Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths began in 1878, when Bulgaria achieved independence. According to Mathilde Tagger in the Avotaynu Guide to Jewish Genealogy (see “Resources at the Center for Jewish History” below), most of the archival material of the Sofia Jewish community was burned by the community itself before Jews were deported from the capital during World War II. Death registers for Sofia, however, are held both in the synagogue (Ekzarkh Joseph 16, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria; telephone 359-2-983-12-73) and in the Jewish Plot Office of the Sofia Central Cemetery (Zavodskya St. 14, Stolichna Obshtina, Sofia-grad, Bulgaria). Records also exist from municipal government administration. For Sofia, these records are kept in Rayonen Obshtinski Savet (municipal district councils). Copies of these records are not available by mail, however, but must be requested in person either by the requester or by an attorney or notary with a proper proxy.
The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, P.O.B. 39077, Jerusalem, Israel 91390; telephone 972-2-6586249; website http://cahjp.nli.org.il) holds microfilmed group passports of the nearly 45,000 immigrants who arrived in Israel from Bulgarian communities between October 1948 and May 1949, in addition to a variety of miscellaneous records from various Bulgarian towns (record groups described in more detail in Tagger, Mathilde A., and Kerem, Yitzchak, see the “Resources at CJH” tab).
The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Institute at Tel Aviv University (Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 6997801, Israel; telephone 03-6409799; website https://en-humanities.tau.ac.il/diaspora) holds photographic copies of many Bulgarian Jewish archives, cemeteries, institutions, neighborhoods, private and public libraries, and synagogues; as well as a systematic photographic record of the archives of Jewish communities kept in the State Archives in Sofia, including the archives of all the Jewish communities from the 16th century until 1960, except those in Ruse and Vidin.
Photocopies of some holocaust-era material held by the Central State Archives of Bulgaria in Sofia are available at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW, Washington, DC 20024-2126; telephone (202) 488-0400; website http://www.ushmm.org/).
The U.S. National Archives holds records of the holocaust-era foreign service posts of the Department of State for Bulgaria (see http://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/civilian/rg-84-bulgaria.html).
A Bulgarian-language newspaper, Izraelski Far (later called Tribuna Izraelski Far), was published from 1949 to 1998 and had many obituaries. It was daily until April 1982, when it began weekly publication. It may be found in the library of the Ben Zvi Institute (12 Abravanel Street, P.O.B. 7660, Jerusalem 9107601, Israel; telephone 972-2-5398888; website http://www.ybz.org.il/?CategoryID=278) and in the Jewish National and University Library (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram, P.O.B. 39105, Jerusalem, Israel 91390; telephone 972-2-6585027; website http:/www.nli.org.il/en), both in Jerusalem.
To learn about other records, see the sources listed below or write to the Bulgarian Central Archives (1000 Sofia, 5 Moskovska Str., Bulgaria; telephone 359-2-9400101, 94000120 or 94000176; website http://www.archives.government.bg/index.php?lang=en&page=11). The Bulgarian Central Archives itself has only a few records, however. Most of the genealogical sources are still in local archives or in the institutions that created the records.
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