When a Colombian Registrar Authorises an Overtyped Date with "REPISADO SI VALE"

What We Received

A client submitted a Colombian Registro Civil de Matrimonio — Indicativo Serial 4381119 — issued by Notaría 22 del Círculo de Medellín, Antioquia, for a USCIS family-petition file. The religious marriage had been celebrated on December 13, 1997 at Parroquia Beata Laura Montoya — Santa Catalina de Siena in Medellín, and the civil registration was made eight years later, on November 29, 2005, by Notario Julio César Echeverry Ceballos. The lag between religious ceremony and civil registry is unusual but not unprecedented in Colombia, and it sat alongside a [related birth-registration legitimation](/cases/legitimation-replacement-birth-colombian) processed on the same registry visit.

The pre-printed national form had been filled in by typewriter — country, municipality, lugar de celebración, spouses' full names and Cédulas de Ciudadanía, marriage class (Religioso ☒), document type (Acta religiosa ☒), and the parish identification. In the Fecha de celebración row, the Year field carried "1997" cleanly, the Day field carried "13" cleanly — and the Month field carried three filled boxes: "0", "1", "2". That is one digit more than the form's two-box month layout, and the visible value reads as "012".

At the foot of the form, in the pre-printed Espacio Para Notas (Notes Space), a single typed line read: '"12" REPISADO SI VALE'. That is the standard Colombian registrar's authorisation for a typewriter-overstrike correction — Spanish for '"12" overtyped, [it] is valid' — and it specifies that the corrected month value is twelve, i.e., December.

How We Handled It

We rendered the marriage-month field as '12 [originally typed as "012"; see Notes field]' — the corrected value first, then a bracketed annotation pointing the reader to the registrar's authorising note at the foot of the form. We translated the Espacio Para Notas line verbatim as '"12" OVERTYPED, IS VALID.', preserving the original quotation marks and the elliptical structure of the registrar's authorisation. The two parts of the fix sit in the English document in exactly the positions they sit in the Spanish original.

A Translator's Note on the certification page tied the two together so the USCIS reader does not have to deduce the relationship: "The marriage month in the date-of-celebration field was originally typed as '012' (three boxes filled instead of two). The Notes field at the bottom of the form contains the official correction: '\"12\" REPISADO SI VALE' ('12 overtyped, [it] is valid'), confirming that the marriage month is December (12) and that the document remains valid."

Two further form details from the same record were rendered cleanly to the same standard. The religious-marriage class (Religioso ☒) and document type (Acta religiosa ☒) were preserved with the original check-box notation, the parish name "P. BEATA LAURA MONTOYA — SANTA CATALINA DE SIENA" (P. = Parroquia / Parish) was rendered with the abbreviation expanded in a translator's note, and the Hijos Legitimados Por El Matrimonio section was translated in full — naming the couple's child and the birth serial 16394709, which links this marriage record to the [Colombian birth registration](/cases/cursive-signature-front-back-colombian-birth) and to the post-marriage replacement birth certificate.

Expert Note

"The marriage month in the Fecha de celebración (Date of celebration) field was originally typed as "012" (three boxes filled instead of two). The Espacio Para Notas (Notes Space) at the foot of the form contains the official registrar's correction: '"12" REPISADO SI VALE' — Spanish for '"12" overtyped, [it] is valid'. This is the standard Colombian civil-registry authorisation for a typewriter-overstrike correction; it specifies that the corrected month value is twelve (December), and that the marriage record remains valid as issued."

Natalia VegaSenior Spanish & Portuguese Translator

Two related form conventions were noted in the translator's certification: the Colombian "C.C." (Cédula de Ciudadanía) abbreviation was preserved with the original period-thousands-separator notation (e.g., 43.004.730, 71.582.605 — different from the apostrophe notation used on the related 1991 birth registration), and the eight-year gap between religious celebration and civil registration was rendered with both dates intact so the USCIS reader can see the chronology that the registrar intended.

The Outcome

The certified translation was delivered to the client with the marriage record on its body pages and the Translator's Certification on the final page — carrying the REPISADO SI VALE explanation, the period-vs-apostrophe Cédula notation note, the parish abbreviation note, and the eight-year-gap chronology. The packet went into the client's USCIS file alongside the related birth registration and the post-marriage [legitimation replacement birth certificate](/cases/legitimation-replacement-birth-colombian) without a follow-up question on the marriage date.

We have since applied the same notes-field-as-authorisation framing to every Colombian civil-registry document with a REPISADO SI VALE annotation — on births, marriages, and deaths — so the registrar's own correction language carries the translation, not a guess from the translator.