Philippines, Court Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

Philippines

What is in This Collection?
The records include court records from various provinces of the Philippines mostly dating from the Spanish Period (from 1838-1936). These records contain land records, guardianship records, wills, powers of attorney and other legal documents. Original records are located in the Record Management and Archives Office, National Library, Metropolitan Manila, Philippines.

There are many records, but few are indexed. Court names have changed over the years, and the records use many difficult legal terms and abbreviations. Search court records only after you have searched more helpful records.

Some records are in English and some are in Spanish.

Sample Images
Wills may contain:


 * Name of testator
 * Place of birth
 * Current residence
 * Spouse's name
 * Parents’ names
 * Marriage date and place of testators
 * Names of children/heirs and their vital information
 * Executor’s name
 * Witnesses’ names
 * Burial request

Guardianship records may contain:


 * Name(s) of child/children
 * Name and residence of parents/orphanage(s)
 * Date and place parents died/divorced or date child/children was/were abandoned or found
 * Name(s) of person(s) made legal guardian or specifications regarding full-/part-custody of child/children
 * Date and place the guardianship was made legal
 * Name of judge, clerk, or mediator
 * Names of witnesses

Land records may contain:


 * Name of owner (this could be an individual or a government body/department)
 * Name(s) of buyer(s)
 * Names of witnesses
 * Date land was sold

View the Images
View images in this collection by visiting the :
 * 1) Select the Court Jurisdiction
 * 2) Select the Book Number and Years to view the images.

Search the collection by image comparing the information with what you already know about your ancestors to determine if the image relates to them. You may need to look at several images and compare the information about the individuals listed in those images to your ancestors to make this determination.

For Help Reading These Records
For help reading the Spanish records see the following guides:


 * Spanish Genealogical Word List
 * Reading Spanish handwritten records
 * Script tutorial for Spanish

I Found the Person I Was Looking For, What Now?

 * Use the marriage date and place as the basis for compiling a new family group or for verifying existing information.
 * Use the birth date or age along with the place of birth of each partner to find a couple's birth records and parents' names.
 * Use the name, locality, and age along with the place of birth to find the individual/family in census records Philippines Census.
 * Use the residence and name to locate civil (see “Related Wiki Articles” section below) and land records Philippines Land and Property.
 * Use the birthplaces to find former residences and to establish a migration pattern for the family.
 * Use the marital status to determine if an individual was divorced (look for divorce record; see section "Unable to Find Your Ancestor" for more info), widow(er) (look for death record), or married (look for marriage record).
 * For land records, witnesses could've been relatives, neighbors, or friends of the buyer.

I Can't Find the Person I'm Looking For, What Now?

 * Continue to search the indexes and records to identify children, siblings, parents, and other relatives who may have lived in the same area or a nearby area.
 * Because divorce is not legal in the Philippines, there are no divorce records. Look for records in nearby countries where divorce is legal.

General Information About These Records
Philippine citizens are required to declare changes in civil status to their local civil registrar. The registrar writes down all changes in books. The law requiring the reporting of changes to the registrar has not been regularly kept or enforced.

Although the earliest court records and local civil registrar logs and registers date from 1900, most are dated after World War II.

Citing This Collection
Citations help you keep track of places you have searched and sources you have found. Identifying your sources helps others find the records you used.

"Philippines, Court Records, 1838-1936." Images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : accessed 2017. Citing Record Management and Archives Office (National Library), Manila, Philippines.
 * Collection Citation:

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