Germany Civil Registration: Difference between revisions

Between 1792 and 1798, when France occupied parts of Germany, the government began civil registration in the parts of the following provinces that lay west of the Rhine: Pfalz, Oldenburg, Hessen, and the Rhineland. These records are usually written in French until about 1815. Hamburg began keeping civil registration records in 1799. As France's influence increased in Germany through the Confederation of the Rhein, the states of Braunschweig, Hannover, Westfalen, Bremen, Lippe, more of Hessen, the rest of Oldenburg and Lübeck established civil registration between 1808 and 1812. But when Napoleon's power began to fade in 1814, many of these states suspended civil registration.  

By 1838 most of the province of Waldeck was recording marriage contracts. The prime minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, instituted civil registration in all the provinces of Prussia in 1874. The remaining states—Anhalt, Bavaria, Lippe, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Schaumburg-Lippe, Thuringia, and Württemberg—began requiring civil registration in 1876.  

In areas under French influence, especially Alsace and Lorraine, ten-year indexes were usually kept. Duplicate copies of civil registers were also made. The mayor's office [Bürgermeisterei] kept the original copy, and the duplicate was sent to the court [Landesgericht] or another central archive. For example, most of Westfalen and Lippe sent their duplicates to Detmold, and most of the Rhineland sent theirs to Brühl.