More formal records of similar provenance may be described as legal in the widest sense, comprising such objects as land deeds, cadastral inventories (tax surveys), wills, adoption decrees, and trial transcripts.
Because of those stories, my America is one where my family does not travel without those same documents — wills, advance directives, and medical powers of attorney — as well as our children's birth certificates and adoption decrees.
Back then, they told me about a slightly torn manila folder stuffed with documents — their marriage license, their son's adoption decree, among other things — that proved they were a family.
Otherwise, written and notarized permission from an absent parent or another documented explanation — like proof of sole custody of a child, an adoption decree or the death certificate of a deceased parent — must be supplied.
If that's not possible, another documented explanation, like proof of sole custody of a child, an adoption decree or the death certificate of the absent parent, can be presented instead.
The Cambodian government had already sent them an official "adoption decree," which allowed them legally to pick up their children, but without I.N.S. approval they could not bring them home.
If that's not possible, written and notarized permission from an absent parent or another documented explanation -- like proof of sole custody of a child, an adoption decree or the death certificate of a deceased parent -- must be supplied.
The ban on same-sex marriage was ruled unconstitutional in Pennsylvania last year, and the two submitted a petition to vacate the adoption decree.
On September 25 , 2013 the Charleston County Family Court began contempt proceedings against Brown and the Cherokee Nation for withholding Veronica in the face of the South Carolina adoption decree, which was finalized in July.
But to the surprise of gay-rights advocates, the Alabama Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Roy Moore said in September that the woman's adoption decree from Georgia was "void" and would not be honored.
Gracie's Law, if passed, will allow for an adoption to be overturned when the petitioners committed fraud on the court or the natural parent in order to obtain an adoption decree, up until the child turns 18.
