The new passport application form, numbered DS-11, is more intensive that past ones. It requests more information. It might even be requested for you to send a new biological questionnaire. This form is almost impossible to fill out, requiring information from birth, and even before. Many of the facts requested would not be available to the average person.

Age Requirements

There are a number of reasons the new form must be used. If you are getting your first one, if you are under sixteen, if yours was lost, stolen or issued over fifteen years ago or if you have changed your name and don’t have legal documentation, you must use this new form.

Time It Takes

The document should be completed but not signed. It should be brought to an acceptance agency and presented. You will get it within four to six weeks this way. If it is needed within two and four weeks, bring it to the agency and request expedited service. If needed in less than two weeks, you must bring it to a regional agent or place it online through an express expedited agent. Mailing it is not an option.

Questionnaire

There is a new biographical questionnaire that a small part of the population may be required to submit. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to complete. Examples of some information required include all your addresses since birth, total employment history from the very first job including the names of all employers and supervisors. The addresses and phone numbers must also be included for these employers. The address of your mother before you birth should also be included. This and other information that is hard or impossible to find are required in ordered to obtain the passport.

It has been argued that this questionnaire is designed merely to make it harder for a person to get approval. The argument continues that the questions have very little to do with the worthiness to qualify. Some items required may not even be still available or applicable. Having to name everyone who was at your birth, for example, is possibly no longer available, especially if the parents are deceased.

Passport History

Requiring some sort of document to travel to other countries is documented throughout history. The first known instance was in the Hebrew Bible, in about 450 B. C., when Nehemiah asked the king permission to travel in Judea. The king wrote him a letter to present to the government officials he encountered. In Medieval Europe, travelers between countries had to present a receipt for taxes paid to be able to travel.

Pictures were not required until the early 1900’s, when they began to be attached. Older documents only gave a verbal description of the holder. The current requirements are greatly more detailed that those of old, especially so it the questionnaire is adopted. In early one, they merely verified that the holder had permission to travel. The newer ones seem to act more like endorsements of worthiness to travel to other countries.

If planning for international travel, be prepared for the difficult associated with the new pass port application form and the supplementary material required. Cost is another factor. It has increased recently. One needs to plan for and account for the time and expense required for meeting this expedited new pasport qualification for travel.