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[travisncali]

I finally got my things apostilled and here is some information to help those who are confused. I live in California, but this web page can help anyone find the information that they need from the State Department. www.state.gov/m/a/auth/ . Below you will find a web page and information on what you need to do if your from California. Be careful to read it all, there is some tricky parts that include the county clerk. Hope this helps!

This part is for Cali peeps: I tired to bold the important stuff and deleted some things that were not related to teachers.

www.ss.ca.gov/business/notary/notary.htm

The California Secretary of State provides authentication of public official signatures on documents to be used outside the United States of America. The country of destination determines whether the authentication is an Apostille or Certification.



The California Secretary of State can only authenticate documents issued in the State of California by the following public officials and their deputies:
- Notaries Public


Some examples of documents submitted for authentications are:
- School records such as diplomas, transcripts, letters relating to degrees, etc.

Documents submitted to the Secretary of State for authentication must be currently certified by the appropriate public official or must be notarized by a California Notary Public.

Customers requiring authentication of any school records (e.g., college transcripts) must obtain a notarized copy of the record from the high school, university, etc., before submitting the documents for authentication.



Note: The Secretary of State�s four regional offices (Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco) can only authenticate a California notary public�s signature if the county clerk/recorder (on the notary public�s stamp) first authenticates the signature. The customer must take the notarized document to the county clerk/recorder for certification and then submit the certified document to one of the four regional offices for authentication. Having a document certified at the county level is only required for authentication at our regional offices. The Secretary of State's Sacramento office can authenticate documents notarized by a California notary public without being certified at the county level.

To avoid delays that may result from out-of-date documents, a document certified by a county official (e.g. county clerk) should have a certification date within the last five years or a new certified copy should be obtained from the appropriate county official.
The customer must identify the country of destination when the documents are submitted to the Secretary of State. If documents are submitted by mail to the Sacramento office, a letter identifying the country of destination must accompany the documents. To facilitate the processing of documents submitted by mail, please include a self-addressed envelope.
Documents can be hand delivered to any office location for over-the-counter processing between the hours of 8:00 am and 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday (excluding holidays) or mailed to the Sacramento office. Regional offices do not process mailed in documents. Office locations are as follows:

Sacramento Office

Street Address: Mailing Address:

Notary Public Section
1500 11th Street, 2nd Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 653-3595
Notary Public Section
Post Office Box 942877
Sacramento, CA 94277-0001


Regional Offices

Fresno:
315 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 203
Fresno, CA 93721
(559) 445-6900

Los Angeles:
300 South Spring Street, Room 12513
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 897-3062

San Diego:
1350 Front Street, Suite 2060
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 525-4113

San Francisco:
455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 14500
San Francisco, CA 94102-7007
(415) 557-8000

When submitting documents to any of our offices for over-the-counter processing, no appointment is necessary. Customers are served on a �first come first serve� basis.
Documents submitted for over-the-counter processing are normally processed within an hour. The average processing time for documents submitted by mail is approximately two weeks.
There is a $20.00 processing fee (per signature authenticated) and a $6.00 special handling fee (per public official for documents submitted over the counter). Payments for documents submitted:

- by mail to Sacramento can be made by check or money order.
- over-the-counter in Sacramento can be made by check, money order, cash, or credit card (Visa or MasterCard). - over-the-counter in any of the four regional offices can be made by check, money order, or credit card (Visa or MasterCard). Regional offices are not able to accept cash.

Checks or money orders should be made payable to the Secretary of State.

Cheers Everyone, Good luck!