In Germany, data regarding civil status events—such as births, marriages, civil partnerships, and deaths—is recorded in the civil registry. You may need to provide proof of a person’s civil status in a wide variety of situations, such as when enrolling children in school or in the event of an inheritance.

You can request a multilingual extract from the civil registry for yourself or your close relatives—that is, parents, grandparents, children, and grandchildren—as well as for your spouse or civil partner.

At your local civil registry office, you can request extracts from the following registers in various languages:

• Birth Register
• Marriage Registry
• Death Register

Civil status also encompasses other matters related to family law and name law. For this reason, all events that alter a person’s civil status are also recorded in the civil status registers as so-called subsequent registrations. Such events may include, for example, acknowledgment of paternity, adoption, dissolution of marriage, a name change, or a declaration of death.