Jamaica: Civil Registration

Jamaica: Civil Registration

Civil Registration for Jamaica was mandated in 1878 though actual registration began in isolated districts as much as fives years later. Each parish was assigned a letter by the Registrar General, omitting J.

Civil records were filmed and cataloged in by the Family History Library in 1995 by parishes (see Jamaica jurisdictions).From the Family History Library catalog one has to choose Civil Registration Indexes to get started in civil record research. The menu shows dates up to 1830, however, the actual records in some parishes may exceed the year 1950. Checking the index and then the actual record should provide the information one is looking for. The actual record can be found in the catalog under Jamaica/Civil Registration, listed by parish.

Parishes are subdivided into registration districts, which are relevant only to vital record registrations and have no other civil or fiscal authority. Districts are identified at the beginning of each film. Be sure to identify the correct district. Looking at actual records one will find individual certificates.

Civilly registered vital record certificates are identified by two separately stamped characters that together comprise the civil registration number. Civil registration numbers are alphanumeric codes, for instance: KAC8538. The first part is a two- OR three-character alphabetic code, often stamped in an oval border, where the first character represents the parish and the second (and third) represent the district. The second part of the number is a sequentially assigned registration number.

Until at least 1930 (and probably continuing to the present), when a district registrar’s sequential numbering reached 10,000 the series started over: e.g., FB9999, FB10000, FB1, FB2, etc. Registration numbers for urban districts obviously turned over more frequently than isolated rural ones. This means that no Jamaican vital registration number is absolutely unique.