Philippines Genealogy

Guide to Philippines ancestry, family history and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Country Information
The Philippines is an island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It was formerly a colony of Spain. The United States acquired the Philippines as a result of the 1898 Spanish-American War. The Philippines gained independence on 4 July 1946. The official languages are Filipino and English.

Getting Started


Finding Your Ancestors' Town in Philippines

 * Genealogical records are organized by geographical locality. Civil registration (government birth, marriage, and death records) and church records (christenings/baptisms, marriages, and burials) were kept at the local level. To search these records, you must know the town where your ancestors lived.
 * If you do not know your ancestors' town, follow the advice in the Wiki article, Philippines Finding Town of Origin, to search a variety of records that might provide that information.

Finding Your Ancestors' Province in the Philippines
Once you know the town your Filipino ancestors lived in, you will need to determine which province the town belongs to. For this you will use this gazetteer:
 * Gazetteer of the Philippines : names approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names. Volime 1 (A-L)
 * Gazetteer of the Philippines : names approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names. Volume 2 (M-Z)

Philippines Clickable Map
The following map provides the locations of the many provinces in the Philippines, many of which have their own language:

More Philippines Research Tools
Research tools can include resources that assist in locating correct records to search and determining the correct locality to search in. Below are links and Wiki articles to research tools for Philippines.


 * Detailed instructions for reading Spanish records, examples of common documents, and practice exercises for developing skills in translating them can be found in the Spanish Records Extraction Manual.
 * National Archives Government Website
 * Catalog of Filipino Names
 * Filipino Ancestors
 * Obits Philippines freepages
 * Families of the Philippines
 * Resources for genealogy in the Philippines
 * Philippine Army and Guerrilla Records

FamilySearch Resources
Below are FamilySearch resources that can assist you in researching your family.
 * Facebook Communities - Facebook groups discussing genealogy research
 * Learning Center - Online genealogy courses
 * Historical Records
 * Family History Center locator map