How the registry works · Global Heritage Registry

Our story

From a card index in Berlin to a register spanning 27 jurisdictions

In the winter of 1968, a small group of archivists, surveyors and collectors met in a back room in Berlin with a shared worry. Objects that had survived wars, migrations and the end of empires were changing hands every year — inherited, sold, gifted, lent — and with each move a little of their story was lost. A theodolite might outlive three owners and arrive at a fourth with no one able to say where it had been.

Their answer was simple and stubborn: write it down, and keep writing it down. The first register was a wooden cabinet of index cards. Each card described one object — its maker, its marks, its measurements — and recorded every custodian who had held it, together with the evidence of how it passed from one to the next. Gaps were left as gaps. Nothing was filled in by guesswork.

Word spread through the people who care for such things: families who had inherited instruments and clocks, mission and estate archives, survey offices, small museums. Many of the objects that came to the register had travelled far from where they were made, and in 1974 the founders opened the first register outside Europe, in Kenya, followed by Tanzania and Uganda. They learned early that an object belongs to a place as much as to a person, and that each country’s own law of succession had to be respected rather than overridden.

For three decades the work was done by hand and by post. Reviewers travelled to see objects for themselves, measuring, photographing and comparing serial numbers against makers’ records. In the 1990s the card index — by then filling several rooms — was transferred line by line into a database, without discarding a single original card.

Today the registry is online, but its purpose has not changed since 1968. We still record custody rather than claim ownership, we still mark plainly what is verified and what is not, and we still keep the history of every object in one continuous record, so that the next custodian receives not only the object, but its story.

1968
Founded in Berlin
A card-index register of significant historical objects and their custodians, kept by a small group of archivists, surveyors and collectors.
1974
First register beyond Europe
Registers open in Kenya, then Tanzania and Uganda, each following its own law of succession.
1986
Physical inspections
A standing inspection programme lets reviewers confirm objects in person before facts are marked verified.
1997
From cards to database
The card index is transferred to a database; every original card is kept in the archive.
2009
Succession formalised
A single process for recording inheritance, sale, gift, institutional transfer and court orders.
Today
An online register
27 jurisdictions, run from our head office in Berlin, with applications, evidence and decisions handled online.

Registration

Step 1
Identification
Name, category, maker, model and serial number. The serial number is the strongest single identifier for manufactured objects; it is how the registry detects duplicates and stolen items.
Step 2
Physical measurements
Height, width, depth and weight, with how they were taken. Measurements let an inspector confirm that the object presented is the object registered.
Step 3
Photographic evidence
At least one overall view and, where one exists, the maker’s plate or serial number.
Step 4
Provenance and acquisition
What is known of the object’s history, and how the current custodian came to hold it. “Unknown” is an acceptable answer.
Step 5–6
Applicant details, review and submission
The applicant confirms the details. A reviewer in the jurisdiction then checks the evidence and may request more information or a physical inspection. Standard decisions are made within 28 days.

Succession

When custody of a registered item passes to someone else, the new custodian — or the outgoing one, or a representative — applies for succession. The evidence required depends on the reason:

Reason	When it applies	Principal evidence
Inheritance	The current custodian has died and the item passes under a will or the law of succession.	Grant of probate or letters of administration; Will or testamentary document
Sale	The item has been, or will be, sold to the proposed custodian.	Invoice, receipt or bill of sale
Gift	The current custodian is giving the item during their lifetime.	Deed of gift or transfer
Institutional transfer	Between museums, archives, trusts, universities or companies.	Board or trustee resolution
Court order	A court has determined who should hold the item.	Court order

Reading a record

Every fact carries a mark showing how it is known. Marks differ in shape as well as colour, so they remain distinguishable in print and for colour-blind readers.

VerifiedConfirmed by a registry reviewer against original evidence or physical inspection.
Applicant-submittedProvided by the applicant; not yet independently confirmed.
EstimateAn informed estimate, for example a period inferred from style or construction.
Unverified claimA historical claim that could not be confirmed from the evidence available.
DisputedContested by another party. Under investigation.

Legal status

What a registration means

Custody, not title: A registration records who holds an object and the evidence they gave. It does not by itself establish ownership.
Independent: Global Heritage Registry GmbH, Berlin, is not a government agency. Statutory heritage bodies and courts prevail over its records.
Corrections: Anyone may report an error or dispute a record. Disputed records are marked publicly and transfers are paused.
Privacy: Private custodians’ names and precise locations are never published without consent.

Jurisdictions

You are in the United Arab Emirates register. Each jurisdiction keeps its own register and follows its own law of succession. All registers are run by one team at our head office in Berlin, Germany; we do not have offices in the individual countries. Pilot jurisdictions accept applications with a smaller reviewer team, so decisions may take longer.