Costa Rica Quick Start Guide

Costa Rica Quick Start Guide

Costa Rica: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location unknown
FamilySearch Indexed records: Try searching in the indexed records for the name of the ancestor if they were born before 1900. Limit your results to the country of Costa Rica and the name of the city if known. If no reulst, the patron will have to find more information from home sources or by asking family members.

Civil Registration Online: There is a great index for Civil Registration. Try this site if you only know names and the time period is late 1800s to 1900s. Not all Civil Registration Records have been indexed but this is a great place to start.

Contact family members: If you do not have even a minimal amount of information AND have no idea of where and when to look, encourage them to contact family members who might have that information. This could be older aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.

Costa Rica: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location and names of parents, children, or spouse are known
FamilySearch Indexed records: Try searching first in indexed records. Try a variety of searches with your ancestor's name, or with parents' names, or just by parents' surnames AND using the option to limit the locality by country Costa Rica and the name of the province in Costa Rica.

FamilySearch Browse Images: If there are not results from the previous search for the ancestor or any siblings, you will have to brown images dor the locality. Civil Registration begain in 1888 in Costa Rica. There is a great index for the Civil Registration available at the RegistroNacional.com. Catholica Church records are also a good choice as they cover all time periods. If you can find the ancestor in both record types, that is best as you will get more information to advance the pedigree.

FamilySearch Catalog: Not all records for Costa Rica are online, be sure to check the catalog before giving up on finding records.

Research Strategies
If you don't know the names of the parents, but you know the name of the spouse and/or the names of some of his children, begin with a marriage search (if they married in Costa Rica and you know the place). Or begin with a search for the birth/baptism record for one of their children (if you have an approximate birth date and place).

Finding a Locality

 * Google
 * Wikipedia (The Spanish version of Wikipedia works best)
 * There is a good gazetteer available on Microfilm. To view this see by Félix F Noriega (San José, Costa Rica: Imprenta Naciona, 1923) FHL INTL Microfilm 1224518 Item 1.
 * Try a keyword search in the FamilySearch Catalog for Costa Rica Gazetteers.

Online Resources
RegistroNacional.com is a great website that has indexed many of the Civil Registration records. These records are only for people in the late 1800s to 1900s. This index is not complete but is a great starting place for those interested in starting their family history.

For other online resources please view the Wiki article Hispanic Genealogy Resources Online.