Schleswig-Holstein, German Empire Civil Registration

Das Standesamt (Vital Record Office)
On October 1, 1874 Prussia established civil registration in its territories and in 1876, January 1, all of Germany followed suit. Each city and county had a Standesamt, big cities have several according to subdivisions. The Standesämter took over from parishes which recorded baptisms, marriages and burials as recorded by the parish clerk or the pastor himself. When the Standesamt took over, the clerk represented the state. For instance, he recorded before witnesses the start of the marriage and so gave the union more legitimacy which also extended to the legitimacy and rights of the children. Today a marriage has to be recorded before the civil registrar first and then a couple can proceed with a church wedding.

Civil registration officers were at first the mayor of the town or the school teacher. Besides recording births, marriages and deaths the administrator of a Standesamt today deals among others with fatherhood issues, overlooks the indexes of testaments, deals with removals of membership from the church and takes part in population statistics.

Source: Wikipedia: Standesamt

A list of which civil registration office is responsible for a town in Schlesiwg-Holstein, see

http://www.genealogienetz.de/vereine/SHFam//StA-SH.pdf

Online Records

 * 1874-1983 - at | FamilySearch— index and images

Civil Registration in Hamburg

The State Archive in Hamburg has determined to make Civil Registration books for Hamburg proper (registration starts in 1876) and for Prussian territories (registration starts in 1874) i.e., Altona, available according to justified interest. The books cover the time frame 1874 to 1898 (births), 1874 to 1928 (marriages) and from 1874 to 1978 (deaths).

Each entry received a registration number for a given year along with the name of the civil registration office.

Example: Registration number 123/1965 in the death register of "Standesamtes Hamburg-Mitte" points to the 123rd death in the year 1965 registered in the civil registration office "Standesamt Hamburg-Mitte".

The following possibilities for use of the archival records are available:

1. Research in research area (Lesesaal).

2. Online reservation of civil registers and research in research area (Leesesal).

see http://www.hamburg.de/1563426/332-5-standesaemter-start.html for archival index

3. Ordering and certifying of documents

4. Help with research

The State Archive will only be able to give written information to legal queries at the moment.

For information about registrations of births after 1899, marriages after 1919 and deaths after 1979 please direct your queries to

Bezirksamt Hamburg-Nord - Standesamtliche Registerstelle und Generalregister Eiffestraße 74 20537 Hamburg

Source:

http://www.hamburg.de/personenstandsbuecher/1595026/personenkunde-start.html