Cuban Church Death Certificate

It is the certificate of the church record of death or burial, issued by the parish where the funeral or Catholic burial was registered.

It is essential for genealogical research, citizenship-by-descent files, tracing family history, and succession or religious procedures.

• ·Parish search and research in old sacramental registers and diocesan archives in Cuba.
• ·Obtaining the record of death or burial signed by the relevant parish priest.
• ·Legalization at the chancery of the archdiocese or diocese, certifying the parish signature.
• ·Legalization at the consular office of the country where you will submit the documents, for example the Spanish Consulate in Havana.
• ·Direct international delivery to your address.

Important legal note: this document is not processed at the Civil Registry and does not go through MINJUS. Its route to legal validity runs strictly through the diocesan authority — the archdiocese or diocese — and finally the relevant consulate.

• ·Full name of the deceased.
• ·Approximate date of death or of the religious burial.
• ·Parish, Catholic cemetery or town in Cuba where the death occurred.

Where this procedure gets stuck

These documents are not issued by the state but by the parish or diocese that holds the entry, and every archive works to its own timescales and in its own way. Finding the right register is half the job, especially when a parish has changed its name or its records have been moved. And if the certificate is going to be used outside Cuba, it then needs whatever legalization the destination country requires: without that, it only carries weight within the Church.