UKC

So, rolled up at the border in Germany with our passports as normal - Lucas W. age 10 - German passport (his first passport is Uk, I just thought on this occasion the German one might be better), Brian W. age 45- Uk passport, and Heike P. age 50 (German) - German passport -as a family unit. Got a total grilling, why have you not got birth certificates and wedding certificates, one of you (i.e. me) has got a different surname, why have you got a different surname, you have now got a problem, we might have to arrest you, etc. I said, ok, arrest us, we are a family traveling together; we are married and I have kept my name, there is nothing that we have done wrong. I was appalled, I went bright red and thought I would faint, but the guy was clearly just bluffing and being absolutely officious and then let us through in the end. Hideous. Just because I have a different name to the boys. 

Shocking behaviour. It is a bit of a nightmare. It has happened before when I travelled on my own with Lucas, but now this is the first time they took an issue with the whole family being present. Why, what is this all about?

I wonder why with kids they don't list the names of legal guardians on the passport. Would make it easier for border staff to identify where extra checks are apropriate, and remove the need for intrusive questions for the many families where for whatever reason names differ. 

Absolutely, they used to do that, but now they don't . It is a minefield. Last year when I travelled on my own with my son back to the Uk after a holiday where my husband had to get back earlier, I had to have birth certificates, marriage certificates, a letter from my husband 'allowing' me to take the wee man out(or more to the point back in to the country) and a letter making sure my husband could be contacted. Then the guy at the border said. "It would be actually better if it would have been verified by a notary...", by which stage I almost had a fit!

H

Oh, and if any one thinks that is German  thing, it is totally across the EU border, had problems in France and the UK now if you are on your own/ and or have a different surname. It is really disconcerting.

Its awkward, but if you want to crack down on people trafficking,  what else can you do ? I had a hard time when I was driving to France with a friend's son in the car

Ok, a friend's son. Yes, I can see that. But here we were, husband and son with the same name,  ( a mum too) all of us living in the same place.

What else do they want?

I didn't ask you or ukc to help, I have just wanted to point out the situation which is not quite right IMHO and alert others to that problem, those who might not travel that often with children so that they can be prepared and avoid stressful situations at the border control.Cheers

In reply to Heike:

Yes a friend has full legal custody of her kids, but needs all sorts of paperwork to take them on holiday as she reverted to her maiden name.

However far worrying is the fact that her ex husband, who has no legal right of access can take them out of the country with no questions asked. 

Wow, that is strange, why was he not  asked/interrogated?

Similar experience tonight with increasing security on on-line banking, and my inability to remember my online password, my telephone password and my digital secure key password and type them into various places at the correct times, within the time limits.  It's a right royal pain in the arse, and you want to say "Oh FFS, it's MY MONEY, why don't you just realise that?" but of course that's exactly what the scammers that these systems are designed to protect us against would say.   

Doesn't make it any the less frustrating for you/me.  I feel for you and you just have to take a deep breath and keep calm and not get aggro about it.  View it all as training for the US Transport Security people who surely take the crown for most officious, annoying and arbitrary petty officials who one has to be totally servile and deadpan to.

Yup, I can see your point!!! 

We've had similar questions coming into the UK but I've found UK border force to generally run from being neutral at worse to quite friendly. My partner (we're not married) has a different surname to me and the kids, but my two older kids have different nationality to me (my youngest has two passports already! One for each of his nationalities). Don't remember it ever being an issue in Finland even when it was me traveling alone with the kids

My partner got told once that it would be helpful if she had the birth certificate for the one child she was travelling with that time on her own by UK immigration, but she explained you don't have birth certificates in Finland. The officer supposedly just asked my son in a super friendly way "do you know this person?" and he replied with a slightly confused "my mum" and that was that.

The German officer sounds like a complete dick. Was it just him/her? Or was a superior around for the grilling?

In reply to Padraig:

One thing that might help would be a notarised letter confirming they are a family?  Is Germany a country that recognises notaries public?

I know to take Scouts abroad we need a letter from both parents even if separated giving permission - if one won't provide it the only other way is a Court order.

