Germany
The civil status has existed since 1876. Previously it was recorded in parish registers.Federal state, Germany authorizes Each "Lander": from the regulations relating to the civil status may vary from one Lander to another. Thus, it did not exist less than 120 distinct civilian matches just Berlin before 1938!The consultation of the registers implies to know German Gothic writing.It is prohibited at any foreign to less than justify a mandate.This mandate will necessarily indicate the coordinates of the principal.The consultation of the on-site act is charged.If the act is transmitted By post, the coet can go up to 100 & Euro;

England
Created in 1837, the civil status collects data on births, marriages, deaths and adoptions as well as the consular civil status and naval.It is centralized in London, at the National Statistics Office, in the form of indexes which will make it possible to find the act sought.This will be obtained after four days, except for an emergency procedure, the cost of which is prohibitive.The Office National Statistics also includes:

- the "censuses" which correspond to decennial censuses of the population.Only the oldest, prior to 1901, can be viewed,
- the record.

Searches that refer to the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland go through the study of registers that are located in Dublin, Belfast and Edinburgh respectively.

Austria
Before 1939, the date of its creation, the civil status was kept by the Church in the parish registers.In Vienna, research of an act can involve the consultation ... of the 160 Catholic parishes.The Protestant and Jewish communities had their own records kept by their religious authorities.

Belgium
The civil status gives the composition of the family (GezinsSamenstelling) Lift to the population registers (BevolkingSregister) from each city. The mixing composition and its successive reasons are indicated. Marginal mentions are there affixes. Normally, the arrival and the departure in a municipality must give rise to registration but this Obligation is no longer systematically complying. Thus, in the region of Brussels and in large agglomerations such as Liege, Antwerp, Charleroy, population movements are difficult to trace. Every city is free to organize as it The direct access to its registers and the deduction of a "family composition" certificate. In awareness of succession, Obtaining acts is subject to a stamp duty. In addition, the acts are only available after special authorizations whose judicial one is judicial. There is also a national population file called Belgian National Registry (Rijksregister).

Spain
Created in the 1870s, it was previously kept by the Catholic Church (parish registers).It is kept in town hall and in courts called "Juzgados".The registers mention births, marriages and deaths.The marginal mentions are unknown.The consultation of documents is subject to prior judicial authorization.Due to the role major part of the church and following the destruction of numerous archives during the civil war, mainly in large agglomerations, the use of parish registers remains essential.In-depth knowledge of the different parishes of major cities is required to complete the search.The act will be obtained from the parish priest of the parish concerned against payment.

France
Civil status searches for documents less than one hundred years old are carried out in town halls and for those over one hundred years old. primarily at the Historic Center of the National Archives for Paris and at the Departmental Archives Services for the cities provincial.At the central civil status service for French people living abroad and for foreigners in France, distributed over the Nantes sites and Aix-en-Provence.

The Nantes site depends on the minister of foreign business.It brings together the civil society of less than 100 years.There are grouped together:

- The Algerian Civil Estat of the French Father, France - the civil status of the former protectorates (Viemam, Tunisia, Morocco, Africa),
- The civil society of the French people at the foreigner.

The Aix-en-Provence site, where deeds over 100 years old can be consulted, holds the archives of colonial Indochina, Africa French Equatorial, French West Africa, Algeria and Overseas. The military archives, centralized in Pau, are also a primary source of information as the military records they contain detail, until a relatively recent date, the successive addresses of the persons concerned including, consequently, addresses abroad.The French civil status has always been hailed as a model and a reference.

Italy
Its creation dates back to 1865. In the south of Italy (former kingdom of Naples and the two Sicilies), the acts are available at from 1820. It is made up of registers of births, marriages and deaths.Marginal information is affixed to the birth certificates.It is kept in duplicate: at the town hall and at the court registry.Each individual and his family are listed at a given moment in the ANAFRAFE (control of the population and its movements).Individual files and files family are kept in town hall.The religious archives, which record the baptismal certificates (possibly with mentions marginal) and marriages, still serve as civil status.

Netherlands
It has strong similarities with the Belgian civil status with, however, distinctions (indexation differences, relative mention To religion).The registers of population movements are relatively up to date and have been progressively computerized. Since 1939, each death has been automatically reported, in the form of a family record, (persoonskaart) to a centralized register. There is a charge for obtaining documents.

Poland
Until 1918, the present territory of Poland was divided between Germany, Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This division is found at the level of civil status. In the eastern part (Warsaw), under Russian administration, the civil status was kept by the administration in the form of three registers (marriages, births, deaths) and the acts are drawn up in Cyrillic. In the western part and in the north (Danzig, Breslau, Stettin) under German administration, it was also held by administration but the acts are written in Gothic. In the southern part (Krakow), under Austrian administration, it is kept by the Catholic Church and the acts, most often written in Polish, are brought together in a single register. Between 1918 and 1929, depending on the region the acts are written in Polish or Russian. 1929 marks the true birth of civil status: all acts in Polish are collected in three separate registers. The war of 39-45 puts a temporary end to the system existing which was reborn from 1946. Acts less than 100 years old are kept in the town hall and the oldest are filed in regional centers. Their consultation is subject to prior authorization. Must be produced: the mandate to carry out research as well as a certificate of custom. Obtaining an act is chargeable. The entry into force in 2002 of the law on on the confidentiality of personal data has made the consultation of civil status more difficult. The consequences of second world war (almost complete destruction of the civil status of the Warsaw region, displacement of 10 million Germans, evacuation of as many Poles from the part that has become Russian, currently Ukrainian), strong immigration both to France and to the USA and Great Britain constitute additional difficulties in carrying out research.

Switzerland
It was established in the last quarter of the 19th century.It can be consulted in town halls.It comprises:

- registers of births, marriages and deaths,
- family records.

Marginal records are unknown.There is a charge for obtaining the family certificate.

Increased difficulties with the expansion of community family space The evolution of the surname The identification of the family unit by name has been questioned in most European countries which tend towards greater individualization. The evolution of the principles of name development, under the influence of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, takes into account the equality of fathers and mothers. It has shaken the pillars of state sovereignty when it comes to the rules of evolution or name change. The right to a name has become a fundamental freedom for each individual whose respect and protection are imposed on the States, the systematic transmission of the name of the father having been passed. Family concepts in constant evolution The development of intercountry adoption has given rise to great disparities both in conceptions of adoption and in their legal transcriptions. Over the course of international conventions and agreements between states, a real international law of adoption has emerged. The fact remains that an international adoption may have been made under questionable conditions. A careful examination of the documents relating to this type of adoption is therefore necessary. The couple The internationalization of marriages, the great disparity of regimes organizing cohabitation outside marriage (e.g. the regime of legal cohabitation in Belgium and Spain, the PACS in France) the recognition of marriage homosexual in some states and not in others are all differences that must be taken into account.

Source: European succession and genealogy, Coutot Roehrig, Paris 2005