Phone Records

[JimM]

Sorry if this seems like a real stupid question, (I'll probably have a few of them before I'm done), but here goes.

I'm American and my fiancee is Canadian, we plan on getting married early next year in Canada and then she'll apply to sponsor me, (most likely Outland). The thing is we met on line and were friends for some time before we got involved, (she came here as a friend on vacation and things went from there). So I can only document as far back as mid 2004 and that's just about all phone records until her visit and then my all to well documented trip to SK. Will phone records be enough?

And secondly, my phone company, (Vonage), lets me access all my phone records on line searchable by number. If I search for a year it will tell me how many calls to or from the number and list them out. Would the page with the number of calls be enough or would they want the actual list of calls? It would be a huge stack of paper and I don't want to print that out unless I have to.

Any suggestions appreciated!

[whoppi]

Sorry if this seems like a real stupid question, (I'll probably have a few of them before I'm done), but here goes.

I'm American and my fiancee is Canadian, we plan on getting married early next year in Canada and then she'll apply to sponsor me, (most likely Outland). The thing is we met on line and were friends for some time before we got involved, (she came here as a friend on vacation and things went from there). So I can only document as far back as mid 2004 and that's just about all phone records until her visit and then my all to well documented trip to SK. Will phone records be enough?

And secondly, my phone company, (Vonage), lets me access all my phone records on line searchable by number. If I search for a year it will tell me how many calls to or from the number and list them out. Would the page with the number of calls be enough or would they want the actual list of calls? It would be a huge stack of paper and I don't want to print that out unless I have to.

Any suggestions appreciated!

Hi JimM.....My husband (who is from US) and I also met online and did include our phone records - the actual phone bills, not just the number of calls so i'd go that route if I were you, but I'm not sure if it would be necessary. You said that you had limited "evidence" of your relationship, how about documentation from your online communication? You can also include letters of support from family or friends, any joint bank accounts or bills, photos, receipts from outings together/things bought for one another and of course any documentation of trips to visit one another. Another opinion might be useful as we have not yet finished the process, but I just thought I'd share.

Hope this helps!

[mitamata]

Do you have any emails saved? How about chat logs? Did you send each other any cards? Letters? That all serves as evidence of your relationship.

It's understandable if you can't prove things that happened years ago, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue. More is better of course, but as long as you can prove the more recent things, I think you should be good.

Are you currently living together? If yes, get any evidence you can of it. If not, get any evidence of your communication - emails, chat logs, skype call logs, phone bills. As you haven't applied yet, you still have time to gather it. It's more important to be able to show you're staying in touch (daily communication) today than that you spoke over MSN 5 years ago or whatever.

I had saved chat logs from 6 years ago, so I sent a couple of those. Along with that, I included phone bills for the last year, showing I called my husband semi-regularly and 30 pages worth of Skype call records (spanning 2 years) showing we call each other over Skype twice a day. That with photos (most of them recent), all the cards we sent each other and the boarding passes from our visits was enough.

[JimM]

Thanks for the info, looks like I'll need to pick up another ink cartridge to print out all the phone logs. Vonage doesn't offer paper billing so this is my only record of the calls. proving we're in constant communication now is no problem just via the phone logs. And there are some pictures, letters, ticket stubs from visits etc. And of course there will be plenty from the wedding.

We were concerned that it might not be taken seriously or looked on more suspiciously because we met on line so proving that we had a long history seemed more important. Originally I had planned to go up on a work visa so we could live together before I applied for my PR, but the economy crashed and the job I was going to take fell through so we're just doing it this way.

Thanks for the advice, it looks like we'll have enough proof. Though I will look into letters of support, just in case.