North Macedonia Civil Registration

Back to Macedonia Page►


 * Ottoman population registers functioned in the role of civil registration 1831-1913 when Macedonia became part of Serbia.
 * Males were counted before 1881 but everyone thereafter noting sex; birth date; residence; age; religion; craft or occupation; marital status, marriage date; health; military status. Some registers may be located in state and provincial archives, while most are probably at the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, Turkey.
 * There was no modern civil registration until the communist takeover in 1946.

Research use: Uniquely identifies individuals and spans generations.

Record type: Civil records of birth, marriage, and death.

General: Ottoman population registers (see para 4.5) functioned in the role of civil registration until 1913 when Macedonia became part of Serbia. There was no civil registration until the communist takeover in 1946.

Time period: 1946-present.

Contents: Birth, marriage, and death records have the exact date of the event, including time of day for births; name of principal and parents; occupation and religious preference of parents; name of informant for births and names of witnesses for marriages; place of 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 place of burial in death records.

Location: Civil registration offices. The system is under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is separate from the archive system.

Population coverage: 90-95% coverage of the population.

Reliability: High.