Notary Records, Journals, and Seals
The journal
New Jersey notaries must keep a journal of notarial acts. For each act, the journal should record the date and time, the type of act, the document type or title, the signer's name and address, the method of identification, and the fee charged. For remote acts, additional details such as the technology used may be required. The journal is the notary's contemporaneous record - entries should be made at or near the time of the act, not reconstructed later.
Care and retention
A notary must safeguard the journal and may not alter an entry after the fact; corrections should be noted, not erased. The journal is not a public record in the ordinary sense but may be inspected by authorized officials or produced under subpoena. A notary generally retains the journal for a period after the commission ends, and must surrender or account for official materials as required by law. Traps: questions that suggest a notary may lend the journal, let someone else write entries, or discard it at expiration.
The seal
A notary uses an official stamp or seal containing the notary's name as commissioned, the title "Notary Public," the state, and the commission expiration date. The seal must be legible, and the notary must keep it secure. A notary may not allow another person to use the seal, and must not apply a seal to a document that was not properly notarized. Some acts, such as copy certifications, may require the seal; check the certificate requirements for each act.
Worked example
After notarizing a power of attorney, the notary should log the date, act type, signer identity and address, ID method, and fee - then store the journal securely. If the signer later asks to "fix" a prior entry, the notary annotates rather than erases.
Rule of thumb: If you did the act, you logged it - at the time, in ink, and never altered.