Berlin, Brandenburg, German Empire Civil Registration

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Civil registration records are records of births, marriages, and deaths kept by the government. In Berlin, they were started in 1874. German terms for these records include Standesamtsregister, Zivilstandsregister, or Personenstandsregister. They are an excellent source for information on names and dates and places of births, marriages, and deaths. These records are kept by the civil registrar (Standesbeamte) at the civil registry office (Standesamt). Study these links to learn what information can be found in them:
 * Births (Geburtsregister)
 * Marriages (Heiraten, Ehen, or Trauungen)
 * Deaths (Sterberegister or Totenregister)

For a comprehensive understanding of civil registration, study the article Germany Civil Registration.

Ordering Online
The Landesarchiv Berlin provides a new research portal to search for archived civil registration records. The indexes of names on the birth, marriage and death registers are systematically scanned in the Landesarchiv Berlin. As of March, 2017, lists of names from the years 1874 to 1903 (for birth certificates) as well as 1874 to 1933 (for marriage certificates) and 1874 to 1983 (for death certificates) are available online.Then, using listed document numbers from these indexes, copies of the respective civil status certificates can be ordered directly from the Landesarchiv Berlin.
 * For information on content, privacy restrictions, ordering, see Personal information, Landesarchiv Berlin.
 * To browse the indexes, go directly to the search engine and enter the name of the Standesamt (registry office) you wish to search. Use the "old" Standesamt name.]
 * Send your application in writing to the Landesarchiv Berlin (info@landesarchiv.Berlin.De or: Landesarchiv Berlin, Eichborndamm 115-121, D - 13403 Berlin, Germany). An order form can be found here. Instructions and translation:
 * 1) In the section labeled "Absender", fill in your name, address, telephon, and e-mail.
 * 2)  Sterbeurkunde  Heiratsurkunde  Geburtsurkunde: Check Sterbeurkunde for death certificate, Heiratsurkunde for marriage certificate, or Geburtsurkunde for birth certificate.
 * 3) zu folgender Person: Fill in the name, birthdate, parents, spouse, marriage date, death date, any of these that you know about the person you are requesting the record for. It is O.K. to use English labels like "death, husband, etc.
 * 4) Urkundennummer …/… des Standesamts………………"""Fill in the reference numbers you found in the index and the name of the office (Berlin I, Berlin II, etc. or oder: Berliner Adresse und (vermutliches) Jahr der Urkundenausstellung:'''If you found the family in a directory and know their address at the probable year of the event, fill that in here.
 * 5) Ich benötige eine Beglaubigung der Kopien (6,- € pro Vorgang/Dokument). Check the box. You are asking for copies at the cost of EU 6.00 each.
 * 6) Bemerkungen: Here you describe the copies you want, such "one copy of each", "two copies of the birth certificate", and so on.
 * 7) Die mit der Bearbeitung meiner Anfrage entstehenden Gebühren und Kosten (mind. 30 €) werde ich übernehmen/ wird mein Auftraggeber (Rechnungsadresse bitte angeben) übernehmen. Datum……(Date)………………… Unterschrift: ……(Signature)………..…………………:  Sign and date this.  You are agreeing to pay the minimum cost of EU 30.00 and asking them to send you an invoice with the address where you will send payment.

Berlin Civil Registration Jurisdictions
Research in Berlin is complicated by the great size of the city and the large number of civil registration offices. The Street Register guide at the link below is intended to help you identify the civil registration district in which your ancestor may have been recorded.

Here is the link to help you determine which addresses were assigned to which civil registration office:


 * Street Index for Civil Registration jurisdictions

Melde (Moving Records)
This link will help you locate the Melde records in Berlin that are available. For more information on, see Berlin Moving Records (Melde).

SECTION I. BERLIN CIVIL REGISTRATION
On October 1, 1874, under Prussian law it became necessary in Berlin for all births, marriages, and deaths to be recorded by the government. Therefore thirteen civil registration offices were formed in Berlin to record these records. These offices were each assigned a number, rather than a name. With the Increase In population new branch offices were added to the system with a number and a letter such as 13a and 13b added to district 13.

In 1912 there was a reorganization of the civil registration offices in Berlin. At that time the many outlying areas Berlin were Incorporated Into Berlin's Civil registration system and as a result forty-nine offices came Into existence which included these outlying areas. These offices remained the same until 1920. Since that time there have been several regroupings including changes resulting from the divided administration of the city at the end of World War II and the resulting sections were referred to as West Berlin and East Berlin. In 1991 Berlin was reunified into one city. Today in the whole of Berlin there are twenty-three civil registration districts. There Is no central register or index to the vital records held by these offices.

