Philippines, Court Records, 1838-1936

What is in This Collection?

The records include court records from various provinces of the Philippines mostly dating from the Spanish Period (from 1838-1936). These records contain land records, guardianship records, wills, powers of attorney and other legal documents. Original records are located in the Record Management and Archives Office, National Library, Metropolitan Manila, Philippines.

There are many records, but few are indexed. Court names have changed over the years, and the records use many difficult legal terms and abbreviations. Search court records only after you have searched more helpful records.

Philippine citizens are required to declare changes in civil status to their local civil registrar. The registrar writes down all changes in books. The law requiring the reporting of changes to the registrar has not been regularly kept or enforced.

Although the earliest court records and local civil registrar logs and registers date from 1900, most are dated after World War II.

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

Reading These Records

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

• Spanish Genealogical Word List
• Reading Spanish handwritten records
• Script tutorial for Spanish

To Browse This Collection

What Can These Records Tell Me?

The following information may be found in these records:

Collection Content

Sample Images

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  1902 Will Example 1

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  1902 Will Example 2

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  1900 Court Record Example 1

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  1900 Court Record Example 2