Dzieje parafialnych ksiąg metrykalnych w powiecie kolneńskim – przejęcie przez urzędy stanu cywilnego w 1949 roku

By the decree of 1945, post-war non-democratic authorities in Poland created the offices that from 1946 on, would administrate civil registry files. It was an important innovation in that during the Second Republic (1918–1939), Poland did not have a unified system of civil registration and used the legal acts of former rulers. In the case of Kolno County (which used the system of the former Kingdom of Poland) the vital records were written down by rectors of the local Roman Catholic parishes and had the character of public registers. These records were necessary for the new civil registration offices, which needed them for making copies of individual certificates. Due to very bad relations between the communist authorities and The Church, and because of weakness of the new administration, the operation was delayed by 3 years. The work carried out in that period was performed carelessly and chaotically, and ended with the confiscation of most of the vital records from years 1890–1945 from all parishes in Kolno County.