In order to obtain information from the civil registration offices of Berlin you must take note of the following: If your ancestor lived in the area of the city that came to be called "West Berlin," you must determine what civil registration district had jurisdiction over the part of the city where the birth, marriage, or death took place. When you have determined which civil registration district your ancestor resided, you should write to Civil Registration Office. For Addresses of the civil registration offices in Berlin, please go to the following link. Standesamt Addresses and information

SECTION II. HOW TO USE THE STREET INDEX
In this register you will find a listing of all the streets in Berlin and the civil registration jurisdictions for three different years including 1876, 1892, and 1919 as recorded in the street Indexes (Straßen Verzeichnisse) of the Berlin City directories. In some cases there are no changes in jurisdictions noted over the course of the forty-three year time span. In other cases, the jurisdiction may have changed slightly. In such cases, where you want information of a specific year not given In this register, you can refer either to the street indexes in the microfilmed directory for the exact year you are searching, or you could write for information at either of the civil registration offices given for your street address.

All listings are street names (Straße) unless otherwise noted as an alley or lane (Allee), (Gasse), place, square (Platz), or other similar designations.

This register can be of assistance only when you know the street address of your Berlin ancestor. You can often determine this by using the Berlin city directories for the appropriate time period. Berlin City directories are available on 315 rolls of microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah and through its Family History Centers. You can find a more detailed description of the microfilmed City directories of Berlin in the FamilySearch Catalog under:

GERMANY, PREUßEN, BRANDENBURG, BERLIN - DIRECTORIES

You may also find them online as well at the following link The Berlin directories are divided in sections. Of greatest genealogical value are the alphabetized listings of city inhabitants with addresses. Search for your ancestor under the alphabetical listing of names in the time period your ancestor lived In Berlin. When you find your ancestor listed, write down the street and house number where he resided. Then turn to the listing of that street in the Street Register to determine which civil registration office that address was assigned to in the year closest to the time period when your ancestor lived there.

Other sections of the directories are businesses, public offices, societies, inhabitants' addresses listed under the street they resided, rather than by their name.

The suburbs of Berlin were in many, but not all of the directories. Some of the suburbs of Berlin which may be listed in the directories include:

Baumschulenweg (Treptow), Boxhagen-Rummelsburg, Britz, Charlottenburg, Dahlem, Friedenau, Friedrlchsberg, Frledrichsfelde, Grunewald, Halensee, Helnersdorf, Hohen Schönhausen, Karlshorst, Lankwitz, Lichtenberg, Groß Lichterfelde, Mariendorf, Neukölin, Nieder-Schönhausen and Schönholz, Nikolassee, Ober-Schönweide, Pankow, Plötzensee, Reinickendorf, Rixdorf, Schlachtensee, Schmargendorf, Sch:neberg, Schönholz, Steglitz, Stralau, Südende, Tegel, Tempelhof, Weißensee, Neu-Weißensee, Westend, Wilhelmsberg, Wilmersdorf, and Zehlendorf.

The directories on microfilm begin in the year 1799 and continue through the year 1963, with some years not inclusive. Online they are dated from 1799-1943. Some of the directory films include a street index (Straßen Verzeichnis) for each street. These street indexes note the jurisdictions for the civil registration offices, the city district numbers, poverty assistance offices, orphanages, school districts, court districts, parishes, police districts, and postal districts. The directories for some years also include the voting districts.

Terms used for these jurisdictions in the headings vary from directory to directory. These street indexes are the source of the information for the Street Register. Street Indexes were included in the City directories from 1874-1919.

The format of the street indexes varies from year to year. For example, some directories list civil jurisdictions by house numbers; others list the jurisdictions by a street to street description such as "From Mühlen street to Spree". In such instances, there is no way to cross reference the descriptive and house number entries, therefore, the descriptions are listed in this register as they were listed in the original street indexes.

When only descriptions of residences are given rather than house numbers, and there is more than one civil registration office listed, it may be necessary to search the records of each civil registration district listed for the street your ancestor lived on. For other years, house numbers may be given for the same street. House numbers arc listed separately from the "descriptions" and are given in the column for the appropriate year. These other entries may help you more easily determine the civil registration jurisdictions for those years where the description was not by house number.

