Help recovering my Brazilian birth certificate

Hi everyone,

It seem I have hit a brick wall in trying to get a copy of my Brazilian birth certificate.  I was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1965 then my family moved to the USA in 1972. Unfortunately, our house burned down in 1977 and as a result family records were destroyed - including my Brazilian passport and birth certificate.

Today I have decided to get a Brazilian passport.  I don't know where to begin but thought first step would be to get my birth certificate.  I do know what hospital I was born in (although not 100% sure)and originally thought it was a simple matter of locating hospital, contacting them and getting a copy of my birth certificate.  I later learned birth certificate registry is not handled by hospitals but by a government registry office.  Therefore, I would need to locate this registry office - and was told it is not national registry - so crucial I locate the exact registry office my parents registered me in.

My dad has passed away and my mom is not aware which office he used to register my birth.

I went to the Brazilian consulate here in Houston and they couldn't help and suggested i locate a " despachente".

My question is who can recommend a despachente in Sao Paulo that specializes in birth certificates and passports retrieval? 

The despachente I contacted online tell me they need to know registry office before they can help. I want someone who will agree to do the leg work to find the registry office where my birth certificate is located.

Or maybe there are other suggestions someone might have for how I go about getting a Brazilian passport knowing the facts of my story - that I am missing?

Much Thanks
Jomar

hey  I moved here when I was 4 in 1969

I have my bcertificate - my parents gave it to me when they moved to their retirement home

jomar,

If your mom can remember the hospital name; the district or area she used to live when you were born then you can start there. If you still have relatives you have in contact with, they might be able to help. If you studied in first grade or kindergarten and remember the location, you might also research all the cartorios in that area to see if you were registered there.

I just hope to God that your registry was not done by an escrivão where he would keep your registry in
his home office. In small areas of Brazil that is still the case. And imagine if his house also burned down!

I´m afraid you might have to do some detective work on this and make a trip to Brazil
and go from one cartorio to another to see if you were registered there.

Fires are common in Brazil and just hope that the same cartorio you were registered in was not also burned. There were no computers at the time to store files to a safer location.

Every country has usually a center to tackle this problem like a national registry
archives. You might want to bring your mom and dad´s birth certificate and any
work records or any paperwork at all to show you were a dependent.

Any cartorio office in São Paulo could lead you to a solution of your problem! So start packing your bags!

robal

I believe that you must register your child in the same area where the child was born, or in the cartorio nearest to the hospital that you were born.

You should direct the embassy Brazil in the USA with a copy of your passport and a copy of the document of the poll that the house has collected with the documents. make an official request and request a stamped copy of the embassy of your request. In Brazil there is bureaucracy and so it takes a long time to do.
if the case is not answered within 30 days, in which case you may send the copies of this document to Brazil in a registered letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brazil, accompanied by a letter stating the situation.

Dear jomar229809, I have the same problem as you. Have you kept the contact details of the despachente you contacted?

Many thanks

Hello samsarom,


Welcome to expat.com!


Unfortunately jomar229809 has not returned to the forum after his last message.


If you have any questions, you can ask them on the Brazil forum itself.


Cheers,


Yoginee

Expat.com team

I have a magic word for you.  Cartorio. 


If you were born in certain place, called a town, chances are the said town resides in a thing called a

Comarca ( similar to County ). Direct yourself there with your documents and they will issue you a new one for a fee.


Chances are, you old burned down certificate was useless in the first place. Brazilians adore paper, your original burned to char was probably of zero legal value anyways. 


They so much so love rubber stamping, the new certificates could not be used more than 90 days past issuance date if you need it for a documentation set pre-requisite.  Cartorios are a rubber stamped racket in this Country.  They are literally concessions handed down within a family.

New legislation regarding cartórios requires a lot more than the old system of passing a cartório down along family lines.


I know that cartórios here in the northeast are already converting. Several local cartórios have changed hands to a much more professional class using more modern methods of record keeping.


Some things do change for the better.

Yes, digital records are a thing countrywide.  Paperless.   


I heard changes were in the way, in doing away with Signature Certificate ( Reconhecimento de Firma ).


Succession rules , not sure I was aware of it.  Thx for the heads up.  Not likely i would be running to claim a concession.


The fact the typical  American Town keeps an Office for Record of Deeds in each County, funded by the County, and Brazilian Officials allow these bureaus to spread like a plague ( sometimes a half dozen per County's equivalent )  speaks volume about how Brazilians are fond of their bureaucracies, . Mind bogging. 


I recal, during late 70's, the Federal Government tried to get rid of excessive bureaucracy, and then created a "Ministerio de Desburocratizacao", or Burocracy Busting Ministry.  Well, the then entrusted key bureaucrat got himself killed, causes unaccounted for.