Last changed 2026-09-27 · first mapped 2026-09-23 Follow what changes.
Comes out as a sheet for the reading room — what to ask for, who holds it, and every link written out in full.
This place
Where to begin
You know your family came from Porto-Novo. Here is the order I would work in, cheapest and easiest first — and what to do when that runs out.
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When you run out — and you will
Everything above is what this atlas knows. It is not everything there is. Nine places in ten on this map have never been surveyed by anybody, so a gap here is usually our silence rather than the record's absence.
Do this: write to the archive named in the era table for your year, even if we hold nothing for it. Then tell us what you found — a gap somebody has personally closed is the most useful thing a stranger can give this map.
Not yet mapped. The record regions cover Istria, the Kvarner, Carnia and Dalmatia so far, and Porto-Novo is outside them. That is a gap in this map rather than a gap in the record — and the most useful thing anyone could fill in.
No volumes recorded here yet.
The ground worth walking
Within 25 km — 4 places. These neighbours hold 43 catalogued volumes between them.
A register belongs to a parish, not to a village. A hamlet with no church of its own was written into the book of the church it walked to — and that book is catalogued under the other place's name. This is the ground to search before concluding a record does not exist.
25 volumes catalogued here
The level below «a collection covers this place»: which book, for which years, and the link that opens its images. From FamilySearch's own catalogue. Nobody here has opened any of them. You can, though — mark the pages you have searched on any row below and this browser will remember where you stopped.
- Actes de décès 1946-1959 4D4-1-2 ↗ 1946–1959
- Actes de décès (divers) 1894-1945 4D4-1-1 ↗ 1894–1945
- Avis de décès 1906-1945 4D4-1-6 ↗ 1906–1945
- Avis de décès 1946-1956 4D4-1-7 ↗ 1946–1956
- Avis de décès 1957-1962 4D4-1-8 ↗ 1957–1962
- Bulletins des décès 1950-1959 4D4-2-8 ↗ 1950–1959
- Bulletins des décès 1953-1956 4D4-5-2-1 to 4D4-5-2-10 ↗ 1953–1956
- Bulletins des décès 1960-1962 4D4-2-9 ↗ 1960–1962
- Bulletins des décès 1960-1962 4D4-5-13 ↗ 1960–1962
- Certificats des décès 1906-1960 4D4-1-9 ↗ 1906–1960
- Constats des décès 1932-1933 4D4-5-3-1 to 4D4-5-3-12 ↗ 1932–1933
- Décès constatés dans la commune-mixte de Porto-Novo 1932 4D4-2-2 ↗ 1932–1932
- Déclarations de décès, hôpital de Porto-Novo 1933 4D4-5-1-1 to 4D4-5-1-12 ↗ 1933–1933
- Déclarations des décès 1903-1945 4D4-3-3 ↗ 1903–1945
- Déclarations des décès 1946-1960 4D4-3-4 ↗ 1946–1960
- Déclarations des décès 1958 4D4-4-1 ↗ 1958–1958
- Demande d'examination de corps 1933 4D4-5-8-1 ↗ 1933–1933
- Demande d'extrait d'état civil 1953-1954 4D4-4-4 ↗ 1953–1954
- Demandes des actes de décès 1905-1959 4D4-1-11 ↗ 1905–1959
- Demandes des actes de décès 1951-1956 4D4-1-10 ↗ 1951–1956
- Demandes d'examen des corps 1946-1959 4D4-3-1 ↗ 1946–1959
- Demandes d'examen des corps 1960 4D4-3-2 ↗ 1960–1960
- Demandes d'examination de corps 1930-1934 4D4-2-10 ↗ 1930–1934
- Dossiers des décès 1906-1954 4D4-2-3 ↗ 1906–1954
- Extraits des actes de décès 1953-1961 4D4-1-5 ↗ 1953–1961
National sources for Benin, unverified
From Wikidata, CC0 — the national archive and the national library where the country has one. Nobody here has opened these. The link answered when it was asked and that is the whole of what this map knows about them. They are listed because a country with no named source at all is the worse answer: 199 of the 237 countries here had nothing but the worldwide services, which cover everywhere and therefore say nothing about anywhere.
- National Archives of Benin ↗ national archive did not answer this checker
Sources that cover everywhere
Not about Benin in particular — these reach most of the world, which includes here. They are listed after the local sources because a body that holds this ground's own paper is a better first stop than one that holds a little of everywhere's. Worth knowing they exist all the same.
- Internet Archive Images, free, no account
Full-text search across millions of digitised books, including parish histories, nobiliaries and local monographs that name ordinary people. - Arolsen Archives Images, free, no account
The former International Tracing Service. Concentration camp, forced labour and displaced-persons records for some seventeen and a half million people, free and fully indexed. - BillionGraves Images, free, no account
GPS-tagged headstone photographs. Smaller than Find a Grave but its coordinates are per-stone, which Find a Grave's often are not. - Find a Grave Images, free, no account
Volunteer-photographed headstones and cemetery indexes, worldwide, with very uneven coverage. Owned by Ancestry but free to read. - WikiTree Images, free, no account
A free, single shared tree with an unusually strong sourcing culture. Not a record source. - Yad Vashem — Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names Images, free, no account
Names and testimony pages for victims of the Shoah, free. - FamilySearch Images, free, account needed
The largest free collection of record images and indexes in the world. A free account is required, and a minority of images are restricted to Family History Centres and affiliate libraries. - Geni Images, free, account needed
One shared world tree. Useful for finding other researchers on the same line; not a record source, and its assertions are only as good as their citations. - JewishGen Images, free, account needed
The central Jewish genealogy resource — town-level KehilaLinks, burial and Holocaust databases, and revision lists for eastern Europe. - Geneanet Partly free, partly paid
Member-contributed trees and transcriptions, strongest in France. Much is free; a Premium tier gates some search and images. - Ancestry Images, behind a paywall
The largest commercial collection. Strong on the English-speaking world, censuses and immigration; weak on continental parish registers. - MyHeritage Images, behind a paywall
Commercial, with a large tree network and good European newspaper and directory coverage. Search is free; opening a record is not.
FamilySearch collections that reach here
A collection is a claim over an area, not a book standing in this town — so these are ranked by how specifically they reach Porto-Novo. A free account is needed to open the images, and some are restricted to a Family History Centre.
Worth searching, and worth knowing it is a national index rather than a local one.
- Benin, Civil Registration of Deaths, 1891-2016 ↗ 1891–2016 75,592 records 336 km
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