Bulgaria Civil Registration

Civil registration was instituted in 1893. Birth, marriage, and death records have the exact date of the event, including time of day for births; name of the principal and parents’ names; occupation and religious preference of parents; name of informant for births and witnesses for marriages; residence for parents of new born, of the groom and bride for marriages, and of the deceased for deaths; age at death, cause of death, and burial place in death records. Early civil registration was not very effective and there are many gaps in the records. Not until the communist takover in 1945 was registration conducted in an efficient manner.The records are located at the district archives in each of the 26 districts of Bulgaria.

Records at the Family History Library

The Family History Library has microfilms of civil registration for the districts of Sofia and Plovdiv. In the Family History Library Catalog, look in the Place Search under BULGARIA, [DISTRICT], [LOCALITY] - CIVIL REGISTRATION.

Administratively, Bulgaria is divided into twenty six districts. Each has an archive where civil registration and some church records are preserved. There are no vital records in the National Historical Archive in Sofia.