A
notary public (or
notary or
public notary) of the
common law 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.