Sierra Leone Civil Registration

Civil Registration
Research use: A primary source of birth, marriage and death information.

Record type: Births, marriages, deaths.

Time period: 1810-present.

Contents: Births – name of person, date of birth, names of parents, father’s occupation and residence, sometimes age of mother; names of witnesses and their residence, occupations, and sometimes relationships. Marriages – names of candidates, their places of residence and date of marriage, sometimes ages and names of sponsors. Deaths – name of deceased, dates of death and burial, age, place of residence at the time of death, occupation, cause of death.

Location: National Archives in Freetown; some also in the Public Records Office in London. Population coverage: Estimated to be 75% of the British, about 25% of the indigenous inhabitants before independence. After independence coverage would average closer to 80% of the indigenous population.

Reliability: Good.

Because eastern Sierra Leone was a protectorate and the western area was established as a colony, civil registration was not, on the whole, as complete in the early nineteenth century as in other British colonies.