opinion: PER CURIAM.
  A Georgia court entered a final judgment of adoption making petitioner V.L. a legal parent of the children that she and respondent E.L. had raised together from birth. V.L. and E.L. later separated while living in Alabama. V.L. asked the Alabama courts to enforce the Georgia judgment and grant her custody or visitation rights. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled against her, holding that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution does not require the Alabama courts to respect the Georgia judgment. That judgment of the Alabama Supreme Court is now reversed by this summary disposition.
  I
  V.L. and E.L. are two women who were in a relationship from approximately 1995 until 2011. Through assisted reproductive technology, E.L. gave birth to a child named S.L. in 2002 and to twins named N.L. and H.L. in 2004. After the children were born, V.L. and E.L. raised them together as joint parents.
  V.L. and E.L. eventually decided to give legal status to the relationship between V.L. and the children by having V.L. formally adopt them. To facilitate the adoption, the couple rented a house in Alpharetta, Georgia. V.L. then filed an adoption petition in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia. E.L. also appeared in that proceeding. While not relinquishing her own parental rights, she gave her express consent to V.L.'s adoption of the children as a second parent. The Georgia court determined that V.L. had complied with the applicable requirements of Georgia law, and entered a final decree of adoption allowing V.L. to adopt the children and recognizing both V.L. and E.L. as their legal parents.
  V.L. and E.L. ended their relationship in 2011, while living in Alabama, and V.L. moved out of the house that the couple had shared. V.L. later filed a petition in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama, alleging that E.L. had denied her access to the children and interfered with her ability to exercise her parental rights. She asked the Alabama court to register the Georgia adoption judgment and award her some measure of custody or visitation rights. The matter was transferred to the Family Court of Jefferson County. That court entered an order awarding V.L. scheduled visitation with the children.
  E.L. appealed the visitation order to the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. She argued, among other points, that the Alabama courts should not recognize the Georgia judgment because the Georgia court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to enter it. The Court of Civil Appeals rejected that argument. It held, however, that the Alabama family court had erred by failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing before awarding V.L. visitation rights, and so it remanded for the family court to conduct that hearing.
  The Alabama Supreme Court reversed. It held that the Georgia court had no subject-matter jurisdiction under Georgia law to enter a judgment allowing V.L. to adopt the children while still recognizing E.L.'s parental rights. As a consequence, the Alabama Supreme Court held Alabama courts were not required to accord full faith and credit to the Georgia judgment.
  II
  The Constitution provides that "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State." U.S. Const., Art. IV, § 1. That Clause requires each State to recognize and give effect to valid judgments rendered by the courts of its sister States. It serves "to alter the status of the several states as independent foreign sovereignties, each free to ignore obligations created under the laws or by the judicial proceedings of the others, and to make them integral parts of a single nation." Milwaukee County v. M.E. White Co., 296 U.S. 268, 277, 56 S.Ct. 229, 80 L.Ed. 220 (1935).
  With respect to judgments, "the full faith and credit obligation is exacting." Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 233, 118 S.Ct. 657, 139 L.Ed.2d 580 (1998). "A final judgment in one State, if rendered by a court with adjudicatory authority over the subject matter and persons governed by the judgment, qualifies for recognition throughout the land." Ibid. A State may not disregard the judgment of a sister State because it disagrees with the reasoning underlying the judgment or deems it to be wrong on the merits. On the contrary, "the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution precludes any inquiry into the merits of the cause of action, the logic or consistency of the decision, or the validity of the legal principles on which the judgment is based." Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 462, 61 S.Ct. 339, 85 L.Ed. 278 (1940).
  A State is not required, however, to afford full faith and credit to a judgment rendered by a court that "did not have jurisdiction over the subject matter or the relevant parties." Underwriters Nat. Assurance Co. v. North Carolina Life & Accident & Health Ins. Guaranty Assn., 455 U.S. 691, 705, 102 S.Ct. 1357, 71 L.Ed.2d 558 (1982). "Consequently, before a court is bound by [a] judgment rendered in another State, it may inquire into the jurisdictional basis of the foreign court's decree." Ibid. That jurisdictional inquiry, however, is a limited one. "[I]f the judgment on its face appears to be a 'record of a court of general jurisdiction, such jurisdiction over the cause and the parties is to be presumed unless disproved by extrinsic evidence, or by the record itself.' " Milliken, supra, at 462, 61 S.Ct. 339 (quoting Adam v. Saenger, 303 U.S. 59, 62, 58 S.Ct. 454, 82 L.Ed. 649 (1938) ).
