Türkiye Civil Registration

Lineal Kinship Inquiry
The Turkish government put their genealogy archives online. It is known as the Lineal Kinship Inquiry. The information mostly comes from civil registers the Ottoman Empire kept up to the 19th century.

Details about ancestors include names, dates of birth and death, the town, village or city of origin, marital status.

To use this service, you must log in using one of the following methods:

National ID Number e-Government Password Mobile Signature Electronic signature TR Identity Card Internet banking


 * Verify ID, Türkiye E-services


 * Links to e-Services Provided by Local Governments. Choose a municipality to see its phone number, address and a link to its webpage.

Coverage and Compliance
Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths began in 1884.

Yevmiye Vukuat (Daily Occurrences)
These records were kept from 1871 to 1914 in the Ottoman Empire.

Nüfus Tezkeresi (Population Identification Document)
These identification documents were from 1831-1918 and were written in Ottoman Turkish. They were formerly called Mürür Tezkeresi and Tezkere-i Osmaniye. An example and translation of a personal identification document is found here.

Yevmiye Vukuat (Daily Occurrences)

 * Name
 * Date and Location of Birth
 * Date and Location of Death
 * Changes in Military Status

Nüfus Tezkeresi (Population Identification Document)

 * Date and Location of Birth
 * Residence
 * Name of Father
 * Age

Marriage Contracts (Arabic-Sidāq)
These records of Muslim marriages are the only source of specific marriage information and provide a marriage date. They also provide relationships helpful in lineage linking. They are a legal contract of marriage. Islamic law courts (sharia) handled the majority of litigation, particularly in the domain of personal and family status including marriage and divorce.

These records exist from 1622-1928 and may contain:
 * Names of marriage candidates
 * dates of contract and marriage
 * parents (at least the father) of marital partners
 * details concerning dowry

These records can be found at sharia court archives in various cities and many are found at the Ethnographic Museum in Ankara and the seat of the Mufti (Müftülük) in Istanbul. Other possible locations include the Sulaymaniye Library and the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul.