When did Civil Registration begin for birth records in South Africa?

The beginning of Civil Registration for Births, Marriage, and Deaths in South Africa varies from one province to the other. These provinces are grouped into the four provinces of the Union of South Africa in 1910. Search for birth records here.

Civil Registration South Africa

Birth records housed in the Cape Town Archives from 1895 – 1971 are now open to the public at the Cape Town Archives for birth registration in the Western Cape, Northern Cape, and some of the Eastern Cape. However, actual copies of birth certificates in South Africa can only be obtained by physically going to any Department of Home Affairs branch and standing in a queue. They do not have forms online that you can download and you cannot apply online either. Only immediate family members can apply for a copy of the birth certificate of someone else in your family and they no longer allow 3rd party applications.  The Archives are extremely understaffed and you will either need to go in personally to access the records or you can contact me and I can do it for a fee. Find out more.

Please note that the Cape Town Archives does not have birth registers for:

Beaufort West

Cradock

Graaf Reniett

Grahamstown

Birth records (certificates) were introduced officially in 1895 and were not compulsory until 1905. In recent months birth registration for Cape Town has been found starting in 1841. These registers cover all racial groups but no children’s names are given. Only the parents’ names, addresses, the gender of the child, and the house the child was born in. There are very few of these records available. The years are not complete and there are large gaps. From 1888 birth certificates can be found but they are not at Home Affairs. These are the official dates of when it started in the various provinces:

Cape: 1841 – see the index here
Natal: 1868 – see the index here
Transvaal: 1901
Orange Free State: 1903

Not everybody registered their child in the first month of birth. Some did it years later when they had more than one child to register. Additionally, not all our ancestors were law-abiding citizens and did not always conform. So do not expect to find registration of birth for every person. For information dating back earlier, you have to consult baptism records, death notices or burial records. Birth dates were not included into baptism registers until around 1800 and in most instances, it will say “date of the birth unknown”.

Getting a copy of a birth certificate

Birth certificates in South Africa can only be obtained by physically going to any Department of Home Affairs branch and standing in a queue. They do not have forms online that you can download and you cannot apply online either. Only immediate family members can apply for a copy of the birth certificate of someone else in your family and they no longer allow 3rd party applications.

Type of Birth Certificates

There are 3 different types of birth certificates issued in South Africa of which the abridged certificate (computer print-out)can be supplied immediately but the vault version there could be up to a 6 month waiting period or longer.

1. A Vault Copy birth certificate is an original birth certificate filled in by the parents
2. An unabridged birth certificate which gives the person’s full name, date, and place of birth as well as the father’s full name (if mentioned) and the mother’s full name and maiden name (if mentioned) and is a handwritten COPY of the original vault version.
3. The abridged birth certificate is now a computerized version which is literally a snapshot of the birth entry which gives the person’s full name at birth, date, and place of birth. This does not give the mother’s maiden name or the father’s name.

Indexes

Not all birth registers have indexes. The ones that are housed in the provincial archives repositories with the following references:

Index Name Repository
HAWC –  Home Affairs Western – Cape  Town Archives
HAEC –  Eastern Cape Home Affairs  – Cape Town Archives
HANC – Home Affairs Northern  – Cape  Town Archives
HAN – Home Affairs Natal –  Pietermaritzburg Archives

How to start your search for Civil Registration Records

You will first need to know in which magisterial district the civil registration birth took place as this will determine which Archives those records are held. These indexes are not electronically searchable. If someone was born in the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, or Western Cape the records will be in the Cape Town Archives. Birth records from Natal would be in the Pietermaritzburg Archives etc. If the birthplace is unknown, you can consult the deceased estate papers and look at the death notice. This should show a place of birth, although often it gives just the city and not the magisterial district. Next, consult the index to the birth in the magisterial area in which it was registered.

For a birth entry in Cape Town, you might need to check places like Cape Town Central, Wynberg, Docks, Green Point, Sea Point, Woodstock, Observatory etc. all in separate registers. It varies, but as an example, Worcester has 62 Birth Registers dating back to 1895. There are about four years per register until 1933 and one register per year thereafter. For Worcester, the earliest reference number is 1/3/57/4/1 and it covers births from 1895 to June 1905. Not all the registers are available in the Cape Town archives as they have not received everyone from Home Affairs, so there are gaps.

Information contained in the birth registers

Some of these books are very large, and heavy and the pages are difficult to photograph because of their size. Once you have the particular register, you can get the date of birth, child’s name if given, mother and father, parents’ address, when and where the birth was registered, if the child was legitimate as well as race. Copies of official birth certificates cannot be issued from the archives and photographs or photocopies of these registers are allowed with special permission.

Other sources of birth dates

Apart from baptism records, you can consult inscriptions on tombstones. Backup evidence should be used to ensure the details are correct. The Government Gazette, was established in 1800. Originally the title was Kaapsche Stads Courant en Africaansche Berigter or known by the English as The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser. It had a regular column for births, marriages, and deaths. These advertisements were placed mainly by English- speaking people until the 1870s.

Should you need any help with birth registers – please contact me.