Marriage Certificate not Necessary for Maiden Name Passports

Director of Passport Services, Hugh Thomas, has announced that effective immediately, married women applying for passports in their maiden name, are no longer required to present their marriage certificates with their application.
“Essentially, the marriage certificate is there to substantiate a change of name, so if you are not adopting the married name, then you need not provide the marriage certificate,” he pointed out.Mr. Thomas was speaking at a recent JIS ‘Think Tank’, held at the agency’s head office in Kingston.
He explained, however, that it remained the policy of the Office that married women who were using their married name, would still be required to submit the marriage certificate.
The Director also used the opportunity to clear up misconceptions, which have arisen about the validity of the blue passports, since the phasing in of machine readable passports.
“I am not aware of a particular country that is not taking the blue passports. The understanding is that the blue passports are still valid documents issued by the Government of Jamaica,” he said.
“I have had discussions with embassies. and they have not said that they won’t accept, or they won’t honour the blue passports,” the Director added.
Mr. Thomas noted that some persons were misinterpreting the 2006 announcement pertaining to United States nationals, which required US citizens as of January 2006 to have a passport in order to re-enter the United States. He explained that currently, they can leave and re-enter that country, using such identification as a driver’s licence, birth certificates or photo identification.
“They have seen where that is a potential vulnerability point for them, so they are trying to plug that area, so they decided that US citizens going back to the US will require a passport. So that doesn’t affect us,” he reassured.