  Those principles resolve this case. Under Georgia law, as relevant here, "[t]he superior courts of the several counties shall have exclusive jurisdiction in all matters of adoption." Ga.Code Ann. § 19-8-2(a) (2015). That provision on its face gave the Georgia Superior Court subject-matter jurisdiction to hear and decide the adoption petition at issue here. The Superior Court resolved that matter by entering a final judgment that made V.L. the legal adoptive parent of the children.
  Whatever the merits of that judgment, it was within the statutory grant of jurisdiction over "all matters of adoption." Ibid. The Georgia court thus had the "adjudicatory authority over the subject matter" required to entitle its judgment to full faith and credit. Baker, supra, at 233, 118 S.Ct. 657.
  The Alabama Supreme Court reached a different result by relying on Ga.Code Ann. § 19-8-5(a). That statute states (as relevant here) that "a child who has any living parent or guardian may be adopted by a third party ... only if each such living parent and each such guardian has voluntarily and in writing surrendered all of his or her rights to such child." The Alabama Supreme Court concluded that this provision prohibited the Georgia Superior Court from allowing V.L. to adopt the children while also allowing E.L. to keep her existing parental rights. It further concluded that this provision went not to the merits but to the Georgia court's subject-matter jurisdiction. In reaching that crucial second conclusion, the Alabama Supreme Court seems to have relied solely on the fact that the right to adoption under Georgia law is purely statutory, and " '[t]he requirements of Georgia's adoptions statutes are mandatory and must be strictly construed in favor of the natural parents.' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 23a-24a (quoting In re Marks, 300 Ga.App. 239, 243, 684 S.E.2d 364, 367 (2009) ).
  That analysis is not consistent with this Court's controlling precedent. Where a judgment indicates on its face that it was rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, such jurisdiction " 'is to be presumed unless disproved.' " Milliken, supra, at 462, 61 S.Ct. 339 (quoting Adam, supra, at 62, 58 S.Ct. 454 ). There is nothing here to rebut that presumption. The Georgia statute on which the Alabama Supreme Court relied, Ga.Code Ann. § 19-8-5(a), does not speak in jurisdictional terms; for instance, it does not say that a Georgia court "shall have jurisdiction to enter an adoption decree" only if each existing parent or guardian has surrendered his or her parental rights. Neither the Georgia Supreme Court nor any Georgia appellate court, moreover, has construed § 19-8-5(a) as jurisdictional. That construction would also be difficult to reconcile with Georgia law. Georgia recognizes that in general, subject-matter jurisdiction addresses "whether a court has jurisdiction to decide a particular class of cases," Goodrum v. Goodrum, 283 Ga. 163, 657 S.E.2d 192 (2008), not whether a court should grant relief in any given case. Unlike § 19-8-2(a), which expressly gives Georgia superior courts "exclusive jurisdiction in all matters of adoption," § 19-8-5(a) does not speak to whether a court has the power to decide a general class of cases. It only provides a rule of decision to apply in determining if a particular adoption should be allowed.
  Section 19-8-5(a) does not become jurisdictional just because it is " 'mandatory' " and " 'must be strictly construed.' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 23a-24a (quoting Marks, supra, at 243, 684 S.E.2d, at 367 ). This Court "has long rejected the notion that all mandatory prescriptions, however emphatic, are properly typed jurisdictional." Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, ----, 132 S.Ct. 641, 651, 181 L.Ed.2d 619 (2012) (internal quotation marks and ellipsis omitted). Indeed, the Alabama Supreme Court's reasoning would give jurisdictional status to every requirement of the Georgia adoption statutes, since Georgia law indicates those requirements are all mandatory and must be strictly construed. Marks, supra, at 243, 684 S.E.2d, at 367. That result would comport neither with Georgia law nor with common sense.
