Georgia Vital Records: Which Office Issues Which Document

What personal records covers in Georgia

No single Georgia agency holds the documents that prove who you are. Birth and death certificates sit with the State Office of Vital Records inside the Department of Public Health, with county health departments and probate courts holding their own copies of certain events. Marriage records start at the probate court that issued the license. Court records, including name change orders and divorce decrees, stay with the clerk of superior court in the county where the case was filed. Criminal history records live at the Georgia Crime Information Center, a division of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Driver’s licenses come from the Department of Driver Services, vehicle titles from the Department of Revenue.

Knowing which office holds a document matters because access rules differ by record type. A Georgia birth certificate is not a public record in the way a deed is. Under O.C.G.A. § 31-10-26, the state registrar or a local custodian issues a certified copy only to an applicant with a “direct and tangible interest” in the record, and the statute names the categories that qualify: the person whose birth is registered, either parent or guardian, a living legal spouse or next of kin, a legal representative, a court acting by order or subpoena, and government agencies needing the certificate for official purposes.

This article orients you to the whole set. It defines the terms the procedure articles assume, explains which office does what, and points to the individual procedures. It does not walk through any single filing start to finish.

Terms these procedures assume

Certified copy. A copy issued by the office holding the original, bearing that office’s seal and an authorized signature. Photocopies, scans, and hospital souvenir birth certificates carry no legal weight. Most agencies that ask for a birth certificate mean a certified copy.

Direct and tangible interest. The access standard for Georgia vital records. Georgia treats disclosure of the information in these records as unlawful except as the chapter and department regulations allow, under O.C.G.A. § 31-10-25. The same Code section sends records to the State Archives once 125 years have passed after a birth or 100 years after a death, marriage application, or divorce, at which point genealogical access opens up.

Legal organ. The newspaper a Georgia county designates for official legal notices. Name change petitions publish there, which is why the cost of a name change varies by county.

Record restriction. Georgia’s term for what other states call expungement. Restriction does not erase an arrest. It leaves the criminal history record information available only to judicial officials and criminal justice agencies while withholding it from private employers and background check companies, per the definition in O.C.G.A. § 35-3-37(a)(6). Sealing the clerk of court’s file is a separate step with its own petition.

Apostille. A one-page certificate, in an internationally standard format, that authenticates the signature and seal on a Georgia document so a Hague Convention country will accept it. It says nothing about whether the contents are true.

Birth, death, and marriage certificates

Certified copies of Georgia birth and death certificates come from the State Office of Vital Records or from the county health department where the event was recorded. Marriage certificates come from the probate court of the county that issued the license. Divorce decrees come from the superior court clerk in the county that granted the decree, not from a health department.

Who may order a copy is the part that surprises people. The list in O.C.G.A. § 31-10-26 is narrower than most applicants expect. An adult sibling, a cousin, or a former spouse is not automatically entitled to a certified birth certificate, and a request from outside those categories generally needs a court order. Death certificates reach a wider circle because the statute includes the next of kin and the legal representative of the estate.

Older records follow a different rule. Once a record ages past the thresholds in O.C.G.A. § 31-10-25(e), meaning 125 years for births and 100 years for deaths and marriage applications, custody transfers to the State Archives and the confidentiality restrictions give way to the Archives’ own access rules.

Changing a legal name in superior court

An adult name change in Georgia is a superior court case, not an administrative form. The petition goes to the superior court of the county where the petitioner lives, must state fully and particularly the reasons for the change, and must be verified. Within seven days of filing, the petitioner publishes notice once a week for four consecutive weeks in the county’s legal organ, and the court hears the matter no sooner than 30 days after filing when no objection is filed. All of that comes from O.C.G.A. § 19-12-1.

Two variations matter enough to name here. A petitioner who is a victim of family violence or human trafficking may ask the court to file the petition under seal, and a court that makes that finding may waive the publication requirement entirely under O.C.G.A. § 19-12-1(c). Changing a child’s name adds written parental consent and personal service on the parents, with a 60-day wait instead of 30 when a parent lives out of state and is served by mail.

