Records

Civil registration for births marriages and deaths only started at the end of 1865 in the Kingdome of Romania.

The areas under the Austro Hungarian administration started civil registration after the first world war in 1919.

Prior to those years the registration was in the hands of the Church’s and the Synagogues, the registers are known as Mitrical records.

There are very strict laws of confidentially in Romania, all records are covered by a 100 year non-disclosure law, and are not available to the public.

Civil Records in the municipal registry offices are supposed to be transferred to the county archives when they reach 100 years old, however this process is very slow and there are back logs in most locations.

Many county archives have made an effort to search and collect the Mitrical record books, but in many locations the Mitrical books have been lost.

The indexing of Civil and Mitrical record books are very sparse, so it is a tedious job to search for a name unless you know the exact date.

Most Jewish community offices around Greater Romania only have burial records, see two collections below:

An example of a Romanian Jewish Mitrical record in Cyrillic

This record is from the Iasi County Branch of the Romanian National Archive

This record is from the Timisoara County Branch of the Romanain National Archive

A very interesting marriage record, the couple were probably previously only married in Jewish Law, now remarried in a Romanian civil marriage, their six children are recorded in the record.

An example of a Romanian civil birth record, where I have overprinted explanations

This record is from the Iasi County Branch of the Romanian National Archive

This record is from the Bacau County Branch of the Romanian National Archive

An important date in Genealogical History – The end of the Julian Calendar, 100 years ago.

On the 31^st March 1919, Romania officially changed its calendar from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. As a result, the date on the following day became 14^th of April 1919.

The result, thirteen days were lost in the Civil record books.

Please note that before the 31^st March 1919 all dates in Romania, in Civil records and on gravestones were in the Julian calendar.

I believe that the reason that many immigrants to western Europe and the Americas said that they were not sure when they were born. This was because they knew that the calendar had changed, but were confused and not certain on how to calculate their date of birth to the new Gregorian calendar, if to add or deduct the 13 missing days.

For those researchers who want to calculate between the three calendars, Hebrew, Julian and Gregorian,  use this very useful link:    https://www.rosettacalendar.com

A typical register from A Romanian Jewish school

The name of the student has been removed to maintain privacy

This record is from the Bacau County Branch of the Romanian National Archive

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