Civil Registration in South Africa

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Below is a table showing the generally accepted dates of the commencement of Civil Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths in South Africa. Please note that these dates are a guide only. In some cases, although the law had been passed that made registration official, it was sometimes not implemented until later and records for the earlier dates are sometimes incomplete.

There are full records available at the various archive repositories around the country under the Home Affairs archival group. For example records for the Western Cape have the prefix HAWC (Home Affairs Western Cape). Eastern Cape will be HAEC and Northern Cape HANC etc. etc. These records can only be accessed at the various archive repositories and are not available online. 

You can request assistance from the South African National Archives at http://www.national.archives.gov.za/index.htm or you can request the services of a private researcher. 

   There is a 100 year embargo on birth records.