Denmark Civil Registration

Use Church Records
For pre-1874 birth, death, and marriage records, see Denmark Church Records.

Background
Prior to civil registration, vital data was recorded in the parish register. In 1924, Denmark implemented a nationwide civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths. Although nationwide civil registration did not begin until the 20th century, Copenhagen began much earlier. Civil marriage registration began in 1851, and death registration began in 1840. Births were not registered civilly until the 1924 nationwide date.

Copenhagen
Civil marriage records exist for Denmark and the city of Copenhagen starting in 1851. These records provide excellent information, such as the couple's names, residences, occupations, marital statuses, marriage date, religious affiliations, parents' names, witnesses, ages, and birth dates. Civil marriage became legal in 1851, but not all cities had couples entering into civil marriages at that date.

One source of Copenhagen information is: Police registries of 1.4 million people.The website is a digital edition of the Copenhagen police registers from 1890-1923
 * 1890-1923: Denmark, Copenhagen Police Registrations, 1890-1923 at MyHeritage ($), index

Death Certificates
There are death certificates for some larger urban areas of Denmark. Generally they are for individuals of higher social status. Death certificates exist for the years 1857 to 1932. These certificates are hard to read and should be used only when you can not find the death in a parish register. For more information, see the following book:


 * Richter, V. Dødsfald i Danmark, 1761-1790 (Deaths in Denmark, 1761-1790). (Scand. 948.9 V43ra; film 1,124,546, item 2.)

Access to Civil Registration Records
Civil registration records are kept at the local civil registration office in each district, town or city (municipality). Therefore, you must determine the town where your ancestor lived before you can find the records.

Records in Denmark
Denmark National Archives

Death Certificates [Dødsattester]
These are an excellent source for finding out what happened to family members whose deaths may otherwise be nearly impossible to find in the many parishes and records of Copenhagen and other large cities. Certificates of death were issued by various Departments of Health [Sundhdsstyrelsene] beginning in 1857.

Generally they provide the name of deceased, cause of death, names of spouse and of parents, dates of death and burial, parish of death, place of burial.

To locate images of death certificates on the Danish National Archives website, go to sa.dk, click on "Søg og bestil (Daisy)," search for the key term "Dødsattester" in the first box (labeled "Arkivskaber eller arkivserie:"), and input a year range. Be sure there are no extra spaces after the search terms. Then click on the green button to search in Daisy (the Danish National Archives website catalog). Scroll down to a doctor's district of interest and click on a hyperlinked result in the "Arkivserie" column. If any of the records have already been digitized on the website, there will be a green "Læs arkivaliet" button; click on that button to browse the images digitally. (If only a green "Vis indhold" button is showing, the records are not yet digitized and can be sent to the reading room for browsing in-person.)

The death certificates are organized by year and month; within each month, the records are in no discernable order. Locate an image with just the year and month of interest on it, and then browse page by page within that month until the correct record has been found.

Civil Marriages
To learn how to use this collection see Denmark Civil Marriages - FamilySearch Historical Records
 * 1739 - 1964 at FamilySearch — index and images

FamilySearch Catalog
To find civil registration records in the FamilySearch Catalog, search in the Place search under each of the following headings:

DENMARK - CIVIL REGISTRATION

DENMARK, [COUNTY] - CIVIL REGISTRATION

DENMARK, [COUNTY], [TOWN] - CIVIL REGISTRATION<