A notary public (or notary or public notary) in the common law
world is a public officer constituted by law to serve the public
in non-contentious matters usually concerned with estates,
deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international
business. A notary's main functions are to administer oaths and
affirmations, take affidavits and statutory declarations,
witness and authenticate the execution of certain classes of
documents, take acknowledgments of deeds and other conveyances,
protest notes and bills of exchange, provide notice of foreign
drafts, prepare marine or ship's protests in cases of damage,
provide exemplifications and notarial copies, and perform
certain other official acts depending on the jurisdiction. Any
such act is known as a notarization. The term notary public only
refers to common-law notaries and should not be confused with
civil-law notaries. With the exceptions of Louisiana, Puerto
Rico, Quebec, whose private law is based on civil law, and
British Columbia, whose notarial traditi