Russia Civil Registration: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:59, 12 February 2020

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Russia

Civil Registration

How to Find the Records[edit | edit source]

Online Collections[edit | edit source]

1755-1917 : Russia Births and Baptisms - index
1793-1919 : Russia Marriages - index
1815-1917 : Russia Deaths and Burials - index

Wiki articles describing the above online FamilySearch collections are found at:

Offices to Contact[edit | edit source]

Civil registration records are kept by civil registration offices in regions. There is no central office.

List of Russian Civil Registration Offices. Click on map for phone numbers, fax numbers and addresses.

Historical Background[edit | edit source]

Civil registration was instituted after the Russian Revolution. The acronym for the civil registration office is ZAGS, standing for acts of civil status.

The ZAGS offices were established in the cities by 1919, then later in rural localities. Gaps in registration persisted until 1926. ZAGS offices often gathered original metriki back to the beginning of the century into their collections to have an earlier record of vital events and to supplement the civil registration. These are normally the local copy of the parish register.

Russian law requires that the vital records be transferred to regional archives 75 years after the date of creation. This has occurred in many instances but not always because of the limited space in the archives and bureaucratic inertia.

Religious Records The czarist government issued a requirement in 1826 that rabbis, generally elected by a variety of Jewish communities, keep registration books of births, marriages, divorces and death. Russian Orthodox churches were under the same obligation.

Jews in Kovno and Vilna Guberniya were required to go to the synagogue to which they were assigned to register life events, and each year, the government authorities went to the synagogues to copy these registers. Today all vital records stored in archives are copies. The original records, kept in synagogues, were destroyed by 1942, primarily by the Germans.

Coverage and Compliance[edit | edit source]

"Vital records... are available only for relatives of a died person...All registers before 1918 are open for everyone. The Unified state register of acts of civil status...began operations since October 1, 2018."^[1]

Information Recorded in the Records[edit | edit source]

Births

Name of the child
Gender
Date and place of birth and/or christening
Names of the parents

Marriages

Name
Birth Date
Age
Spouse's Name
Date
Place

Deaths

Name
Gender
Burial Date
Burial Place
Death Date
Age
Birth Date

References[edit | edit source]

In other languages: English | русский |

↑ Wikipedia, Civil Registration - Russia, (accessed 9 February 2020).

[1] Wikipedia, Civil Registration - Russia, (accessed 9 February 2020).

[1]

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 ===Offices to Contact===
-Civil registration records are kept by civil registration offices in regions.
+Civil registration records are kept by civil registration offices in regions. There is no central office.
 *[http://mxkr.ru/en/registry-offices List of Russian Civil Registration Offices]. Click on map for phone numbers, fax numbers and addresses.
@@ Line 29: / Line 29: @@
 ==Historical Background==
-Civil registration was instituted after the Russian Revolution. The acronym for the civil registration office was ZAGS, standing for acts of civil status.
+Civil registration was instituted after the Russian Revolution. The acronym for the civil registration office is ZAGS, standing for acts of civil status.
-These offices were established in the cities by 1919, then later in rural localities. Gaps in registration persisted until 1926. ZAGS offices often gathered original metriki back to the beginning of the century into their collections to have an earlier record of vital events and to supplement the civil registration. These are normally the local copy of the parish register.
+The ZAGS offices were established in the cities by 1919, then later in rural localities. Gaps in registration persisted until 1926. ZAGS offices often gathered original metriki back to the beginning of the century into their collections to have an earlier record of vital events and to supplement the civil registration. These are normally the local copy of the parish register.
 Russian law requires that the vital records be transferred to regional archives 75 years after the date of creation. This has occurred in many instances but not always because of the limited space in the archives and bureaucratic inertia.
+'''Religious Records'''
 The czarist government issued a requirement in 1826 that rabbis, generally elected by a variety of Jewish communities, keep registration books of births, marriages, divorces and death. Russian Orthodox churches were under the same obligation.
-Jews in Kovno and Vilna Guberniya were required to go to the synagogue to which they were assigned to register life events, and each year, the government authorities went to the synagogues to copy these registers. The records were written in Russian (Cyrillic.) Some, but not all records were then duplicated in Hebrew or Yiddish. Today all vital records stored in archives are copies. The original records, kept in synagogues, were destroyed by 1942, primarily by the Germans.
+Jews in Kovno and Vilna Guberniya were required to go to the synagogue to which they were assigned to register life events, and each year, the government authorities went to the synagogues to copy these registers. Today all vital records stored in archives are copies. The original records, kept in synagogues, were destroyed by 1942, primarily by the Germans.
 ==Coverage and Compliance==
-"Vital records...are called Acts of civil state or Acts of civil status...These records are available only for relatives of a died person...All registers before 1918 are open for everyone."
+"Vital records... are available only for relatives of a died person...All registers before 1918 are open for everyone. The Unified state register of acts of civil status...began operations since October 1, 2018."<ref>Wikipedia, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_registration#Russia Civil Registration - Russia], (accessed 9 February 2020).</ref>
-Births, deaths and marriages must be registered by register office called Body of registration of acts of civil status...or the Palace of Marriages...for civil marriage ceremonies. The system is decentralized. Each Russian federal subject has its own regional body as a part of regional government.
-The Unified state register of acts of civil status...began operations since October 1, 2018."<ref>Wikipedia, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_registration#Russia Civil Registration - Russia], (accessed 9 February 2020).</ref>
 ==Information Recorded in the Records==