Welcome, fellow genealogists! Today, I will talk about the history of civil registration in Sri Lanka. Civil registration is the process of maintaining records of births, marriages, and deaths in a country. It is an essential source of information for genealogists as these records contain valuable information, such as dates, places, and names of individuals and their relatives. This information is crucial for building accurate family trees and tracing ancestry. I’ve given below, a short timeline of the history of civil registration in Sri Lanka.
- Picture this: It’s the late 18th century, and the Dutch use a system of record keeping called the thombo system. But what on earth is a thombo, you ask? Well, it’s not a hip Dutch dance move, but a method of recording landholders’ family details, where and how much land they owned. These were based on an older Portuguese system of thombos. These Portuguese thombos and early Dutch thombos have been lost to time.
- Fast forward to 1815, and the kindom of Kandy has fallen to the British. The whole of Ceylon is now under the dominion of the British empire. They introduce regulation pertaining to the marriage of local protestants (Regulation No. 7 of 1815). Why local protestants? Maybe they were fans of Protestant weddings that had a Sri Lankan twist!
- In 1822 was the registration (Regulation No. 9 of 1822) of births and marriages of locals and non-Europeans in the maritime districts*. Finally names of the common folk are starting to be written on paper! A genealogist’s dream come true! If you have families hailing from the maritime districts, you are in luck because you might find earlier records for these ancestors, compared to ancestors from the inland districts.
- In 1847 (Ordinance No. 6 of 1847), a general system of registration for all births, deaths and marriages, other than those of Kandyan Sinhalese and Muslims was introduced.
- But fear not, for in 1867, civil registration was introduced to everyone! Cue the triumphant music. The Department of Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages is established. Finally, us Sri Lankans can dive into our roots, regardless of our ethnic identity.
- By 1897, registration of births, deaths, and marriages got serious-compulsory in fact.
With the proclamation of 1867, Sri Lanka opened its arms to genealogists searching for their ancestral connections. Thanks to the comprehensive system of civil registration, people of Sri Lankan descent can delve into their family histories, dating back to the mid-19th century. Of course, this assumes the records have been well-maintained, properly preserved, and aren’t hidden away like elusive family heirlooms.
The format of these records changed over time, and with a bit of practice, you would be able to tell just from the look of the record-which time period did the record belong to. I go into more detail on civil record formats here.
Below are some pretty records from ye olden times. All of the following images are taken from the awesome organization called FamilySearch.
* There seems to have been civil registration going on prior to 1822, with births and marriage dates going as early as the 1720s! However, this seems to have been confined to the Colombo district.
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