Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with official

"Address?" "Nowhere...and everywhere..."

attercoppe — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 21:34:26 -0800

How do people with no permanent address handle mail delivery, photo identification, property taxes, etc? Not homeless people, but full-time RVers, houseboaters who don't stay always at one dock, people who just live on the road as a part of their jobs, etc. etc. Can you get a driver's license without an address? How about a post office box? Can you have all your mail saved up somewhere, then forwarded to you at a given address whenever you ask for it? How can you apply for a job, pay your taxes, get insurance, or do anything official without having a permanent physical address? (I'm in the US, so mostly interested in domestic practices, but other countries' residents please feel free to contribute as well.)

What do they put as your country of birth if that country no longer exists?

Captaintripps — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 09:20:03 -0800

What do they put as your country of birth if that country no longer exists? [More inside.] And by they I mean the Social Security Administration or other entity like it.

Today, my roommate went to get a replacement Social Security card. He was born in West Germany. She replaced that with just Germany (which is understandable).

However, it got me thinking. It's conceivable that someone alive today could have been born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Tibet, the Mandate of Palestine, Coastal Ethiopia or any other country which met its demise in the past century (changed borders or not). What would be put as the nation of birth? I'm not sure if there are even rules about this.