Why would he be when he's got the same name as the kids? Under the current system that is proof enough...

Whilst the ultimate origin is in changing names at marriage due to a highly sexist naming convention that treats wives somewhat as property of the men, the practice is rooted in preventing child kidnapping by estranged partners using the almost totally normalised naming convention to provide a warning flag almost anyone can be trained to use.

Bit odd for someone to pull it with the matching named husband present but there’s probably good old sexism at work with the assumption that it’s the man that tries to steal the children and you’re his partner in crime.

I’m not for a moment suggesting it’s appropriate or that your case was anything but awful treatment just suggesting what I think the though processes are.

Rule 1 of travelling with child(s) whose names don’t match yours - flying or hotel room booking - is to take proof of your relationship with them.  Good basic preparation incase the same named parent is incapacitated and you run in to problems making arrangements with the children.

I’m of the strong opinion that a child’s passport should explicitly list the adult(s) with whom they are allowed to travel, with centrally registered stick-on additions for school trips and unaccompanied travel etc.  These would be checked digitally in case they have been rescinded.  Mainly for use preventing children being removed from thev UK.  I’d have a rule that either parent can immediately rescind all exit permits on their child’s passport - at the moment many dual citizenship parents can suddenly make away with a child to far away parts leaving the UK parent almost totally powerless.  Awful situation where the courts can’t get involved.

My husband thinks it was just him as he had to work on the bank holiday monday (Rose Monday) 

Yes, well, always have done that when on my own, but this is the first time I felt the need to do this when the whole family is together...

Worth always doing it incase of unavoidable separation by circumstances although I wouldn’t have anticipated border trouble when travelling as a unit, but there is there possible interpretation that you’re assisting the Male in taking the kids.  

Glad it all ended peaceably for you.  I hate having to deal with high stress high stakes situations with Jr present.  

Frustrating I know but this has been in place for a good 10 years now? It is to avoid partners running of with kids. Which unfortunately happens.

So we keep a copy of the birth certificates with the passports at all times, in the case of one of the parents travelling with the kids,  we fill in the forms.

We have gotten used to it but it is frustrating. 

And funny sometimes when my partner went traveling with a friend and my childeren, all different surnames. 

No problems as long as you have the paperwork.

Legally it is a nightmare, as for example according to British law, my childeren are mine but not Dutch law as they don't recognise British birth certificates...

Ah, ok, same name of course, but that was what happened to us, despite me, the mum being there. When I am on my own I always have all the documentation with me nowadays...

Yup. Very stressful!!! Child starting to cry...etc

Hmm, sounds like blood pressure nightmare

On a different note, I have learnt through bitter experience that when entering Germany at Hanover airport, never stand in the passport control queue which has a non-white person in front of you. 

Yes, the doc gave me some pills for that....

Absolutely. My friends faced the same issue on the Ukrainian border. So, this is a common situation in Europe. 

No, no, no and no.  That would, for instance, potentially put a Scout or school trip arriving at the airport and *only then* finding out that they can't take them out of the country and becoming rather stuck.

I would say there needs to be a Court-based process to do that that avoids an awkward parent doing it purely to be awkward.  It would be extremely common for a jilted parent to knowingly and deliberately withdraw permission just as they were on the way to the airport for a holiday.  Far, far more common than one parent taking a child away with nefarious intent.

So both parents can agree what goes on there, or a Court can decide, but once given only a Court can withdraw.  Then I'd agree.

Sounds like a very frustrating experience for you. I can't remember ever having this problem on extensive travels around Europe when our offspring were under 18 (less than 5 years ago). And my wife has a German surname while the rest of the family sport an Anglo one. Perhaps it's a recent development.

This is true.  The flip side is a person who comes home to find their dual citezenship partner and child missing with no passports in the house.  There needs to be a clear and immediate panic button for such cases.  You may be right that the akward parent is more common, but considering (probability) x (consequence) the severity tips the other way.

The problem with a court based process is how fast things move in a case like this and how little time there is.

