean?

Question

on a boat, what location does it have as birthplace on the birth certificate?

Answer 1

Under international law, the birth certificate will be issued by the country where the next port of call is, but it carries no right of citizenship unless one of the parents is a citizen of that nation. The place of birth is to be registered as the name of the ship, it's geographic location, and noted by the last port of call and it will also be listed in the immigration records of the first port of call after birth. Where it gets really hinky is that before the parents and the baby can get back on the ship, their consulate or embassy has to issue an amendment to the father's passport (or the mother's if dad isn't present...but dad always has priority). If the consulate or embassy delays, the ship is not allowed to leave because it would mean they're effectively "dumping" the family in a foreign country with no means of returning to their home.

The other side to it, though, is that there's also a policy on most ocean-going ventures a pregnant woman is not allowed aboard without a certificate from her doctor giving her EDC (due date) and it can't be in the last trimester. That prevents people from trying to get into a foreign country to have the baby under the auspices of trying to finnagle citizenship for the baby and permanent residence for the parents, effectively bypassing normal immigration rules.

Answer 2

It depends on when this happened, but in general there wouldn't be a birth certificate, because no government agency that issues birth certificates has jurisdiction on the ocean.

Answer 3

"At Sea", sometimes. Sometimes "On board the Star of India, 15 days outward bound from London, en route to Calcutta". It depends on what the parents want. The birth is usually in the ship's log, so you can fix it within 10 miles or so from the noon bearings of lattitude and longitude, if they record the time of birth and you assume a steady wind. That is assuming you have access to the ship's log.

That is, if they are at point "A" at noon on the 20th and point "B" at noon on the 21st, and the child is born at 8 pm, the child was probably born roughly 1/3 of the way along a line drawn from "A" to "B", assuming no reefs, icebergs, change in wind speed or stops to repel boarders when pirates came slinking out of the morning fog in low, fast ships.

My GGF got on a ship in Le Harve in 1866 with a wife and 10 kids, in 1866. Cholera broke out. When they docked in New York he's lost his wife and four children. I have their death places as "At sea somewhere in the Atlantic, aboard the ship 'Floride'".

Answer 4

It will say on your birth certificate that you were born "at sea".

Answer 5

this is something i had not previously thought of...i like the "at sea" answer, but for true i don't know...you get a gold star.

Answer 6

i'm gussing the ocean name