Late Registration of Births

If you know the year and town in which a family member was born, but are unable to find the birth record, consider the possibility that the birth was registered in a later year. Delayed registrations were very common, and many different reasons were given: for example, the father was sick or was described as “negligent,” lateness was attributed to war, or no reason was given.

If you see several late birth registrations for the children of a single couple, all registered on the same day, this may indicate that the family was getting ready to leave town or leave Poland, and perhaps wanted to make sure to get copies of birth records before doing so.

Due to Polish privacy laws, birth records registered within the past 100 years are not available online or for in-person consultation at the Polish State Archives. Let’s say the birth occurred in 1920 but was not registered until 1940. Check the 1920 index pages. You may find the person's name inserted alphabetically between existing rows, along with the year of late registration and the birth record number. Here is an example:

Late registration of deaths

Late registrations also appear in death records, most often during the late 1940s and early 1950s, for people who were later declared to have died during the Holocaust. It was common for the person’s name to be added to the index for the year in which the person was determined to have died.

• Volunteer to help type records!
• Learn about other topics in Polish Jewish genealogy.