A reader alerted us to a weird anomaly: Many married women who take their husband’s last name but use their maiden name as their middle name find that their marriage certificate doesn’t provide legal evidence of that middle-name change. This is proving an obstacle when trying to get a Real ID license, which will be required for flying as of October 2020.
The complication is a discrepancy between a birth certificate saying Mary Jane Jones and a driver’s license which, after marrying Joe Smith, says Mary Jones Smith. Picky DMV offices have been responding: “What happened to the ‘Jane’? I can’t accept this as evidence that you’re the same person as on the birth certificate!” The solution: go to probate court and legally change your middle name, at a cost of at least $110.
This isn’t unique to New Hampshire; the federal government has had to tell many states that they can make a logical inference that Mary Jane Jones and Mary Jones Smith are the same person.
I wrote about it in Sunday’s Monitor – the story is here. I heard from several other women in the same boat, after the story came out, and told them not to spend the probate court money but to try again. And Holly Williams, the woman in my story? She got her Real ID on Monday morning. Power of the press!
As the newsletter went out, I’m working on a follow-up: Turns out the state’s marriage certificate form changed in 2015, so people who have gotten married since then have to declare their full name, which means they don’t face this problem. It’s limited to people married more than four years ago.
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We just faced this at the Oakland DMV in NJ and they will.not allow my wife to get a Real ID
Same here, just happened in Montana. I went to our local AAA office to get a Real ID. I had all the documentation (and more!) they needed. But they wouldn’t do it because the state DMV used my maiden name as my middle name on my driver’s license in the 1970’s. It has never been a problem until now. So, I went to the DMV. They told me my marriage license was no good, either, it was not the “official certificate” even though it had a seal. In order to fix their error, I had to try to get a “real” copy of my marriage certificate from that state before I could get my driver’s license fixed, before I could get a Real ID. So, I went a different route. I have an expired passport. I went to the post office, and they said I could just renew my passport, which just takes a form, the old passport, and a new picture, for free. I think they are going to have a lot of people who won’t get Real ID because they make it too hard, even though you have a pile of documentation.