Although their relationships do not always last, men and women who reside in Arizona bring children into the world that they must raise and care for until the children are no longer dependents. When a man and woman are married at the time a child is born it is generally presumed that the child is the offspring of the woman’s husband. However, not all babies are born to married individuals and this post will discuss how paternity may be proven in the state of Arizona.
First, a long-term marriage is not required to show paternity. A man and a woman must have married within the ten months preceding the baby’s birth for the man to be considered the father of the child or the baby must have been born to the woman within the ten months following the end of the couple’s marriage.
Second, if marriage is not an issue in the paternity matter, a man’s role as a child’s biological father may be proven through genetic testing. A test of the child and man’s genetic material must yield at least a 95 percent match in order for the man to be proven to be the child’s father.
Third, an unmarried man and woman may both sign the child’s birth certificate to demonstrate the man’s father role to the child, and if they do not sign the child’s birth certificate they can both acknowledge through a notarized document that they are the biological parents of the child. This brief post introduces methods in which a man may be shown to be a child’s father but it should not be relied on as legal advice. Matters of paternity should be discussed with a Chandler paternity dispute attorney.