For a school trip both estranged parents should have to sign the permissions slip, so if one then rescinds the passport at the 11th hour they’re clearly not acting in good faith and that can feed in to custody or legal proceedings - this can all be spelt out.

Not that it matters with the ease with which wanted felons apparently just take the ferry out etc...

A bit frustrating but these guys aren’t mind readers and we’d be the first to complain if they let children through boarders without checking they were with the correct leaders/carers/parents etc

Tbh if you’ve had issues before then why not take birth certificates etc with you and save all the hassle?

Such a "panic button" MUST surely include telephoning 999 and reporting the child as abducted, and who you believed they were with, which would presumably allow airports/airlines to be notified to try to prevent them leaving the UK.  The severity of doing that (and that things like wasting Police time are a criminal offence) would provide that "panic button" while ensuring that it would be unlikely to be misused.

This would depend on probability, which is fairly low.  I suspect using that RA method it probably in fact would not.  But see above.

yeah, must be recent. Never happened when my son was a little.

Well, it has never happened before when we traveled as the whole family. We have all the passports, so they don't have to be mindreader, they just need to check the documents.

The passports just confirm the identity of the holder not their relationship. Maybe the current system needs changing but carrying a birth certificate or such like is a minor inconvenience to travellers and a small price to pay for the safety of children as traffickers/smugglers go to a wide range of methods to move children around, some of them as blatant as travelling as ‘families’.  

Ok, take  your point to an extent, but at the same time, there could be uncle and aunt twice removed and a niece or nephew with the same name and they are not quizzed (whilst being trafficked), whilst me, just because I have a different name gets treated like a criminal. When you order a passport for a child you have to provide a birth certificate and also a wedding certificate if you are married (and utility bills and statements, it is quite a chore), so as such a passport reports all these things and they are computerised and on file. So, no need to be so draconian at the border if you have the right passport which gets checked via computer system. I think people smugglers have quite different ways of importing and exporting people. A birth certificate could just be as fake (probably much easier to fake than a passport). It is just a piece of paper.

It is also so random. There was a guy in front of us, Scottish with four kids, no mum/ partner or so in sight. He went to the other booth beside us and he just got waived through. 

Don't both parents need to agree or sign when a child applies for a passport? Thus the possession of a passport would in itself prove everything. 

Yep I agree that you provide all sorts of additional Id at point of application but that would be for the issuing country not a different one who have differing standards so ultimately it’s the passport that proves the Id of the holder. 

Birth certificates can indeed be faked and  also bought by anyone in the UK which is why they are not a form of id (in the UK anyway). 
 

On the point of randomness part of the screening is random (in addition to intel led security) and you may well have fallen for this and why the other party were waived though. What causes the random screening to escalate can be down to all sorts of reasons from the person being inexperienced, having a bad day, something causing doubt in their mind, to at times- and this shouldn’t cause this but does, the other party being difficult so a power play comes into play. 
 

Not  in the uk. Not sure about other countries. 

This is why I double barreled my surname, so at least it is obviously linked to my husband and daughters surname. 

Was a pain in the arse doing it and I still have lots of things with just my maiden name on them. It's so bloody sexist that the women is still always the one expected to ditch a lifetimes identity and deal with a mass of admin just to match up family names.

Were they all red-heads?

Yes, we both had to be there in person and sign. And it cost..

I wish I had now in retrospect....nightmare

Well, I went to great trouble to get a German and British passport, so the countries I am talking about have all the info. For the passport to be issued , my husband and I had to roll up at the embassy and provide marriage certificates, birth certificates, utility bills, certificates from our work etc and we had to be there to sign the passport when it was issued - all of us. For the British one, you have to then send in all the info plus the other passports, in this case the German one without having any certainty to get them back.

Nope, I am afraid not, they were all wee dark haired weegies.

Probably true in most places but not my experience in the Netherlands.....from what I gathered most kids take their mothers family name and it seemed in most official situations women kept/used their original family names. Our second son was born there and when registering his birth with the local authorities I had to give our details.......they took my name down and then asked for my wife's name (who has taken my surname)......when she had the same surname as me they looked at me very strangely.....I guess they assumed I'd married my sister or something