Costa Rica, Registro Civil, 1823-2023

What is in This Collection?

This collection of civil birth, marriage, and death records includes the years 1823 to 1975. The collection is organized by province, then by type of records with the inclusive years. Early records are handwritten in Spanish in narrative form; later records are handwritten in formatted records. The records for Varias Provincias includes indexes. The provinces contained in the collection are:

Please note that many of the province locations are incorrect in the index due to a number mapping error.

Church records alone provided vital information of the people until the civil authorities established Civil Registration as an institution at the end of 1887. In January of 1888, the Central Civil Registration was established in the city of San Jose, implementing civil registration for the nation.

In December of 1949, the Supreme Court of Elections agreed to fuse the civil and the electoral registry into one institution under the name of Civil Registration. The compiled registry was organized into two sections: the civil section and the electoral section, which under the same institution provides the civil authorities with the civil lives events and electoral age of the citizens.

The civil registration could be performed at the Central Office of the Civil Registration Section or at any of the regional offices in the municipalities of the nation. Records created in the regional offices were later sent to the Central Office.

Additional records and/or images may be added to this collection in the future.

Computer Aided Indexing (CAI)

Some or all of the indexed records for this collection were created using Computer Aided Indexing (CAI) from records digitized by FamilySearch or its partners. For more information on CAI see FamilySearch Computer Aided Indexing.

Reading These Records

These records are written in Spanish. For help reading them see:

• Spanish Genealogical Word List
• Brigham Young University: Spanish Script Tutorial

FamilySearch Learning Center:

• Reading Spanish Handwriting
• Paleogra-what?! Deciphering Spanish Handwriting - Introduction
• Registros Civiles y Parroquiales (In Spanish)

To Browse This Collection

You can browse through images in this collection using the waypoints on the Collection Browse Page for Costa Rica, Civil Registration, 1823-1975.

What Can These Records Tell Me?

The following information may be found in these records:

Birth records Name of child Date, place, and time of birth Gender of child Parents’ names and occupation Presenter’s name and occupation Relationship of presenter to child

Marriage records Date, place, and time of marriage Names of bride and groom Groom’s age, occupation, civil status, origin, and residence Groom’s parents’ names and their occupation Bride’s age, occupation, civil status, origin, and residence Bride’s parents’ names and their occupation Names of witnesses Parish of baptism

Death records Name of deceased Age, gender, and residence of deceased Date, place, and time of death Cause of death Parents’ names, occupations, and residence Place of burial

Collection Content

Sample Images

Click on images for a larger view.

• 

  1941 Birth Record

• 

  1895 Marriage Record

• 

  1893 Death Record