Poland Civil Registration

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Poland

Civil Registration

Definition

• Civil registration is the vital records (records of births, marriages, and deaths) made by the government. Civil registration records (zapisy cywilne) are an excellent source for information on names, dates, and places of births, marriages, and deaths. These records are kept at the civil registration office, called urząd stanu cywilnego, abbreviated as USC.
  
• Legally, civil records were to be kept by state officials. Because there were not enough state officials, the clergy were frequently appointed as civil registrars. The clergy were required to make civil copies of birth, marriage, and death records. These are known as "civil transcripts of church records" (see Poland Church Records).
• Because the church was involved in early civil registration, it is difficult to clearly distinguish between civil registration and church records.

In 1795, the old Kingdom of Poland was conquered and divided among Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Civil registration coverage varied for each part of Poland controlled by Russia, Prussia, or Austria.

Because the time coverage, record content, and methods for accessing records are different for each part of the country three separate articles cover this topic. Select the article for the region where your ancestors lived.

• Austrian Poland Civil Registration
• Prussian Poland Civil Registration
• Russian Poland Civil Registration

Modern civil registration records are still kept at the gmina (community) level. Records older than 100 years are supposed to be transferred from the USC office to the state archives. Poland's privacy laws restrict access to births up to 100 years, and marriages and deaths up to 80 years. Books are not transferred until every record in the volume is publicly available (eg. a birth book covering 1910-1925 will be eligible for transfer in 2026).

To find the town for the civil registration office:

• Use mapa.szukacz to find the province, area, commune, and postal code of the town. Enter the town name in the "place" field in the right sidebar and click "Show". All information will appear at the bottom of the right sidebar.
  
• If the town was in the area of Poland once controlled by Russia or Austria, look it up in Skorowidz Gazetteer Online to find the parishes of various religions. Here are the instructions. Use the second option, "Viewing anywhere via the Digital Library of Wielkopolska".
  

To find the address of the civil registration office:

Addresses and contact information for Polish Civil Registry Offices can be found here. Enter the name of the commune or filter by the województwo and powiat to see a list of all the civil registry offices in the area.

Note: You must include diacritical marks to find all results (e.g. a search for "Lodz" will return no results, while a search for "Łódź" returns several results). To insert Polish diacritical marks, you can copy/paste the name or use the website typeit.org to insert the special Polish letters.