Germany Civil Registration: Difference between revisions

Until recently, stringent rights-to-privacy requirements in Germany limited access to all civil registration records created in 1876 or later to the subject of the document and their parents, siblings, and direct-line descendants. Under the current system it may be difficult or impossible to obtain birth-, marriage-, or death records for non-direct-line relatives [such as a great-aunt or -uncle], even if they are already deceased. Paragraph 61 of the [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personenstandsgesetz_(Deutschland) Personenstandsgesetz] clearly defines who has a legal right to civil registration information. When requesting a record from the Standesamt [civil registration office], the relationship to the person named in the record should be clearly stated. In 2008, the fee for a copy of a civil birth-, marriage-, or death record was seven Euros plus postage.  

Civil registrars often use international extract forms to fill requests from foreign countries. Not all the information present in the original record may be copied onto the extract. As a rule, marginal notes are left out, but other details from the record, such as parents’ names and residences in marriage records, may be omitted.