Place:Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

Santafé de Bogotá, D.C. is a national district.

Research Tips

Researching for Death records in Bogota

The following time periods will influence how you get your ancestor's death certificate:

1. 1895 to 1937--The Secretaria de Salud (Secretary of Health) has death entries for those that died between this time period. The records are not indexed, but are organized chronologically by year. The records will provide the name of the deceased, date of death, place of birth, marital status, full names of both parents, cause of death, where they were buried.

2. 1937-1964--The death notices are indexed alphabetically by year. The index gives you the date of death, but nothing else. The Sec. de Salud (where the burial permit was purchased) passed the death information to the cemetery. Actual death certificates for this time period would have been recorded by local notaries. The cemetery records should provide the notary office number that created the death certificate (by 1940 there were more than 100 notaries).

3. 1965-Present--The Sec. de Salud has the death notices for Bogota indexed alphabetically by year. The index includes the deceased's name, and the notary office number where their death certificate can be found.

4. 1979-1991,1995--death notices for Bogota have been placed on a database only accessible by Sec. de Salud employees. The database will provide the notary office number for getting the death certificate.

The Sec. de Salud's records were largely fed by hospitals and funarias (Funeral Homes). Death certificates are housed in notary offices, but since there were so many you will have to consult the indexes from the Sec. de Salud to obtain the notary office number to get the certificate. More to come on contacting the Sec. de Salud.