My son is now 16. He was born in the state of New York. We (my son and I) now reside in New Jersey. His father resides in Seattle Washington. We were not married at the time of his birth. At the time of my son's birth I had thought that he and I signed an voluntary acknowledgement of paternity, but after checking we vital records, they have nothing on file.

His father has been paying voluntary child support to me since his birth. His dad is in the military and I have requested that he add my son to his insurance policy so that I have a back up plan for my son. In order for him to add him they are requesting we establish paternity.

We tried using the affidavit of paternity, but that did not work because I am married now. I don't know why that matters as I did send them my marriage certificate and I married 9 years after my sons birth. They are advising I need to go to court and file an order of filiation, but his father is out of state. Does he need to be in the state for me to file this order? :confused: do I have to file in the state where my son was born or can I do it in the state I live in now. I just don't know where to begin with this process. I know I need to get it done. I also know this should have been done years ago!

Assuming your son's father has no contacts with NJ and if the matter were contested, then you would have to either file in New York or Washington. On the other hand, if the dad is willing to stipulate to paternity (which I assume based upon your question) you may file in NJ.

If you are being told it's too late to sign a voluntary declaration of paternity (pop-dec) because of being married (which would be permissible in California incidentally), then the easiest thing would be to file an action locally to establish paternity, have the boy's father sign a stipulated judgment on paternity and submit it to the court for processing and entry of judgment. In NJ the procedure by which this is done may differ somewhat from what I'm use to but I'm sure that in general this can be done relatively easily (in California no one would ever even need to appear in court and this could all be done by mail). So check with a local attorney about the easiest way of getting a judgment of paternity entered.