South Africa, Cape Province, Civil Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

South Africa

What is in the Collection?
This collection includes death records that cover the years 1895-1972.

Entries are generally in chronological order and are usually grouped alphabetically by locality. In many cases, the English name rather than the preferred Afrikaans name is used to maintain alphabetical sequence. However, some records are filed out of alphabetical order. Most of the records are handwritten in English.

Civil registration records such as birth, marriages, and deaths are recorded for vital statistics and to better serve public health needs. Compulsory civil registration began at different dates for the various parts of South Africa. For Cape Province, the birth and death records start with the year 1895 and the marriage records start in 1840. In Cape Province, provision was made for voluntary registering of births from 1880.

In South Africa, the National Archives holds records of births, marriages, and deaths on behalf of the Department of Home Affairs. The Registration of births and deaths was made compulsory in 1894 and began in 1895. Indexes and registers are available up to the early 1970s. The National Archives of South Africa is the main repository of documents created before 1956. The National Archives has a number of repositories scattered throughout the country; the one for Cape Province is located in Cape Town (Western Cape).

The Department of Home Affairs maintains the records of births, marriages, and deaths, but the physical records are not accessible to the public for research purposes. To access information, you must apply in writing to the Department of Home Affairs and give exact information about the event.

General Information about Cape Province

The Union of South Africa was established in 1910 by combining four British colonies into four original provinces of the Union: Cape Province, Transvaal Province, Natal Province and Orange Free State Province. In 1994 all of these provinces were dissolved and the current nine new provinces were established. The Cape Province was broken up into three smaller provinces: the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape. Parts of it were also absorbed into the North West.

These records are written in Afrikaans and English. See the section For Help Reading these Records for translation helps.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
Death records usually contain the following information:


 * Name, age and gender of deceased
 * Date and place of death
 * Cause of death and duration of illness
 * Race and residence
 * Occupation and marital status at time of death
 * Intended place of burial
 * Name of informant and their residence
 * Medical Man's (Practitioner's) Name
 * Date and place of registration

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search, it would be helpful if you knew the following information:


 * Name of deceased
 * Approximate year of death
 * Municipality

Search by Name by visiting the Collection Page: Fill in the requested information on the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the ancestors in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to find your ancestor.

View images in this collection by visiting the Browse Page: To search the collection you will need to follow this series of links: ⇒ Select the "Browse" link in the initial search page ⇒ Select the appropriate "Year" ⇒ Select the appropriate "Municipality or Municipality Range" which 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 if the image relates to them. You may need to look at several images and compare the information about the individuals listed in those images to your ancestors to make this determination.

Some records may be in the Afrikaans language. For help in translation see the following: Afrikaans Word List

What Do I Do Next?
Civil registration gives important information about an individual, including personal details that may also help in finding other ancestors of the same family. If you have found the record of your ancestor, the following information can aid you in your research:


 * Use the age to calculate the year of birth
 * The place of residence may help you determine if that is the place your ancestor was born.
 * The place of residence may help you know where to find other relatives of the deceased person.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?

 * Use the birth date or age along with the place of birth to find or verify their birth records and parents' names.
 * Use the birth date or age along with the place of birth to find the family in census records.
 * Use the residence and names of the parents (if the deceased is a child) to locate church and land records.
 * Use the parents' birth places to find former residences and to establish a migration pattern for the family.

I Can’t Find Who I’m Looking for, What Now?

 * Switch to a different record collection. Depending on the time period, Church Records may be more useful.
 * Standard spelling of names typically did not exist during the periods our ancestors lived in. Try variations of your ancestor’s name while searching the index or browsing through images. Pay special attention to how the name should have been pronounced and try variations on the pronunciation.
 * Remember that sometimes individuals went by nicknames or alternated between using first and middle names. Try searching for these names as well.
 * Check for a different index. Local genealogical and historical societies often have indexes to local records.
 * Search the indexes and records of nearby localities.

For a summary of this information see the wiki article United States, How to Use the Records Summary (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Known Issues with This Collection
For a full list of all known issues associated with this collection see the attached article. If you encounter additional problems, please email them to [mailto:support@familysearch.org support@familysearch.org]. Please include the full path to the link and a description of the problem in your e-mail. Your assistance will help ensure that future reworks will be considered.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection citation:

Record citation (or citation for the index entry):

Image citation: