Costa Rica, Civil Registration - FamilySearch Historical Records

Title in the Language of the Record
Registro Civil de Costa Rica.

Record Description
These records are in Spanish. This collection of civil birth, marriage, and death records includes the years 1860 to 1975.

The collection is organized by province, then by type of records with the inclusive years. Early records are handwritten in Spanish in narrative form; later records are handwritten in formatted records. The records for Varias Provincias includes indexes. The provinces contained in the collection are Alajuela, Cartago, Guanacaste, Heredia, Limón, Puntarenas, San José and Varias Provincias (various provinces).

The church records alone provided vital information of the people until the civil authorities established Civil Registration as an institution at the end of 1887. In January of 1888, the Central Civil Registration was established in the city of San Jose, implementing civil registration for the nation.

In December of 1949, the Supreme Court of Elections agreed to fuse the civil and the electoral registry into one institution under the name of Civil Registration. The compiled registry was organized into two sections: the civil section and the electoral section, which under the same institution provides the civil authorities with the civil lives events and electoral age of the citizens.

The civil registration could be performed at the Central Office of the Civil Registration Section or at any of the regional offices in the municipalities of the nation. Records created in the regional offices were later sent to the Central Office.

For a list of records by date or locality currently published in this collection, select the Browse link from the collection landing page.

Record Content
Birth records usually contain the following information:


 * Name of child
 * Date, place and time birth
 * Gender of child
 * Parents' names and occupation
 * Presenter's name and occupation
 * Relationship of presenter to child

Marriage records usually contain the following information:


 * Date, place and time of marriage
 * Names of bride and groom
 * Groom's age, occupation, civil status, origin and residence
 * Groom's parents' names and their occupation
 * Bride's age, occupation, civil status, origin and residence
 * Bride's parents' names and their occupation
 * Names of witnesses

Death records usually contain the following information:


 * Name of deceased
 * Age, gender and residence of deceased
 * Date, place and time of death
 * Cause of death
 * Parents’ names, occupation and residence
 * Place of burial

How to Use the Record
Keep in mind:


 * The information in civil records is usually reliable, but depends upon the reliability of the informant.
 * Earlier records may not contain as much information as the records created after the late 1800s.
 * There is also some variation in the information given from record to record.

To browse this collection by image you will need to follow this series of links: ⇒Select the "Browse" link in the initial search page ⇒Select the "Province" ⇒Select the "Record Type and Years" that takes you to the images.

Look at the images one by one comparing the information with what you already know about your ancestors to determine which one is your ancestor. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to make this determination.

For Help Reading These Records
These records are in Spanish. For help reading the records, see the following wiki article:

Spanish Genealogical Word List

Related Websites

 * Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones – Consultas de hechos y actos civiles y electorales
 * Online Maps
 * Online History
 * Costa Rica Genealogy

Related Wiki Articles

 * Costa Rica
 * Costa Rica Civil Registration

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A suggested format for keeping track of records that you have searched is found in the wiki article Help:How to Cite FamilySearch Collections.

Citation for This Collection
The following citation refers to the original source of the information published in FamilySearch.org Historical Record collections. Sources include the author, custodian, publisher and archive for the original records.