Gone are the days when trying to search through marriage records involved having to hire a lawyer and argue your case in court. Today, these are all public records and can be searched by anyone and everyone!
Quite frankly, marriage records have been public for quite some time but they’ve just conventionally been extremely hard to get hold of. In the past you’d have to actually head over to the specific county where the marriage was supposed to be held in order to get hold of the record.
Nowadays that pretty much all records from 1927 onwards have been computerized, these marriage records are generally available in a central database. It is worth noting however that marriage records are still state records and not federal records – so you’re going to have to check with the individual states.
Knowing that marriage records are now public is all well and good – but what does that really mean?
Quite frankly you’ll find that it means different things in different states. In some states you can access marriage records for free and don’t even have to fork out a single dime in order to do so. However the results of carrying out these ‘free’ searches are often a lot of raw data that needs to be processed before it is useful in any way.
That is why even when free searches are available, many people resort to paid searches instead.
To access many marriage records you’ll find that you have to pay an upfront fee for the search that is non-refundable. What this mean is that even if the search turns up empty you’re going to lose that fee!
Also, no matter how you slice and dice it you’re going to have to provide a lot of specific information in order to facilitate the search in the first place. For example, you may need to provide the full names of the couple, the bride’s maiden name, the date of the marriage and possibly even the location.
Different search procedures differ from state to state – which is why instead of doing it yourself you may find that it is worth hiring a background check service to do the task for you. With their experience in handling marriage records, you should have little problem finding the information that you need.
All things said and done, marriage records being public offers a great opportunity for you to check up on them even if just to relive the memories of the day itself. Of course, there are other reasons why you might want to check marriage records as well – and if so, you’ll find that it really isn’t all that tough!