  As Justice Holmes observed more than a century ago, "it sometimes may be difficult to decide whether certain words in a statute are directed to jurisdiction or to merits." Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230, 234-235, 28 S.Ct. 641, 52 L.Ed. 1039 (1908). In such cases, especially where the Full Faith and Credit Clause is concerned, a court must be "slow to read ambiguous words, as meaning to leave the judgment open to dispute, or as intended to do more than fix the rule by which the court should decide." Id., at 235, 28 S.Ct. 641. That time-honored rule controls here. The Georgia judgment appears on its face to have been issued by a court with jurisdiction, and there is no established Georgia law to the contrary. It follows that the Alabama Supreme Court erred in refusing to grant that judgment full faith and credit.
  The petition for writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment of the Alabama Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
  It is so ordered.
choices: attorney general of the United States, or his office specified state board or department of education city, town, township, village, or borough government or governmental unit state commission, board, committee, or authority county government or county governmental unit, except school district court or judicial district state department or agency governmental employee or job applicant female governmental employee or job applicant minority governmental employee or job applicant minority female governmental employee or job applicant not listed among agencies in the first Administrative Action variable retired or former governmental employee U.S. House of Representatives interstate compact judge state legislature, house, or committee local governmental unit other than a county, city, town, township, village, or borough governmental official, or an official of an agency established under an interstate compact state or U.S. supreme court local school district or board of education U.S. Senate U.S. senator foreign nation or instrumentality state or local governmental taxpayer, or executor of the estate of state college or university United States State person accused, indicted, or suspected of crime advertising business or agency agent, fiduciary, trustee, or executor airplane manufacturer, or manufacturer of parts of airplanes airline distributor, importer, or exporter of alcoholic beverages alien, person subject to a denaturalization proceeding, or one whose citizenship is revoked American Medical Association National Railroad Passenger Corp. amusement establishment, or recreational facility arrested person, or pretrial detainee attorney, or person acting as such;includes bar applicant or law student, or law firm or bar association author, copyright holder bank, savings and loan, credit union, investment company bankrupt person or business, or business in reorganization establishment serving liquor by the glass, or package liquor store water transportation, stevedore bookstore, newsstand, printer, bindery, purveyor or distributor of books or magazines brewery, distillery broker, stock exchange, investment or securities firm construction industry bus or motorized passenger transportation vehicle business, corporation buyer, purchaser cable TV car dealer person convicted of crime tangible property, other than real estate, including contraband chemical company child, children, including adopted or illegitimate religious organization, institution, or person private club or facility coal company or coal mine operator computer business or manufacturer, hardware or software consumer, consumer organization creditor, including institution appearing as such; e.g., a finance company person allegedly criminally insane or mentally incompetent to stand trial defendant debtor real estate developer disabled person or disability benefit claimant distributor person subject to selective service, including conscientious objector drug manufacturer druggist, pharmacist, pharmacy employee, or job applicant, including beneficiaries of employer-employee trust agreement, employee health and welfare fund, or multi-employer pension plan electric equipment manufacturer electric or hydroelectric power utility, power cooperative, or gas and electric company eleemosynary institution or person environmental organization employer. If employer's relations with employees are governed by the nature of the employer's business (e.g., railroad, boat), rather than labor law generally, the more specific designation is used in place of Employer. farmer, farm worker, or farm organization father female employee or job applicant female movie, play, pictorial representation, theatrical production, actor, or exhibitor or distributor of fisherman or fishing company food, meat packing, or processing company, stockyard foreign (non-American) nongovernmental entity franchiser franchisee lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual person or organization person who guarantees another's obligations handicapped individual, or organization of devoted to health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor heir, or beneficiary, or person so claiming to be hospital, medical center husband, or ex-husband involuntarily committed mental patient Indian, including Indian tribe or nation insurance company, or surety inventor, patent assigner, trademark owner or holder investor injured person or legal entity, nonphysically and non-employment related juvenile government contractor holder of a license or permit, or applicant therefor magazine male medical or Medicaid claimant medical supply or manufacturing co. racial or ethnic minority employee or job applicant minority female employee or job applicant manufacturer management, executive officer, or director, of business entity military personnel, or dependent of, including reservist mining company or miner, excluding coal, oil, or pipeline company mother auto manufacturer newspaper, newsletter, journal of opinion, news service radio and television network, except cable tv nonprofit organization or business nonresident nuclear power plant or facility owner, landlord, or claimant to ownership, fee interest, or possession of land as well as chattels shareholders to whom a tender offer is made tender offer oil