In France, but also in the majority of the countries of Western Europe, the religious authority very early wished to index the individuals having received the Baptême or buried in the religion. The civil statue is also used as proof in the lawsuits, reason for which different controlling made it compulsory then gradually increased the mentions carried to the civil statue.

The oldest preserved register is that of Givry, in Saône-et-Loire, since it goes up until the year 1303. In 1406 it is the bishop of Nantes, Henri Bearded the which is interested in the civil statue, followed in the current of the 15th century by its fellow-members of Saint-Brieuc (in 1421) and of Fraud-of-Brittany in 1446.

But the instrument instituting the obligatory behavior of registers of the baptisms and the burials date of 1539. It is famous the Ordonnance of Villers-Cotterêts signed by the king François Ier de France, ordinance in addition celebrates by the obligation made use French in all the instruments. Only four articles of this ordinance are devoted to the “civil statue”.

The registers of marriages are created only starting from 1579 in accordance with the ordinance of Blois.

It is in April 1667, in the “ordinance touching reformation of justice” (as known as “ordinance of Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer”) as the behavior of the registers in double is in theory made compulsory, strongly reducing the total loss of information due to disorders, wars, fire or degradations by the rodents. One of the specimens, known as “gross” will have to be preserved by the clerk's office of the bailliage while the other, the “minute”, after being initialed, will turn over between the hands of the priest serving the parish.

In the facts, in the vast majority of the parishes, it is only starting from the declaration of the April 9th 1736, recalling and supplementing the ordinance of 1667, that the obligation of behavior in double of the registers will be really generalized. This declaration prescribes in particular the obligation for the priest, them comparing and the witnesses to sign, affix a cross with the bottom of the act or to state to know to sign what will have to be retranscribed at once.

The Edict of tolerance, signed by Louis XVI in 1787, allowed to the people not Catholique S to profit from the civil statue without having to convert (or make seeming) with Catholicism. The principal concerned ones were the Protestant S (the Jewish were not prone of king de France).

The birth certificate of the civil statue itself (because the parochial registers concerned only the catholics until 1788, then the catholics and the Protestants) dated September 20th 1792. The “BMS” (registers of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials) become the “NMD” (Births, Mariages and Death), standardized in their behavior and drafting. An annual table recapitulates the acts of the year, the registers are held by commune and it is the mayor who of it is responsible as “an officer for the civil statue”. The parochial registers remain but are not any more official. June 17th 1796 the civil statue is imposed in the French departments located in Belgium. Following the fire of and the Law courts Town hall of Paris in 1871 is instituted the family record book which will spread in France starting from 1884.

The civil statue improves in 1897 with the carryforward in margin (marginal mention) of the birth certificate of the conditions of the marriage or divorce then in 1922 with the introduction of the date and of the birthplace of the parents in the birth certificates of the children and, since 1945, the dates and places of death and other modifications of the civil statue are retranscribed as a marginal mention of the birth certificate.

See too

• text of the ordinance of Villers-Cotteret
• text of the declaration of April 9th, 1736