Finding Birth Information in Denmark

Denmark Finding Birth Information

For many different countries, finding a birth date and place for an ancestor can sometimes be difficult. However, there are many different records that make finding a birth date and place in Denmark quite simple.

Step 1: What do I know?
The first step in finding the birth information is to determine what you already know. Before beginning research, ask yourself the following questions:


 * 1) Do I already have a birth date and place? How accurate is that information?
 * 2) Are there any relatives that would have the information?
 * 3) Are there secondary sources (such as online Family Trees and Biographies) that would have the information? What have others found?

If you do find the ancestor's birth information in your family records, or other easily available sources, make sure to document where you found that information. Also, make sure to determine whether the birth information found is merely family heresay or if it came from original records.

Step 2: What records can I search?
If you could not find birth information in Step 1, or if you need to verify the information you found, then the next step is understanding what records contain birth information.

Finding the birth date

The easiest birth information to find is the birth date. Although it may not be possible to find an exact birth date in some cases, it is possible to find an approximate year or a christening date. Search the following records to find a birth date:


 * 1) Biographies, Genealogies, and Periodicals:
 * 2) Police Census Records: A special census taken in Copenhagen by the police twice a year.
 * 3) Directories: Directories are some of the oldest records that list a person's place of residence in Copenhagen.
 * 4) Church Records: Many times, a birth record, marriage record, or death record will list where the individual was residing when the record was made. It is adviseable to only search church records if a parish of residence is already known.
 * 5) Civil Registration: Like the church records, civil registration will usually list where the individual was residing when the record was made.

If you cannot find a family's place of residence, you may need to begin searching parish to parish for the family. See the strategies under Step 4.

Step 3: What jurisdictions does the address belong to?
Once you have found the family's/individual's address in Copenhagen, the next step is to determine what jurisdictions the street belonged to. The jurisdictions will determine where you look to find the vital records concerning your family. The following tools will help you determine the jurisdictions:


 * 1) Copenhagen Parish List: A list of the parishes of Copenhagen, when they were formed, and what parish(es) they were formed from.
 * 2) Copenhagen Street-Parish-Police District index: an index that states the parish and police district that each street belonged to.

Step 4: What's next?
After you have determined the jurisdictions the family lived in, you can begin to search for other records.