Costa Rica, Civil Registration - FamilySearch Historical Records

Costa Rica

What is in the Collection?
This collection of civil birth, marriage, and death records includes the years 1860 to 1975.

The collection is organized by province, then by type of records with the inclusive years. Early records are handwritten in Spanish in narrative form; later records are handwritten in formatted records. The records for Varias Provincias includes indexes. The provinces contained in the collection are Alajuela, Cartago, Guanacaste, Heredia, Limón, Puntarenas, San José and Varias Provincias (various provinces). Please note that many of the province locations are incorrect in the index due to a number mapping error (as of this edit, May 2016). See "Known Issues with This Collection" below for a link to the known issues page, which has instructions for determining the correct province.

The church records alone provided vital information of the people until the civil authorities established Civil Registration as an institution at the end of 1887. In January of 1888, the Central Civil Registration was established in the city of San Jose, implementing civil registration for the nation.

In December of 1949, the Supreme Court of Elections agreed to fuse the civil and the electoral registry into one institution under the name of Civil Registration. The compiled registry was organized into two sections: the civil section and the electoral section, which under the same institution provides the civil authorities with the civil lives events and electoral age of the citizens.

The civil registration could be performed at the Central Office of the Civil Registration Section or at any of the regional offices in the municipalities of the nation. Records created in the regional offices were later sent to the Central Office.

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Search by Name by visiting the Collection Page: Fill in the requested information in the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the ancestors in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to find your ancestor.

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When searching: As you are searching it is helpful to know such information as your ancestor's given name and surname, some identifying information such as residence, age, and family relationships. Remember that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name as your ancestor and that your ancestor may have used nicknames or different names at different times.

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 * Use the age to find an approximate birth year to begin your search in church or civil records.
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 * When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information given. Save a copy of the image or transcribe the information. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details such as a title, an occupation, or land ownership. Add this new information to your records of each family. You should also look for leads to other records about your ancestors.

I Can't Find Who I'm Looking for, What Now?

 * Switch to a different record collection. Depending on the time period, one or the other collection may be more helpful.
 * While searching, it is helpful to know such information as the ancestor’s given name and surname, some identifying information such as residence and age, and family relationships. Remember that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name as an ancestor and that the ancestor may have used nicknames or different names at different times.
 * Keep in mind that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name.
 * Standard spelling of names typically did not exist during the periods our ancestors lived in. Try variations of your ancestor’s name while searching the index or browsing through images. Pay special attention to how the name should have been pronounced and try variations on the pronunciation.
 * Remember that sometimes individuals went by nicknames or alternated between using first and middle names.

Known Issues with This Collection
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Citing this Collection
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