Day 1--The first thing I did was type in something like "name change ny" into my phone. I clicked a decent looking link, downloaded a petition to court, and then printed it out. I filled it out and then stuck it in a box until I could get it notarized.
Day 2-- a wasted drive to where I was born to obtain my birth certificate. It was a two hour drive there and we got there during office lunch time, so I went to visit my brother. After a half an hour visit and we were already on our way to the office of vital statistics in the county I was born in, which happened to be in the town I was born in, when I realized that I forgot any form of ID.
Day 3-- That was maybe like three weeks ago. Today I got the petition notarized at the courthouse, and then was told to go upstairs to a help desk to acquire more information.
I pushed the button for the intercom, and then someone came to the front desk to help me. She told me about a diy program that I could go to online that would walk me through everything I need. Basically all I need from there is a separate order form that I can print out. She also told me how to obtain a criminal record thing that can be sent to my email, with a small fee. Then she told me that I have to go over to the county clerk (around the corner from where we were) to get an appendix number.
So my grandma and I went over to the county clerk, where I filled out a form to request an appendix number (literally the smallest, shortest form in the ENTIRE PROCESS) and they told me that the fee to turn everything in would be $210.
I asked about a fee waiver, and was told to go BACK to where I was (the help desk inside the courthouse) to obtain a poor persons claim and a request for judicial intervention. So I went back to the help desk, and she gave me the forms.
The poor person's claim is it's own separate process that'll take a few weeks. The request for judicial intervention can be filled out for both the claim and the petition for my name change, so I only need to get it notarized once.
I ended up scrapping the poor person's claim, the criminal background check ended up being $90 and basically said "no history" so even the clerks didn't know if that was enough. I ended up waiting over the weekend and then decided to turn everything in as it was.
About two days later I got the phone call saying the order for my name change was signed.
I had two months to put it in the local newspaper and then another month to file the proof at the county clerks office with everything else. After I did that I was given a certificate that I still need to send to Albany since that's where the office of vital statistics is, so that's where I need to get my new birth certificate from.
Filing fee--$210
Criminal background check--$90
Gas to/from home town--$40
New birth certificate--$8
Copy of the signed order--$10
Cost of publication in the local newspaper--$18
Cost of the certificate--$10
Total so far--$396
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Be true, stay you ❤❤
~Day Dreamer~
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Living the Non-Binary Life
RandomMy maybe-not-so-horrible-anymore-right-now life. I attempted to add as many tags as I could when I tried to think about details of myself I wanted to mention. I'll keep it as clean as possible and only mention the more...triggering content only as a...