Georgia also recognizes a name change granted inside a divorce, which restores a prior or maiden name without a separate petition. And Georgia common law still permits a person to use a different name by consistent usage, though agencies that issue identity documents will ask for the court order rather than accept usage.

Records that follow a name change

A signed order changes the name. It does not change the documents. Each record has its own updating path, and the order of operations affects how much friction you hit.

The birth certificate comes first for people born in Georgia. On receipt of a certified copy of a court order changing the name of a person born in this state, and at the request of that person or a parent, guardian, or legal representative, the state registrar amends the birth certificate to show the new name, per O.C.G.A. § 31-10-23(d). The amended certificate is marked “amended.” That same Code section governs other birth certificate corrections; changing a year of birth by more than one year, or removing a father’s name, requires its own court petition and at least ten days’ notice to the state registrar under O.C.G.A. § 31-10-23(f).

Social Security comes next, because most other agencies verify a name against Social Security’s records. The driver’s license or state ID follows, through the Department of Driver Services. A vehicle title carrying the old name is corrected through the Department of Revenue’s Motor Vehicle Division, which handles title and registration transactions for Georgia vehicles. Passports, professional licenses, voter registration, and deeds each have separate processes.

Notaries, apostilles, and Great Seal authentication

Georgia commissions notaries public through the clerk of superior court in the county where the applicant lives or works, with the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA) administering the statewide system. As of January 1, 2025, Georgia notaries are required to complete an educational training class before commissioning.

Document authentication splits between two offices, and the destination country decides which one you use. For a Hague Apostille Convention country, the GSCCCA is the only Georgia agency that issues apostilles. As of 2026 the fee is $3.00 per document, with mail processing normally taking one to two business days and walk-in service available at its Atlanta office; the same office issues a certification of notary public for documents staying inside the United States at $2.00 per document, as set out in its general apostille information. For a country that is not a Hague participant, the document instead needs a Great Seal certification from the Secretary of State’s Elections Division, which charges $10 per document and quotes a current turnaround of three to five business days on its Great Seal authentication page.

Certificates headed abroad take a longer path than most people plan for. A birth certificate cannot be notarized, because it is already an official record, so it must be an official certified copy bearing the issuing official’s signature and seal before the GSCCCA will apostille it, and certified copies issued before 2000 often have to be reordered because the issuing official’s signature is no longer on file.

Criminal history records and record restriction

The Georgia Crime Information Center holds statewide criminal history record information. Any individual may review their own record on written application, and may challenge information believed to be inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading; the fee for inspecting a criminal history record is capped at $15.00, not counting fingerprinting, under O.C.G.A. § 35-3-37(d).

Restriction works two ways. Some dispositions restrict automatically at the center: charges never referred for prosecution, charges dismissed or nolle prossed, two no bills from a grand jury, acquittals, and successful completion of a drug court, mental health court, or veterans court program. Others require a petition to the court. A person convicted of a misdemeanor, or a series of misdemeanors from a single incident, may petition the convicting court for restriction after completing the sentence and going four years without a conviction, and is limited to a lifetime maximum of two such petitions, under O.C.G.A. § 35-3-37(j)(4). A long list of offenses, including most family violence convictions and most theft offenses, is excluded from that route.

Arrests from before July 1, 2013 follow the older administrative process: a written request to the arresting agency, review by the prosecuting attorney within 90 days, and a fee that may not exceed $50.00 for the actual cost of restricting the records, per O.C.G.A. § 35-3-37(n).

Restriction at the center and sealing the clerk’s file are different requests. Even after a record is restricted, the clerk of superior court’s case file stays public until a judge grants a separate order finding that the harm to the individual’s privacy clearly outweighs the public interest in access.

Specific procedures and topics