Where are births registered?

Births are registered at the offices of the Local District Registrar (LDR) and all Regional Offices. A LDR is a person appointed by the Registrar General to effect registration of births, deaths and still-births occurring in their registration district.  The fourteen parishes of Jamaica are segmented into districts and the Local District Registrars are usually located in the same district or in close proximity to the districts for which they are responsible. 

All births must be registered in the district name in which they occurred. For example a birth occurring in Spanish Town, St. Catherine should be registered at the LDR in the district of Spanish Town. When a birth is registered it is given a Birth Entry Number. This is a unique number which is used to identify each child's birth registration record. The unique entry number tells us the Parish, the district and the sequence of births registered in the year the child was born, for a particular district. 

For example a birth occurring in Spanish Town, St. Catherine would be given an entry number such as EA 103