personal history - addresses from long ago

[Lifer]

on the forms, my wife is asked to give details of where she's lived since her 18th birthday. several years ago, she lived in Chiang mai and then Bangkok for a while, but she can't remember the street addresses of her old places and has no way of finding them (no, she doesn't have any old mail or bills or anything). Should we make up some address just to fill in the form completely, or leave the street address field blank?

 

[AllisonVSC]

Definitely do not leave it blank or make something up. Give the most accurate dates (month and year or season and year) and addresses street, city, state or province, and country) as is possible. Your wife could ask family and friends if they remember more info than she does. Maybe they could help recreate the data. For example, My older brother had an uncanny memory for numbers (like every phone number we ever had growing up).

They do not expect everyone to remember everything, but they will wonder about what the applicant is hiding if there are gaps. The addresses will generally correspond to what she has listed for schooling and work during those times in the separate section of the app. So, if she can't remember the exact address they will see she was enrolled in XX school or working for YYY company at the same time.

If she can't get it exactly, I suggest writing something like this.

(street address unknown), Charleston, South Carolina, USA ??/1992 to 07(?)/1993

I'm sure others will suggest how they dealt with this issue too.
Best wishes, Allison

 

[rachel6992]

I've moved to a new place pretty much every year since turning 18, so I had a realllly long list! Especially when I was in college, it was difficult to recall my exact street addresses. I put, for example, my dorm address, but not the room number. I did the same for the apartment I lived in after that. I just put the address of the complex (I remembered the name of it) but not the apartment number. I also contacted my old roomies to see if they recalled anything during the hazy blur of college When we lived in Europe, we moved around like every 2 months. So I put the address of the last place we lived because we stayed there the longest.

Another thing that might help is if she checks her credit rating. A lot of times they ask you to verify previous addresses where maybe you've had a utility bill or if you used one place as a billing address. That helped me to remember exactly which house number and street I was living on at a particular time. When I checked it, I got like 4 previous addresses to verify.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

 

[minna]

Does she not have any friends or family who might help her remember her address? was she working or in school during those years - she may be able to contact her old workplace or school to see what address they had on file for her during that time (depending on how long ago it was). Perhaps some local utility or phone companies might still have records of her address during that time. Or records from having filed taxes in that time?

Another suggestion for remembering the address would be to use a good quality street map of the area, , some will indicate some street numbers on the map. My partner looked at google maps to find the neighborhood he had lived in, and then was able to easily remember the location of his houses and even was able to find the addresses by zooming in. If she has internet access, that might be another possibility? Certainly this should be true in Bangkok.

As another poster said, I would not leave the addresses blank. if you truly cannot find out the street number, perhaps you can include a map with the locations of her prior homes marked. I don't know if CIC would accept that, but it seems better than just leaving the space blank.

 

[JimM]

On a related note how about employers? When I was in college I worked several part time and summer jobs, over the years I've forgotten the addresses of some of them and they're no longer in business so I can't just look them up...