Belarus Civil Registration

Europe Belarus

Research use: Uniquely identify individuals and connects them to their parents.

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

General: The Bureau of Civil Status Acts (ZAGS) creates and maintains civil registration. The bureau is subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and is separate from the national archive system. Registration of births must be done within two months of birth and deaths within three days. Registration offices are collocated with "marriage palaces" permitting the registration and performance of weddings to occur at the same place and time.

Time period: 1920-present.

Contents: Birth, marriage, and death records have the exact date of the event, including time of day for births; names 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 newly 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 exist at the local and regional levels. Copies of local registrations are sent to regional offices.

Population coverage: Low for the first decade of registration, then 85% thereafter. The civil war of the early Soviet period inhibited registration. For two years it was not enforced. The system was established first in urban and later in rural areas. Gaps persisted through 1926. Civil registration broke down in the occupied areas during World War II and some registers were burned.