Certified Translation Services in Philadelphia, PA

Two Pennsylvania quirks catch Philadelphia clients regularly. Birth and death certificates are issued centrally from New Castle, not by the city or county, so requesting one locally will not work. And marriage records are held by the Register of Wills — an office most people associate with estates — in the county where the licence was granted.

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas receives translated evidence in civil, family and orphans' court matters. Estate matters with overseas heirs are a recurring source of translation work here, and they need complete renderings of foreign birth, marriage and death records to establish the line of entitlement.

Records from Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone are generally in English and need no translation. Records from Senegal, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali are in French and do.

Late registrations and court-issued birth judgments are common across the region. They are translated as what they are — a judgment is a judgment, not a registry extract — because an adjudicator who notices the mismatch has to reassess the whole file.