Has anybody been able to successfully change their child’s last name.
Back story, my ex and I have been separated for 7 years, we “share” and 7 and 9 year old. He chose to walk out and cut all contact when our youngest was a tiny baby. Both children were given his last name. They have no contact with him or his family.
I have been with my partner for 6.5 years now and have had 2 more children. We will be getting married at the end of the year. We would both love for the kids to have his last name as he is the only father they have ever know. They would also like to have their dads last name as they have no connection to their bio-father.
Here is the issue, I have no idea where bio-father is. All I know is, he is a very bad ice addict and has been in and out of prison for the whole time we have been separated. I have no contact details for any of his family. How do I send paperwork to somebody that I can’t find?
9 Replies
You will probably need to hire a private detective to track him down. However in saying that, if they do track him down would he be happy to sign the paperwork. You will need his signature to change the surname up until the kids are 18 when they can change it themselves.
A family member? Google his name you might find a court listing or something, that will give you a general area then fb search that areas local buy and sell pages and search his name. If he's an ice addict he will be on the buy and sell pages because most of them sell stuff to buy more. If that fails try a family members name or close friend. It's pretty easy to track people down these days!
You go to court and explain the situation. Similar happened for me when I was younger. Judge approved the change and then we submitted the court order and all the paperwork to the states birth deaths and marriage office.
Learn your lesson and give your kids YOUR name! You keep it too
Really arse hole, learn my lesson! You have no idea of what happened and what my life is like now. Don’t be a rude fuck
Let sleeping dogs lie. I have seen more than one situation like this where the bio-father or their family have decided to try to become involved in the children's life again after this type of thing. Do you want to risk that?
You can have the kids use a pseudonym, meaning that they can go by their new dad's name. You can tell school etc that they wish to be addressed using this name. (Most forms have a space for "preferred name"). My bff had a similar situation with her son, she met her now hubby when son was young and he mostly went through school using their new surname, it has never been legally changed, but he is an adult now, so he can change it now anyway.
I was the child in this situation going back a number of years ago in Queensland. My Mum enrolled me at school with her new married name (my Stepfather's name). When the time came to get my drivers licence my Mum came with me with a copy of her marriage certificate along with my own identity documents (ie. birth certificate, school reports, etc.). My drivers licence was issued in my new name (ie. my Mum's married surname). I applied for tax file numbers, etc. in the new name also - my understanding is this is classed as "my assumed name". The only time I have had to refer to my birth name is on forms where it asks "have you been known by any other name" - usually an explanation is adequate to get around this and it has never posed a problem. I was even able to use my Stepfather's name on my marriage certificate (I had to send in a stat dec outlining this info). Whether things a more tricky now (I am in my early forties) but this hasn't posed much of a problem in my experience. Good luck
I had similar situation and it is actually very straight forward in Queensland. Don't know about other states. It costs about $200 and you do have to go to Court. All paperwork can be sort from your local court house.You need a few different affidavits but it's all self explanatory.