Ukraine Civil Registration

Offices to Contact
The Bureau of Civil Status Acts (ZAGS)

Location: Civil registration offices exist at the local and regional levels. Copies of local registrations are sent to regional offices.

Historical Background
The Bureau of Civil Status Acts (ZAGS) creates and maintains civil registration. The bureau is subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and is separate from the national archive system. Registration of births must be done within two months of birth and deaths within three days. Registration offices are collocated with "marriage palaces" permitting the registration and performance of weddings to occur at the same place and time.

Coverage and Compliance
Time period: 1920-present.

Population coverage: Low for the first decade of registration, then 85% thereafter. The civil war of the early Soviet period inhibited registration. For two years it was not enforced. The system was established first in urban and later in rural areas. Gaps persisted through 1926. Civil registration broke down in the occupied areas during World War II, and some registers were burned.

Information Recorded in the Records
Births


 * Date of birth, including time of day
 * Names of principal and parents
 * Occupation and religious preference of parents
 * Name of informant
 * Place of residence for parents

Marriages


 * Date of marriage
 * Names of principal and parents
 * Occupation and religious preference of parents
 * Names of witnesses for marriages
 * Places of residences of the groom and bride

Deaths


 * Date of death
 * Names of principal and parents
 * Occupation and religious preference of parents
 * Place of residence of the deceased
 * Age at death
 * Cause of death
 * Place of burial

In the Moscow regional office there is a card index to the registers. This suggests the possibility of other indexes existing in other registration bureaus.

External Internet Resources

 * Archives of Ukraine