Presently Jamaica is made up of fourteen parishes of which each is assigned a code that identifies the administration of registration records that pertains to births, marriages and burials. Original parishes created between 1655 – 1675 were:
St Elizabeth
St James
St Ann
St John
Clarendon
St Andrew
St George
St David
St Thomas
Port Royal
Presently parish registration codes assigned:
Kingston: A | Clarendon: H |
St Andrew: B | Manchester: I |
St Thomas: C | St Elizabeth: K |
Portland: D | Westmoreland: L |
St Catherine: E | Hanover: M |
St Mary: F | St James: N |
St Ann: G | Trelawny: O |
An example of a birth registration
Birth certificates were introduced 1878. Please note that the following refers to a fictional case, however it represents the example of the administrative details found on a birth certificate.
Birth of Mary Brown was registered as HT114 on 12th March 1897 to parents Albert and May Brown.
- H refers to parish of Clarendon
- T refers to the local district of Spalding in Clarendon – a local district register office.
- 114 usually refers to the 114th person who registered the birth after the creation of the local district register office.
See below for a link to the map illustrating codes assigned