company, or natural gas producer elderly person, or organization dedicated to the elderly out of state noncriminal defendant political action committee parent or parents parking lot or service patient of a health professional telephone, telecommunications, or telegraph company physician, MD or DO, dentist, or medical society public interest organization physically injured person, including wrongful death, who is not an employee pipe line company package, luggage, container political candidate, activist, committee, party, party member, organization, or elected official indigent, needy, welfare recipient indigent defendant private person prisoner, inmate of penal institution professional organization, business, or person probationer, or parolee protester, demonstrator, picketer or pamphleteer (non-employment related), or non-indigent loiterer public utility publisher, publishing company radio station racial or ethnic minority person or organization protesting racial or ethnic segregation or discrimination racial or ethnic minority student or applicant for admission to an educational institution realtor journalist, columnist, member of the news media resident restaurant, food vendor retarded person, or mental incompetent retired or former employee railroad private school, college, or university seller or vendor shipper, including importer and exporter shopping center, mall spouse, or former spouse stockholder, shareholder, or bondholder retail business or outlet student, or applicant for admission to an educational institution taxpayer or executor of taxpayer's estate, federal only tenant or lessee theater, studio forest products, lumber, or logging company person traveling or wishing to travel abroad, or overseas travel agent trucking company, or motor carrier television station union member unemployed person or unemployment compensation applicant or claimant union, labor organization, or official of veteran voter, prospective voter, elector, or a nonelective official seeking reapportionment or redistricting of legislative districts (POL) wholesale trade wife, or ex-wife witness, or person under subpoena network slave slave-owner bank of the united states timber company u.s. job applicants or employees Army and Air Force Exchange Service Atomic Energy Commission Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force Department or Secretary of Agriculture Alien Property Custodian Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army Board of Immigration Appeals Bureau of Indian Affairs Bonneville Power Administration Benefits Review Board Civil Aeronautics Board Bureau of the Census Central Intelligence Agency Commodity Futures Trading Commission Department or Secretary of Commerce Comptroller of Currency Consumer Product Safety Commission Civil Rights Commission Civil Service Commission, U.S. Customs Service or Commissioner of Customs Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission Drug Enforcement Agency Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War) Department or Secretary of Energy Department or Secretary of the Interior Department of Justice or Attorney General Department or Secretary of State Department or Secretary of Transportation Department or Secretary of Education U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator Federal Aviation Agency or Administration Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director Federal Bureau of Prisons Farm Credit Administration Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission) Federal Credit Union Administration Food and Drug Administration Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Federal Energy Administration Federal Election Commission Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Federal Housing Administration Federal Home Loan Bank Board Federal Labor Relations Authority Federal Maritime Board Federal Maritime Commission Farmers Home Administration Federal Parole Board Federal Power Commission Federal Railroad Administration Federal Reserve Board of Governors Federal Reserve System Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation Federal Trade Commission Federal Works Administration, or Administrator General Accounting Office Comptroller General General Services Administration Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Interstate Commerce Commission Indian Claims Commission Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of Information Security Oversight Office Department or Secretary of Labor Loyalty Review Board Legal Services Corporation Merit Systems Protection Board Multistate Tax Commission National Aeronautics and Space Administration Secretary or administrative unit of the U.S. Navy National Credit Union Administration National Endowment for the Arts National Enforcement Commission National Highway Traffic Safety Administration National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer National Mediation Board National Railroad Adjustment Board Nuclear Regulatory Commission National Security Agency Office of Economic Opportunity Office of Management and Budget Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator Office of Personnel Management Occupational Safety and Health Administration Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission Office of Workers' Compensation Programs Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970) Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation U.S. Public Health Service Postal Rate Commission Provider Reimbursement Review Board Renegotiation Board Railroad Adjustment Board Railroad Retirement Board Subversive Activities Control Board Small Business Administration Securities and Exchange Commission Social Security Administration or Commissioner Selective Service System Department or Secretary of the Treasury Tennessee Valley Authority United States Forest Service United States Parole Commission Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster United States Sentencing Commission Veterans' Administration War Production Board Wage Stabilization Board General Land Office of Commissioners Transportation Security Administration Surface Transportation Board U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp. Reconstruction Finance Corp. Department or Secretary of Homeland Security Unidentifiable International Entity