Some streets were named only with a number, such as Street 19 (Straße 19). There appears to have been some inconsistency in the way these streets were listed from year to year. In some cases there seems to be duplicate usage of certain numbers and the actual jurisdictions are not always clear. Other streets are listed in the earlier street indexes but are not listed in the later ones. lt is not certain if these omissions were accidental or if the street names were changed or discontinued. lt is also possible that there were no residences on those streets in all years covered by directories. For this reason, civil jurisdictions may not be listed for all streets in Berlin for all years in this register.

For residents on streets near the train stations (Eisenbahn) look under the heading of Eisenbahn for the specific train station needed.

Spelling and Alphabetization
The inconsistent spelling of street names from one directory to the next is a problem. In the cases where alternate spellings were used, such as the street name of "Colonie" which was also listed as "Kolonie", they are listed twice in the Street Register for easier reference. Other variations in street names are handled the same way as in the case of "Ostbahnhof" which is also listed as "Am Ostbahnhof". In the original street indexes the street called "Unter den Linden" is listed as, "Linden, Unter den". This register lists this Street alphabetically as "Unter den Linden". This method has been applied consistently also for "Am, An der, Alte, Neue, Hinter dem, Klein, Groß," and similar prefixes on street names. Words with an Umlaut are alphabetized as though there were no Umlaut. The German letter "ß" is alphabetized as "ss".

Berlin Former Jurisdictions and Present Day Jurisdictions (1991)
The numbers given in this register refer to the old civil registration offices. The list below gives the old offices as listed in this register and provides the name of the new civil registration office that currently has jurisdiction. Following is also a list of the addresses of the current civil registration offices. Use the current addresses when you write to Berlin for civil registration information.

Berlin 1 now Standesamt Mitte von Berlin Berlin 2 now Standesamt Mitte von Berlin Berlin 3 now Standesamt Tiergarten von Berlin Berlin 4, 4A, 4B now Standesamt Kreuzberg von Berlin Berlin 5, 5A, SB now Standesamt Kreuzberg von Berlin Berlin 6 now Standesamt Mitte von Berlin Berlin 7, 7A, 7B, 7C now Standesamt Friedrichshaln von Berlin 8 now Standesamt Friedrichshain von Berlin 9 now Standesamt Mitte von Berlin Berlin 10, lOA now Standesamt Mitte von Berlin Berlin lOB, lOC now Standesamt Prenzlauer Berg von Berlin 11 now Standesamt Wedding von Berlin Berlin 12, 12A, 12B now Standesamt Tiergarten von Berlin Berlin 13, 13A, 13B now Standesamt Wedding von Berlin

AREAS OF GREATER BERLIN (Which until 1991 were part of West Berlin) FORMER JURISDICTIONS AND PRESENT DAY JURISDICTIONS
Britz now Neukölln von Berlin Buckow (1, II) now Neukölln von Berlin Charlottenburg (1 through IV) now Charlottenburg von Berlin Dahlem now Zehlendorf von Berlin Deutsch-Wilmersdorf now Wilmersdorf von Berlin Friedenau now Schöneberg von Berlin Frohnau now Reinickendorf von Berlin Groß-Lichterfelde now Steglitz von Berlin Grunewald (Forst) now Wilmersdorf von Berlin Hasenheide now Neukölln von Berlin Haselhorst now  Spandau von Berlin Heerstraße now Charlottenburg von Berlin Heiligensee now Reinickendorf von Berlin Hermsdorf now Reinickendorf von Berlin Kladow now Spandau von Berlin Krankenhaus Neukölln now Neukölln von Berlin Kreuzberg now Kreuzberg von Berlin Lankwitz now Steglitz von Berlin Lichtenrade now Tempelhof von Berlin Lichterfelde now Steglitz von Berlin Lübars now Reinickendorf von Berlin Manendorf now Tempelhof von Berlin Manenfelde now Tempelhof von Berlin Neukölln (1 through III) now Neukölln von Berlin Nikolassee now Zehlendorf von Berlin Pfaueninsel now Zehlendorf von Berlin Pichelsdorf now Spandau von Berlin Plötzensee now Charlottenburg von Berlin Reinickendorf (East - West) now Reinickendorf von Berlin Rixdorf now Neukölln von Berlin

