Mexico, Baja California and Baja California Sur, Civil Registration, 1860-2004

What is in This Collection?

This collection includes civil records for Baja California and Baja California Sur and covers from 1860 to 2004.

Records, such as birth, marriages, and deaths, are organized by state and then by municipality/city. Early records were handwritten in narrative style; later records were handwritten in formatted registers.

Civil records in Mexico cover about 90 to 95% of the population. Beginning in 1859, the Mexican government began requiring births, marriages, and deaths to be recorded by civil authorities on a municipality/district level. Although these records are a great source of genealogical information, they are not complete as civil registration wasn't strictly enforced in Mexico until 1867 and people did not always comply. For this reason, church registers should be used alongside the civil records. The civil records of Mexico have been preserved relatively well. Only some of the older registers may have some physical damage. However, in general they are in good condition to extract genealogical information.

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
• BYU Spanish Script Tutorial

FamilySearch Learning Center videos:

• Reading Spanish Handwriting

If you speak Spanish, the following free online lesson may be helpful to learn how to use the information in these records:

• Registros Civiles y Parroquiales – Spanish

To Browse This Collection

What Can These Records Tell Me?

The following information may be found in these records:

Collection Content

For additional details about these records and help using them see Mexico Civil Registration Records - FamilySearch Historical Records.

Sample Images

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  1860 Birth Record

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  1946 Marriage Record

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  2002 Death Record