AREAS OF GREATER BERLIN (Which until 1991 were part of East Ber1in): FORMER JURISDICTIONS And PRESENT DAY JURISDICTIONS
Adlershof now Berlin-Treptow Alt-Glienicke now  Berlin-Treptow Bliesdorf now Berlin-Lichtenberg Blankenburg now Berlin-Pankow Bohnsdorf now Berlin-Treptow Boxhagen-Rummelsburg now Berlin-Lichtenbnsee Französisch-Buchholz now Berlin-Pankow Friedrichsfelde now Berlin-Lichtenberg Friedrichshagen now Berlin-Köpenick Friedrichshain now Berlin-Friedrichshain Grünau now Berlin-Köpenick Heinersdorf now Berlin-Pankow Hellersdorf now Berlin-Lichtenberg Hohenschönhausen now Berlin-Weißensee Horst Wessel now Berlin-Friedrichshain Johannisthal now Berlin-Treptow Karlshorst now Berlin-Lichtenberg Karow now Berlin-Pankow Kaulsdorf now Berlin-Lichtenberg Kietz bei Köpenick now Berlin-Treptow Köpenick now Berlin-Köpenick Köpenicker Forst now Berlin-Treptow and    Berlin-Köpenick Lichtenberg (1, II) now Berlin-Lichtenberg Mahlsdorf now Berlin-Lichtenberg Malchow now Berlin-Weißensee Mitte now Berlin-Mitte Müggelheim now Berlin-Köpenick Niederschöneweide now Berlin-Treptow Niederschönhausen now Berlin-Pankow Oberschöneweide now Berlin-Treptow Pankow now Berlin-Pankow Prenzlauer Berg now Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg Rahnsdorf now Berlin-Köpenick Rosenthal now Berlin-Pankow Rummelsburg now Berlin-Lichtenberg Schinöckwitz now Berlin-Köpenick Schöneweide now Berlin-Treptow Stralau now Berlin-Friedrichshain and   Berlin-Lichtenberg Treptow now Berlin-Treptow Weißensee now Berlin-Weißensee Wilhelmsruh now Berlin-Pankow Wuhlgarten now Berlin-Lichtenberg

Reading the Records

 * It's easier than you think! You do not have to be fluent in French and German to use these records, as there is only a limited vocabulary used in them. By learning a few key phrases, you will be able to read them adequately.  Here are some resources for learning to read German records.
 * German Genealogical Word List
 * French Genealogical Word List
 * Latin Genealogical Word List


 * These video webinars will teach you to read German handwriting:
 * Old German Script Part 1
 * Old German Script Part 2
 * Old German Script (German Church and Civil Records) Part 3
 * Reading German Handwritten Records  (Three parts) Practice exercises to build your skills and confidence.
 * German Script Tutorial


 * List of Names in Old German Script A comprehensive list of German given names,  written in old script, with possible variations.
 * Old German Script Transcriber (alte deutsche Handschriften): See your family names in the script of the era. Type your name or other word into the font generator tool. Click on the 8 different fonts. Save the image to your computer and use it as you work with old Germanic records.

Downloadable Handouts

 * Print these handouts for ready reference when reading German Handwriting:
 * Kurrent Letters Handout
 * Numbers Handout
 * Birth Records Handout
 * Marriage Records Handout
 * Death Records Handout
 * Days and Months Handout
 * Common Symbols Handout
 * Common Abbreviations Handout
 * Fraktur Font--Many forms and books are printed in this font.

Latin Records
Records of the Catholic church will usually be written in Latin:
 * Latin Genealogical Word List

Feast Dates

 * Calendar Changes in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries--class
 * Each day of the year had several patron saints and was a feast day to honor those saints. Some vital events are recorded in church records only by the holy day (feast day) on the church calendar. For example, the feast day called “All Saints Day” (Allerheiligentag) is “1 November.” An online feast date calculator may be found at the Albion College website. Simply enter the year and click "Calculate."

Search Strategy

 * Search for the relative or ancestor you selected. When you find their birth record, search for the births of their brothers and sisters.
 * Next, search for the marriage of their parents. The marriage record will have information that will often help you find the birth records of the parents.
 * Search the death registers for all known family members.
 * The marriage certificate will show the birth date, birth place, and parents of the bride and the groom.
 * Repeat this process for both the father and the mother, starting with their birth records, then their siblings' births, then their parents' marriages, and so on.
 * If earlier generations (parents, grandparents, etc.) do not appear in the records, search neighboring parishes.